When Orville and Wilbur Wright were children, their father brought them a rubber-band-powered flying toy called a "bat." The brothers credited this toy with getting them interested in flight.

Scientists at Oxford University's Imperial Cancer Research Fund found that people who eat fresh fruit daily had 24 percent fewer heart attacks and 32 percent fewer strokes.

An organization called SCROOGE was formed in 1979 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The acronym stands for the "Society to Curtail Ridiculous, Outrageous and Ostentatious Gift Exchanges."

The jellyfish known as a Portuguese man-of-war is actually not a single animal. Rather, it's a colony of animals--made up of several hundred individuals of the same species. The members of the colony are adapted to perform different functions. One animal may form a float, while others provide the tentacles for fishing, and yet others digest the ...Read more

The average male adult can bench-press 88 percent of his body weight, having 70 to 80 pounds of muscle.

One billion cans of Spam had been sold by 1959. The two billion mark was hit in 1970, followed by three billion in 1980, four billion in 1986, and five billion cans in 1993.

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

Per "Longevity" magazine, a number of plastic surgeons now require their prospective patients to undergo a series of psychological tests to determine if they will become emotionally unstable, excessively anxious, or threatening to the doctor following their cosmetic surgery.

Muppets creator Jim Henson first created Kermit in 1955 -- as a lizard. He was made from Henson's mother's coat and two halfs of a Ping-Pong ball (no flipper feet or eleven-point collar). He didn't become a frog until 1968.

The rare metal gallium melts at 86 degrees Fahrenheit. It is safe to touch; if you hold a piece of it in your hand and wait, it will melt.

The average life span of London residents in the middle of the 19th century was 27 years. For members of the working class, that number dropped to 22 years.

The temperature of Earth increases about 36 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) for every kilometer (about 0.62 miles) you go down. Near the center, its thought to be at least 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit (3,870 Celsius).

Television's Mr. Ed was played by a horse named Bamboo Harvester. The voice was supplied by Allan Lane.

In the history of the solar system, 30 billion comets have been lost or destroyed. That amounts to only 30 percent of the estimated number that remain.

A prolific and imaginative writer, Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote 26 Tarzan books without ever visiting Africa.

Mexico banned imported films that depicted Mexicans as villains in 1926. The ban was ignored by Hollywood, but the effect on exports south of the border was sufficiently serious for the Hays Office to order no more Mexican heavies in 1930. Film censors let it be understood that it would be quite acceptable for the stock foreign undesirable to be...Read more

The coffee filter was invented by Melitta Bentz, in Germany in 1908. She pierced holes in a tin container, put a circular piece of absorbent paper in the bottom of it and put her creation over a coffee pot.

In England a quarter penny was originally known as a fourthing - when coins were cut into pieces to make change - farthing is a corruption of fourthing.

Although it is now a traditional part of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Moravian, Presbyterian and Methodist traditions, Advent didn't become routine until the fourth century A.D., when the Roman Emperor Constantine designated Dec. 25 as the official birthday of Christ.

Nobody knows where the body of Voltaire is. It was stolen from its tomb in the 19th century and has never been recovered. The theft was discovered in 1864, when the tomb was opened and found empty.