A little over one hundred years ago, cholera arrived in the United States for the first time. It was transmitted by an infection carried aboard the Hamburg-American Line's Moravia on August 30, 1892.

Major-league baseball clubs didn't start putting numbers on uniforms until the 1930s. As a result, Ty Cobb, who broke many batting and base-stealing records while playing with the Detroit Tigers (1905-1926), didn't have his uniform number retired. This was, simply, because Cobb never was issued a

Ideally, tripe is cooked for 12 hours. As it is difficult to digest, tripe shouldn't be eaten by those who are dyspeptic or goutish.

Medical experts are perturbed that TV medical dramas suggest that people who receive CPR usually recover; the truth is, only about 15 percent of victims survive after receiving CPR.

"Happy Birthday" was the first song to be performed in outer space, sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on March 8, 1969.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Ireland, where the climate is temperate oceanic, was 33.3ºC (91.9ºF) at Kilkenny Castle on 26 June 1887.

The world's first singing commercial aired on the radio on Christmas Eve, 1926 for Wheaties cereal. The four male singers, eventually known as the Wheaties Quartet, sang the jingle. The Wheaties Quartet, comprised of an undertaker, a bailiff, a printer, and a businessman, performed the song for the next six years, at $6 per singer per week. The ...Read more

In 1978, a poll showed that one French television program broadcast on August 14 was watched by no viewers at all. The show was an in-depth interview with an Armenian woman on her fortieth birthday. It covered how she met her husband, her illnesses, and her joy of living. According to the TV survey, 67 percent of viewers had watched a Napoleonic...Read more

Civil War General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson has two separate burial sites. His left arm, which was amputated after the battle of Chancellorsville, was buried on a nearby farm. A week later, Jackson died and was buried in Lexington, Virginia.

Sleeping Beauty's name was Princess Aurora. The prince who woke her with a kiss was Prince Philip.

Rattan palms found in the jungles of Southeast Asia have vinelike stems that trail along the jungle floor up to 250 feet in all directions.

In general, Italian brands of pasta are thicker than their American counterparts.

City squirrels will eat just about anything, and often, it's the junk food that people offer them that they prefer, like Cracker Jack peanuts. Many naturalists have concluded that a peanut diet is harmful to squirrels: it seems to result in a weakening of eyesight and a thinning of the animal's

There are an estimated 285,000 species of flowering plants on Earth compared to 148,000 for all other plants. Flowering plants are very important because they provide food for herbivores - plant-eating animals - and for humans.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, during an interview on NBC-TV's Meet the Press in June 1988, remarked, "There's nothing wrong with having a big ego. It's all right to have a Rolls Royce ego so long as you don't have a bicycle brain. If they coordinate, you can work it out pretty well."

During the mating season, male porcupines bristle their quills at each other and chatter their teeth in rage before attacking. All porcupines at this time become very vocal: grunting, whining, chattering, even barking and mewing at each other.

Small animals like bats and shrews consume up to one and one half times their body weight in food every day. For an adult male, this would be like eating 1,000 quarter-pound cheeseburgers a day, every day; or about 50 Thanksgiving dinners a day.

Rings have perpetuated the talismanic role of the diamond through the ages. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods, every ring that was set with a precious stone was not so much a piece of jewelry, but an amulet that conveyed the magical powers of the stone upon the wearer.

In Scotland, New Year's Eve is called hogmanay, and is an occasion when young people go about singing and seeking gifts.

People in Sweden, Japan, and Canada are more likely to know the population of the United States than are Americans.