Roughly 23 percent of American children say their greatest wish for their parents is that they would make more money. Only 11 percent say they wish their parents would "spend more time with me."

Glass is often described as an amorphous solid because it appears to be solid but lacks crystalline structure.

President George Washington wore dentures that were carved from ivory. The upper...read more

Kittenball was the name chosen by the Farragut Boat Club of Chicago in 1887 for a game that club members developed as a friendly version of baseball. The game officially became known as softball in 1926

Roughly 1 in 3 American high school students owns a promotional item from a cigarette company.

The painting known as "Whistler's Mother" is indeed a portrayal of the mother of James...read more

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw had this to say about cynics: "Do you know what a pessimist is? A man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself and hates them for it."

When the swallows return to Capistrano each year, they are usually outnumbered by tourists who have come to watch them.

Although a Russian cosmonaut was the first man in space, many have said that feat failed to...read more

Mescal, better known as the alcoholic drink tequila, contains an agave worm at the bottom of the bottle when made in the traditional way. The worm, which is actually a butterfly larva, is found on the plant from which mescal is made. Traditionalists claim that the worm adds to the drink's flavor and color. But that's not all. It's also believed to bring good luck to the drinker

In the...read more

The dunce cap originated with John Duns Scotus, a 13th-century philosopher who believed that large, conical hats aided brainpower by funneling knowledge to the wearer

The number of U.S. students killed in or near schools was cut in half from 1992 to 1998.

The first brothels in Europe, sanctioned by the leader Solon in Athens about 600 B.C., were operated as nonprofits, charging men only 1 cent...read more

History's first personal ad ran in the July 19, 1695, issue of "Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade." It read as follows: "A Gentleman about 30 Years of Age, that says he has a Very Good Estate, would willingly Match Himself to some young Gentlewoman that has a fortune of 3,000 pounds or thereabouts, And he will make Settlement to Content."

Traditional education...read more

In the United States, Canada and Greece, almost half of all killings occur between friends. Most often, the offender and victim are both male and have been drinking

A series of recent studies found that adults and children have different expectations for public high schools. For instance, 33 percent of professors of college freshmen and sophomores believed a diploma from a public high school guarantees...read more

The New Orleans Saints may be the only NFL team to have hired a voodoo priestess. The Superdome stadium had been built on the site of the old Girod Street Cemetery, and the team's consecutive miserable seasons called for desperate measures. Ava Kay Jones performed a pregame ritual, making offerings to the spirits with a boa constrictor wrapped around her neck. The Saints won the game, the team's...read more

Andre-Jacques Garnerin made history with the world's first parachute descent in 1797. But he also made a mess. As Garnerin floated down from a hot air balloon, his parachute oscillated so wildly that Garnerin suffered from motion sickness and vomited on the cheering crowd below

America's first First Lady also became the first woman to be commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp. But not until...read more

Most people know that Thomas Edison supplied the first electric chair to be used as an instrument of capital punishment. But who was its first victim? Convicted axe-murderer William Kemmler was executed by electrocution on August 6, 1890, at Auburn State Prison in New York. Because of technical difficulties, the procedure had to be repeated in order to kill Kemmler, a process which took 8 minutes

First...read more

The famous Woodstock concert didn't take place in Woodstock, New York. Instead, the three-day festival, held in 1969, was hosted more than 45 miles southwest of Woodstock on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. So why was it called Woodstock? The concert was organized by Woodstock Ventures, a name that came from the event's originally-planned site

The modern marathon found its start...read more

The aromatic essence must account for 15 to 30 percent of the total mix in order for a scent to be called perfume. In eau de parfum, the scent itself accounts for 8 to 15 percent. Eau de toilette contains 4 to 8 percent aromatic essence, and eau de cologne (often just called cologne) contains 3 to 5 percent. That's why the fragrance in women's perfume may last for up to six hours while the...read more

Cleopatra may have been Egypt's queen, but she wasn't Egyptian. Instead, the eldest daughter of Ptolemy XIII was part Macedonian, part Greek and part Iranian

In the late 1800s, big league baseball pitchers were better than they are today. At least that's what the statistics say. In the 1885 season, for instance, Hugh Daily, a one-armed pitcher for Boston, stacked up 483 strikeouts. But...read more

In 394 A.D., Rome's Emperor Theodosius brought an end to the Olympics. He declared that the games had become too commercialized and as a result, corrupt

Clarence Birdseye got his idea for the world's first commercially-frozen food products while on U.S. government surveys of fish and wildlife in Labrador in 1912 and 1915. Birdseye wrote that he "saw natives catching fish in fifty below...read more

In a 1995 Snack Food Association poll, 37 percent of Americans identified Abraham Lincoln as the president who "best personified pretzel logs," and 25 percent of Americans picked Ronald Reagan as the president "who best personified cool ranch tortilla chips."

