John Adams, credited by Thomas Jefferson as the unofficial, tireless whip of the independence-minded, wrote his wife Abigail on July 3, "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding

Halley's comet, one of the most famous ever known, returns to Earth every 76 years, and has been observed and recorded for more than 3,000 years.

When Princess Maria Theresa of Spain was betrothed to Louis XIV of France in 1615, she gave her fiancé an engagement gift of chocolate, packaged in an elegantly ornate chest. Their marriage was symbolic of the marriage of chocolate in the Spanish-Franco culture.

Before he catapulted to fame, Bob Dylan was paid $50 in 1960 for playing the harmonica on a Harry Belafonte album.

Praying mantids are one of the few insects that can turn their heads. They have excellent vision, and hunt insects (and sometimes small vertebrates) by stealth and a rapid striking attack. No mantis is poisonous.

There are more than 7,000 varieties of apples grown in the world. The apples from one tree can fill 20 boxes every year. Each box weighs an average 42 pounds.

Hale's 100 inch lens built in the early 1900s was the largest solid piece of glass made until then. The lens was made by a French specialist who poured the equivalent of ten thousand melted champagne bottles into a mold packed with heat maintaining manure so that the glass would cool slowly and

The white elephant is the sacred animal of Thailand.

Following the second flag raising, Rosenthal had the Marines of Easy Company pose for a group shot, which he called the "gung-ho" shot. A few days later he was asked if he had posed the photo. Thinking the questioner was referring to the 'gung-ho' picture, he replied "Sure." As a result of this , Rosenthal has repeatedly been accused of having ...Read more

The name "Mary Jane" is not only used for little girls; it’s also a kind of sugar candy and a style of shoe, as well as a nickname for marijuana.

The bouillon cube was once a common snack food in early America. Beef or veal stock was boiled down until it reached a hard jelly texture. The hard cakes didn't spoil, and trappers and hunters nibbled on them when tramping along on long journeys during the 1700s.

Bill Gates formed a company to sell a computerized traffic counting system to cities, which made $20,000 its first year. Business dropped sharply when customers learned Gates was only 14 years old.

Dolphins swim in circles while they sleep with the eye on the outside of the circle open to keep watch for predators. After a certain amount of time, they reverse and swim in the opposite direction with the opposite eye open.

There are more than 15,000 different varieties of rice.

Coined about 1930, the popular Greek dish moussaka consists of layers of seasoned ground lamb and eggplant, and is usually topped with a custard or cheese sauce and baked.

Not always -- Several female mules have produced offspring when mated to a purebred horse or ass. Since 1527 there have been more than 60 documented cases of foals born to female mules around the world. Mules and hinnies have 63 chromosomes that are a mixture of one from each parent. The different structure and number usually prevents the ...Read more

On a clear day with blue skies, lightning can jump outside of its parent cloud and travel for more than five miles through clear air. This is called the "bolt from the blue" phenomenon. The study of lightning is called keraunopathology.

The bumblebee does not die when it stings – it can sting again and again. In bumblebee hives, the entire colony, except for the queen, dies at the end of each summer. Each year, an entirely new colony of bees must be produced.

A vamp is the upper front top of a shoe.

Based on research with the human body's internal clock, the period between the hours of 4 and 6 in the afternoon is when people are the most irritable. Evidence has shown that more human bites are treated in hospitals at this time of the day than any other.