For many years, the globe on the "NBC Nightly News" spun in the wrong direction. On January 2, 1984, NBC finally set the world spinning back in the proper direction.

Unrelated to the chicken, the male cock-of-the-rock bird earned the name "cock" because of its rooster-like appearance and combative behavior. The female of the species influenced the word "rock" being added to the name because of her habit of nesting and rearing the young in sheltered rock

The unusual physical appearance of Tintin was apparently inspired, at least in part, by Herge's youngest brother Paul Remi, a career soldier. Herge later became estranged from his brother and depicted him as the villainous Colonel Sponsz in The Calculus Affair. Tintin and Sponsz, although physically very different, have quite similar hair...Read more

The Boston University Bridge (on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts) is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a train driving under a car driving under an airplane.

The Eiffel Tower is painted approximately once every 7 years and requires nearly 50 tons of paint each time. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Paris, visited by more than six million people per year.

In this article we're going to discuss some of the most famous patents in history. These are inventions that greatly changed the world we live in.

To go over all the patents that have changed the world would take a month of Sundays and then some. What follows is just a brief look at some of the greatest patents in our history.

What is ...Read more

Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine are the four states in the U.S. that do not allow billboards.

2012 is expected to be year of great positive change. Back in 1899 something was identified called Schumann Cavity Resonance, aka "the heart beat (or frequency) of the Earth." Since its discovery thru 1986 this frequency was a constant 7.8 Hertz per second. From 1986 it started to rise dramatically and in 1998 it was reported to be 10 hertz per ...Read more

Native Hawaiians call a newcomer to Hawaii a "malihini".

Dachshunds are the smallest breed of dog used for hunting. They are low to the ground, which allows them to enter and maneuver through tunnels easily.

When sailors speak of sheets (as in "four sheets to the wind"), they are not talking about sails. A sheet in nautical terminology is a rope or chain.

Lightning has hit the Empire State Building in New York as frequently as 12 times in 20 minutes. The building is hit by lightning about 500 times a year.

Floor cleaning products in Venezuela have ten times the pine fragrance of U.S. floor cleaners. Venezuelan women won't buy a weaker fragrance. These fastidious homemakers may wet-mop their tile floors twice a day, leaving windows and doors open so the scent can waft out to the street to send the

Australia's box jelly is the world's most dangerous jellyfish. Its toxin is more potent than cobra venom and can kill a person in minutes

The smallest visible sunspots have an area of 500 million square miles, about fifty times the size of Africa. The largest sunspots have an area of about 7,000 million square miles.

The squirrel monkey's brain accounts for roughly 5 percent of its body weight — the largest percentage of any other animal. The human brain, by comparison, makes up about 2.3 percent of body weight.

The United States was waging the Mexican War when gold was discovered in California. In fact, California was officially still Mexican territory at the time.

Perhaps not -- Cook's Illustrated conducted blind taste testings of vanillas, and the staff was surprised to find that, in baked goods, expensive, aromatic vanillas performed almost exactly the same as the cheaper brands of real vanilla. The differences virtually disappeared during cooking.

A pig is a hog -- but a hog is not a pig. "Hog" is a generic name for all swine. Per hog-raising terminology, a pig is a baby hog less than ten weeks old.

In Muddy, Illinois, the post office measures only 7½ by 10½ feet, about the size of a garden shed. If it wasn't for a sign hanging above the door stating, "U.S. Post Office, Muddy, IL., 62965," finding the tiny, wooden building could be difficult. It is believed to be one of the smallest post