Lord Stanley, the Canadian governor-general, donated the Stanley Cup, the oldest trophy in professional sports. But Stanley...read more

The Stanley Cup, professional hockey's highest honor, has only been stolen once. A Montreal Canadiens fan couldn't stand to see the cup in Chicago Stadium, so he swiped the trophy with hopes of taking it back to its proper home in Canada

The move of businesses away from city centers and into the suburbs started in 1928 in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. That's because the town was the site of...read more

Some have claimed that the Inuit language has at least 40 words for snow. Here are just a few: aniugaviniq (hard, frozen snow), apigiannagaut (the first snowfall of the fall), katakartanaq (snow with a crust that gives way under the feet), kinirtaq (compact, damp snow), mannguq (melting snow), masak (wet, falling snow) and matsaaq (half-melted snow)

Until the election of President George W. Bush...read more

Anne, the eldest daughter of England's Queen Elizabeth II was the first British princess to become an Olympic contestant. She entered equestrian events in the Montreal games of 1976. She was also the first Olympic competitor to have the chromosome test (to prove gender) waived

A recent study found that only about 2 percent of Americans believe that U.S. senators have "very high ethical standards...read more

Great Britain became the United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, when England, Scotland and Wales were united by the Act of Union. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed in 1801, and in 1945, the country changed its name once again to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Of all Americans of English ancestry, about 28 percent are college graduates. Americans...read more

Since 1977, at least 234 state and federal court opinions have included a reference to Elvis Presley

In a study at Aston University in Birmingham, researcher Robert Matthews had more than 1,000 children drop a total of 9,821 buttered slices of toast. The toast landed butter side down a total of 6,101 times, disproving Sod's Law, which states that if a piece of toast falls on the floor, it always...read more

Contrary to popular belief, Marco Polo couldn't have brought pasta to Italy from China. Why not? Probably, experts say, because Italy already had pasta. In fact, Marco Polo wrote in his journal that the people of China ate vermicelli and lasagna noodles, indicating that Italians had plenty of experience with pastas

Istanbul was once Constantinople, but that wasn't its original name. The largest...read more

Frederic Chopin often claimed that his composition "Waltz No. 3 in F" was inspired by a cat that walked across his piano

The state of Illinois is both east and west of the Mississippi River. That's because a flood in 1881 rerouted the river, leaving a portion of Illinois' Randolph County west of the Mississippi.

A 1996 study found that every $1 million spent on high school graduation...read more

One of the world's best-known tunes is Britain's anthem "God Save the Queen." That's because the same melody is used for patriotic songs in Germany, Russia, Sweden, Lichtenstein and the U.S

Poets who have died by drowning include the following: Percy Bysshe Shelley died in a mysterious boating accident, Hart Crane leapt from the deck of a cruise ship, and 8th-century Chinese...read more

The Mayans had a civil calendar or Haab that used 18 months of 20 days with a 5-day period at the end of each year, called Uayeb. The South American culture also had a divinatory calendar or Tzolkin, which had days numbered 1 to 13 and also named days in a cycle of 20 names. The sequence started over every 260 days and synchronized with the Haab every 52 Haab years, a time at which the Mayans believed...read more

German immigrants to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, brought with them to America an old tradition in which badgers predict the weather. As it turns out, however, in Punxsutawney, groundhogs are easier to find

First Lady Caroline Harrison (1832-1892) occupied herself while living in the White House by producing souvenir china for tourists. She even designed a line of china for the Harrison administration...read more

When Caroline Harrison died, her husband, President Benjamin Harrison, married her niece, Mary. His children were less than pleased

Because of pollution controls on automobiles, the average lawnmower pollutes as much in an hour as a car does in 350 miles of travel.

Experts estimate that roughly 10 meteorites the size of a tennis ball hit the Earth's surface each week.

Researchers found that...read more

Veterinarians in Moscow, Russia, report that 3 out ever 100 of the city's pets are addicted to some form of hard liquor. In fact, a 2003 study found that the deaths of 15 of the city's dogs were the result of owners offering their pets sips of vodka

When Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to lunch at the White House, First Lady Edith Roosevelt probably didn't approve. The...read more

Rats can tread water for up to three days, survive without water for longer than can a camel and have an 80 percent survival rate when dropped from a height of 50 feet

A lifelong Republican, Edith Roosevelt, who hated making public statements, broke her ban on public speaking in order to speak out against her cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and in support of his opponent, Herbert Hoover.

Roughly...read more

Experts confirm that men sweat almost twice as much as do women

Florence Kling Harding hadn't intended to let her husband, Warren, run for president. But a soothsayer changed her mind. Madame Marcia, already known for telling Edith Wilson that she would become first lady, predicted the same for Florence. In response, the future first lady decided to let her husband try for the nation's highest...read more

University College in Cardiff, Wales, found in a study that rats prefer Mozart to rock music. Another study at Cambridge University found that 87.5 percent of rats prefer cheese to a Mars bar

Because of its location relative to the state of Virginia, West Virginia probably should have been called Northwest Virginia.

The first natural-born citizen to be elected president of the United States was...read more

The United States may have been the first nation to land a man on the moon, but the Soviet Union got there first. Luna 2 crash-landed on the moon in 1959, and in February 1966, the Soviet Union soft-landed Luna 9. America's answer, Surveyor 1, soft-landed on the moon in June of that same year

Gladys Gooding may be the only woman in history to have played for both the New York Rangers (hockey)...read more