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

The sun burns 9 million tons of gas a second. At this rate, it has been estimated it will burn out in another 10 billion years.

The average American uses eight times as much fuel energy as an average person anywhere else in the world.

After Orson Welles for Citizen Kane (1941), Warren Beatty was the next person to be nominated for four Oscars for one film: Heaven Can Wait (1978). Beatty received nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Writing. Unfortunately, he scored no Oscars for the film. Welles faired a bit better, winning one Academy Award out ...Read more

In the Thomas Nast cartoon that first depicted Santa Claus with a sleigh and reindeer, he was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the U.S. Civil War. The cartoon, entitled "Santa Claus in Camp," appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 3, 1863.

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

When the Krampus finds a particularly naughty child, it stuffs the child in its sack and carries the frightened thing away to its lair, presumably to devour for its Christmas dinner.

Da Vinci took his time with the painting. According to legend, he spent four years on the portrait of Francesco del Giocondo's third wife, Lisa Gherardini, and still wasn't done. Supposedly, Giocondo was so sick of waiting (or, according to some, didn't like the painting) that he refused to pay for the work and da Vinci sold it to the king of ...Read more

A cat's arching back is part of a complex body language system, usually associated with feeling threatened. The arch is able to get so high because the cat's spine contains nearly 60 vertebrae which fit loosely together. Humans have only 34 vertebrae.

Members of all branches of the U.S. military are eligible to receive the medal, and each service has a unique design (although the Marine Corps uses the Navy's medal and the Coast Guard's design has never been awarded). The Medal of Honor is often presented personally to the recipient or, in the case of posthumous awards, to survivors, by the ...Read more

Popcorn purchases went into a slump during the early 1950s, when television became popular. Attendance at movie theaters dropped and, with it, popcorn consumption. When the public eventually began eating popcorn at home, the new relationship between television and popcorn led to a popularity

Nobel Prizes are awarded in five categories: The first three of these prizes are for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for the most remarkable literary work "in an ideal direction" and the fifth is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of ...Read more

"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.