After signing a major label deal with Elektra Records in 1984, Metallica released a new album entitled Master of Puppets on February 21, 1986. The album is regarded by many fans as their finest work and is considered by some to be the greatest heavy metal album of all time. Despite the fact that no singles were ever released for the album...Read more

In the city of Reykjavik, Iceland, one can see the stars eighteen hours a day during the heart of the winter. During the summer, sunlight is visible 24 hours a day.

Variations in color in pearls are still a mystery, but some experts believe that high water temperatures contribute a golden cast to some pearls.

Antarctica is the only continent without reptiles or snakes.

In A Little Book of The Green Man Mike Harding gives some examples of similar figures in Borneo, Nepal and India: the earliest is a foliate head from an 8th century Jain temple in Rajasthan. He also notes that heads from Lebanon and Iraq can be dated to the 2nd century and that there are early Romanesque foliate heads in 11th century ...Read more

Perhaps not for the casual player -- The longest recorded Monopoly game was 1,680 hours. That's over 70 days.

The world's fastest reptile (measured on land) is the spiny-tailed iguana of Costa Rica. It has been clocked at 21.7 miles per hour.

Specializing in showing only newsreels, the Embassy Theatre opened in New York City in November 1929. It proved to be popular for a time, and was the first theater of its kind.

Christmas trees are known to have been popular in Germany as far back as the sixteenth century. In England, they became popular after Queen Victoria's husband Albert, who came from Germany, made a tree part of the celebrations at Windsor Castle. In the United States, the earliest known mention of a Christmas tree is in the diary of a German who ...Read more

The symbols of Kwanzaa includes crops (mzao) which represents the historical roots of African-Americans in agriculture and also the reward for collective labor. The mat (mkeka) lays the foundation for self- actualization. The candle holder (kinara) reminds believers in the ancestral origins in one of 55 African countries. Corn/maize (muhindi) ...Read more

The bleakest places on Earth are the two poles: the South Pole has no sunshine for 182 days each year; the North Pole does slightly better - it has no sunlight for 176 days.

Cats have amazing hearing ability. A cat's ear has 30 muscles that control the outer ear (by comparison, human ears only have six muscles). These muscles rotate 180 degrees, so the cat can hear in all directions without moving its head.

The pronghorn antelope is the fastest mammal to be found in North America, and second only to the cheetah as the fastest mammal on the planet.

Eccentric actor and former teen heart-throb Johnny Depp purchased a lavish Hollywood Hills mansion in 1996 that once was owned by famed Dracula film portrayer, Bela Lugosi.

Cork was developed as a bottle closure in the late 17th century. It was only after this that bottles were lain down for aging, and the bottle shapes slowly changed from short and bulbous to tall and slender.

The star known as LP 327-186, a so-called white dwarf, is smaller than the state of Texas, yet so dense, that if a cubic inch of it were brought to Earth, it would weigh more than 1.5 million tons.

In recent years, young people have begun to use the term "preppy" as slang to describe those who appear clean-cut or strive to seem better off financially than others in a middle class environment. In most regions, especially amongst young people, this usage has virtually replaced the traditional

Pringles is known for the packaging (invented by Fred Baur), which consists of an upright tubular can with a foil interior, and a resealable plastic lid. The chips are made to a uniform size and saddle shape, so they stack very efficiently within the container, unlike other chips, which are packaged loosely in a bag (typically) or a box. This ...Read more

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

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