The Tarantula nebula is thought to contain a huge star of over 1,000 times the mass of the Sun, ten times more massive than any star in the Milky Way.

James Ramsey invented a steam-driven motorboat in 1784. He ran it on the Potomac River, and the event was witnessed by George Washington.

The children's game Rock, Scissors, Paper is popular in Japan also. Called "Janken", the game is also played by some children using their feet. Closed feet equal stone (gu). Spread legs equal paper (pa). One foot behind the other equals scissors (choki).

The town of Tororo in Uganda had thunder on a average of 251 days each year during the period 1967-1976, the highest number on record.

RKO stands for Radio-Keith-Orpheum, formed by the merger of RCA and the Keith-Orpheum theater chain in 1921.

Electrical nerve stimulation may help reduce chronic pain in cancer patients, especially those whose cancer has spread to the bones, say researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Some cancers that spread to bones produce severe chronic pain that is unresponsive

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

The French philosopher Voltaire owned eighty canes. His contemporary, Jean Jacques Rousseau, owned forty.

The chicken can travel up to 9 miles per hour.

Bull giraffes forage higher in trees than cow giraffes which reduces food competition between the sexes. Long-legged giraffes walk with the limbs on one side of the body lifted at the same time. This gait is called a pace and allows a longer stride which saves steps and energy.

Christmas presents were known in antiquity among kings and chieftains, especially on the European continent. However, they have been common among ordinary people in Iceland only during the past 100 or so years.

The story of the Child Jesus born in a manger is fascinating to the little girls of Japan, for they love anything having to do with babies. In the scene of the Nativity they become familiar for the first time with a cradle, for Japanese babies never sleep in cradles.

Not exactly -- Initial results with tanks were mixed, with problems in reliability (and impatient high command) causing considerable attrition in combat. Deployment in small groups also lessened their tactical value and impact, which was still formidable during first encounters. German forces suffered from shock and lacked counter-weapons, ...Read more

Oscar-winning director James Cameron (Titanic) was a risk-taker even when a boy. He organized his playmates in building a functional catapult that threw boulders large enough to make impact craters. He and his buddies also created a miniature diving vessel to send mice to the bottom of the

The basilica was Pompeii's largest building and was used for legal and commercial business. In the fourth century, this style of building was adopted by the newly legal Christian religion. It became the standard floor plan for the churches, or "basilicas," of medieval Europe.

If 80 percent of your liver were to be removed, the remaining part would continue to function. Within a few months, the liver would have reconstituted itself to its original size.

There are more than 700 species of plants that grow in the United States that have been identified as dangerous if eaten. Among them are some that are commonly favored by gardeners: buttercups, daffodils, lily of the valley, sweet peas, oleander, azalea, bleeding heart, delphinium, and

Traditionally young men dress up as the Krampus in Austria, southern Bavaria and South Tyrol during the first week of December, particularly on the evening of December 5th, and roam the streets frightening children with rusty chains and bells

Certain birds of prey (the African serpent eagle and the American kestrel, for example) have visual acuity 2.4 to 2.6 times greater than humans. They can see a 1 mm long insect from a treetop 18 meters above ground.