Among his many achievements, the astronomer Johannes Kepler chalked up one about man's inner world. It was Kepler who realized that man's visual apparatus is so constructed that it can produce only inverted images.

A beautiful mirage called the Fata Morgana appears in the Straits of Messina, between Sicily and Italy. It is an image of a town in the sky, but it seems more like a fairy landscape than a real town. It is believed to be a mirage of a fishing village situated along the coast.

Yes. Under the Julian calendar, February had 29 days and the other months alternated evenly between 30 and 31 days. Because July had 31 days, the month following it was supposed to have 30 days. But that was the month that Augustus had brought Egypt under control and entered the city in triumph, and he had to have it. He couldn't, of course, be ...Read more

After Helen Keller graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904, she began writing about blindness, a subject taboo in women's magazines because so many cases were related to venereal disease.

Songs with sexual or violent lyrics are not new. Cole Porter's sensual "Love for Sale" was a hit in 1930, but the tune was banned from radio for decades. Blues singers of the 1920s and R&B bands of the 1950s performed songs that were thick with the blatant double-entendre. Additionally, traditional ballads of Scotland, Ireland, and the American ...Read more

An oast is a kiln used for drying hops, malt, or tobacco.

A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tesellating pieces. Each piece has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture. Jigsaw puzzles were originally created by painting a picture on a flat, rectangular piece of wood, ...Read more

An adult human head weighs about 12 pounds (5.4kg), or the same as a light bowling ball.

The coffee filter was invented by Melitta Bentz, in Germany in 1908. She pierced holes in a tin container, put a circular piece of absorbent paper in the bottom of it and put her creation over a coffee pot.

A 1991 Gallup survey indicated that 49 percent of Americans didn't know that white bread is made from wheat.

Beethoven poured ice water over his head when he sat down to create music, believing it stimulated his brain.

According to a 1997 poll, the average person in the U.S. has felt compelled to see the movie Star Wars an astonishing 6.7 times since its 1977 release, either in theaters or on TV.

The erroneous publication in 1888 of a premature obituary of Nobel by a French newspaper, condemning his invention of dynamite, is said to have made him decide to leave a better legacy to the world after his death. The obituary stated Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead") and went on to say, "Dr. Alfred Nobel, who ...Read more

Nyctitropism is the tendency of the leaves or petals of certain plants to assume a different position at night.

The sun burns 9 million tons of gas a second. At this rate, it has been estimated it will burn out in another 10 billion years.

The average American uses eight times as much fuel energy as an average person anywhere else in the world.

After Orson Welles for Citizen Kane (1941), Warren Beatty was the next person to be nominated for four Oscars for one film: Heaven Can Wait (1978). Beatty received nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Writing. Unfortunately, he scored no Oscars for the film. Welles faired a bit better, winning one Academy Award out ...Read more

In the Thomas Nast cartoon that first depicted Santa Claus with a sleigh and reindeer, he was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the U.S. Civil War. The cartoon, entitled "Santa Claus in Camp," appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 3, 1863.

The Associated Press reported in December 1985, in Eugene, Oregon, a 6-month-old kitten set a Christmas tree on fire while batting at the lighted bulbs. The heat of the fire cracked a nearby fishbowl, and water from the bowl doused some of the fire. Firefighters arrived within minutes of the fire starting and put out the fire, which had spread ...Read more

When the Krampus finds a particularly naughty child, it stuffs the child in its sack and carries the frightened thing away to its lair, presumably to devour for its Christmas dinner.