The breed of the Thoroughbred horse is only about 300 years old, although horse racing has been popular in England since Roman times, and can be traced back to Central Asia among prehistoric nomads.

Because wool has outstanding elastic recovery, 150 yards of wool yarn are used in an official baseball.

Giraffes are the only animals born with horns. Both males and females are born with bony knobs on the forehead.

Lassie is the favorite movie dog of animal experts, beating out Benji and Beethoven, according to a survey of Humane Society directors conducted by stuffed animal manufacturer Dakin, Inc.

The Scream is a seminal expressionist painting by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. Regarded by many as his most important work, it is said by some to symbolize modern man taken by an attack of existential angst, with the skyline inspired by the red twilights seen after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The Norwegian word skrik is usually translated ...Read more

Moses Malone became the first player to go from high school straight into pro basketball in 1974. The move made him the highest salaried teenage athlete in the United States at that time. Malone was signed by the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association.

George Harrison, with "My Sweet Lord," was the first Beatle to have a Number 1 hit single following the group's breakup.

There is an entire opera written about the Mona Lisa by Mac von Schillings.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton, English art writer and landscape painter, noted, "If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering, outspoken, honest fellow -- but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much."

Abe Silverstein, who headed NASA's Space Flight Development Program, proposed the name Apollo for the space exploration programs in the 1960s. He chose that legendary Greek name because the virile Apollo was a god who rode through the skies in a magnificent golden chariot. The precedent of naming manned spacecraft for mythological gods had been ...Read more

The star Antares is 60,000 times larger than our Sun. If our Sun were the size of a softball, the star Antares would be as large as a house.

The world's tallest grass, which has sometimes grown 130 feet or more, is bamboo.

By U.S. customs, perhaps so! In the country of Tibet, it's good manners to stick out your tongue at your guests.

Dead sponges can resist bacterial decay for more than five years when submerged in fresh water.

Following his breakup with the Beatles in 1971, Paul McCartney formed his group Wings. The group was nameless until McCartney, awaiting the birth of his daughter Stella about a month later, prayed for her health. He came up with the group's name on the "wings of an angel."

Redwood trees sometimes grow to heights of 350 feet and produce bark that is more than a foot thick. Yet they spring from a seed that is only sixteenth of an inch long.

Argentineans eat more meat than any other nation in the world — an average of 10 ounces per person per day.

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.

Prior to migration a goose will consume the equivalent of up to 25 percent of its body weight per day, accumulating large amounts of fat. During the migration, geese may cover up to 600 miles per day. At the end of the migration, they often weigh less than before they started fattening up in

Newton estimated correctly that the Earth had a mass of 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons and a density of about five-and-a-half times that of water. The fact wasn't demonstrated until one century after his estimate.