"Hot cockles" was a popular game at Christmas in medieval times. It was a game in which the other players took turns striking the blindfolded player, who had to guess the name of the person delivering each blow. "Hot cockles" was still a Christmas pastime until the Victorian era.

As a mercenary commander he began building larger units of men, aiming for greater territorial ambitions. By the time he was in his forties he finally succeeded, becoming king of Aquilonia, the most powerful kingdom of the age, having strangled the previous ruler on the steps of the throne.

Antarctica is 98 percent ice, 2 percent barren rock. The average thickness of the ice sheet is 7,200 feet; this amounts to 90 percent of all the ice and 70 percent of all the fresh water in the world. If the ice cap were to melt, the sea level would rise by an average of 230 feet.

Mary Todd Lincoln was so disliked in her day that she was nicknamed "The She-Wolf."

Spinach is native to the area of Iran, but didn't spread to other parts of the world until the beginning of the Christian era.

Since its earliest times, alchemy has been closely connected to astrology - which, in the Islamic world and Europe, generally meant the traditional Babylonian-Greek school of astrology. Alchemical systems often postulated that each of the seven planets known to the ancients "ruled" or was associated with a certain metal. See the separate article...Read more

According to the federal Trade Commission, there are 20,000 television commercials made each year that are aimed exclusively at children. Of these, 7,000 are for sugared breakfast cereals.

The Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, California is built to resemble a stack of records. A red airplane-warning light atop the structure flashes out the word "Hollywood" in Morse code every 20 seconds or so.

The average medium size piano has about 230 strings, each string having about 165 pounds of tension, with the combined pull of all strings equaling approximately 18 tons.

The Sears Tower contains enough phone wire to wrap around the earth 1.75 times and enough electrical wiring to run a power line from Chicago to Los Angeles.

The state with the most automobile miles driven per capita is Delaware, racking up an average of 10,165 miles average annually per person.

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

More turkeys are raised in California than in any other state in the United States.

The female pigeon cannot lay eggs if she is alone. In order for her ovaries to function, she must be able to see another pigeon. If no other pigeon is available, her own reflection in a mirror will suffice.

A squirrel has no color vision, it sees only in black and white. Every part of its field of vision, however, is in perfect focus, not just straight ahead, as with humans.

A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime.

The Romans were enamored with the smell of roses. According to historians, Nero had pipes installed under banquet plates to allow his guests to be spritzed with rose scent between dinner courses.

In 1990, American tennis pro John McEnroe, often called "The Brat" because of his infantile, volatile on-court behavior, became the first player in 27 years to be disqualified from a Grand Slam tournament for misconduct. His repeated bad manners led to his being booted from the Australian Open.

In 1984, Britons ate 41 pounds of beef per person per year, according to the Meat & Livestock Commission. By 1994, the figure dropped to 35 pounds. In March 1996, "Mad Cow Disease" in Britain lowered the consumption figure even more, although many Britons continued to eat roast beef despite the

The Medal of Honor is the only service decoration that is singled out in federal law to protect it from being imitated or privately sold. All Medals of Honor are issued in the original only, by the Department of Defense, to a recipient. Misuse of the medal, including unauthorized manufacture or wear, is punishable by fine and imprisonment ...Read more