RAND MCNALLY RELEASES FIRST ATLAS

In 1924, Rand McNally published its first road atlas, “The Rand McNally Auto Chum.”

It takes the planet Mercury 87.97 days to orbit the sun.

The National Geographic Society rarely removed its members in the organization’s early years. But the society made an exception in 1932, striking Al Capone’s name from the membership list when he entered federal prison. Capone continued to receive copies of “National Geographic” as a paying subscriber.

Ornithologists report that chickens are capable of deception. If a rooster, for instance, judges that a hen has wandered too far, he will use a food call to get her attention, even when no food is present.

Historians record that Napoleon Bonaparte was not a good rider, so he needed especially stable horses in battle. He owned 60 or more white horses. Each of them was trained to stand steady — not to rear or shy — when guns were fired from nearby.

Marion Donavan, inventor of the disposable diaper, also created the Turtling-a-ling. The brass turtle, with bells on its head and tail, simulated a doorbell. Donavan pitched the device as a means of cutting short an unwanted phone call by making it clear to the caller that other priorities demanded attention.

PORK PROVES POPULAR

More than 40 percent of all meat raised in the world is pork.

When Hernando Cortes began his conquest of Mexico, he rode a chestnut horse. But he soon replaced the mount with a black stallion named El Morzillo, meaning the Black One. When El Morzillo developed a limp, Cortes left him in the custody of a Mayan chief. The chief and his people renamed the horse Tziminchac, after the Mayan god of thunder and lightning, and housed the steed in their temple. When El Morzillo died, the Mayans carved a stone statue of him.

The first domestic refrigerator went on sale in Chicago in 1913. It was called the Domelre, which stands for domestic electric refrigerator.

Although CFCs have been banned in the United States, there are two exceptions to the rule: their use in asthma inhalers and in the making of methyl chloroform, which is used to clean O-ring seals in NASA’s space shuttles.

In 17th-century Constantinople (now Istanbul), tradition required that the groom provide his bride with coffee and promise always to do so. A failure to supply his wife with the enervating drink was legal grounds for divorce.

North Dakota is also known as the Peace Garden State.

AMERICANS HATE LAWYERS

Americans have long been hostile toward those who practice the legal profession. Colonists at Massachusetts Bay made it illegal in 1641 for a person to earn money, representing others in court. And in 1658, Virginia’s legislators passed a law, expelling all attorneys from the colony.

Elvis Presley announced to friends in 1973 that he was becoming a vegetarian. “I’ll be eating a lot of vegetables now, a lot of salads and raw fruits. I’m telling the maids, and that’s what they’re going to make for me,” he said. But the King was a big eater, and Larry Geller writes in his book “If I Can Dream: Elvis’ Own Story” that the diet lasted only two days.

Although mobile in flight, hummingbirds are virtually helpless on the ground. Their feet and legs are so small that in most cases, they cannot walk or even hop.

A Chinese checker board has 121 holes.

More than 3,000 people have been buried in England’s Westminster Abbey. Among them, Thomas Parr, who was widely held to be the world’s oldest man. But Parr, believed to have reached 152 years of age, may have made a math error. Some historians claim that Parr was confused, claiming his grandfather’s 1483 birthdate as his own.

MUSIC HALL SEES FIRST FILM

The first film to debut in New York’s Radio City Music Hall was Frank Capra’s “Bitter Tea of General Yen,” starring Barbara Stanwyck. The year was 1933.

The standard piano has 88 keys: 52 are white, and the remaining 36 are black. But that has not always been the case. Until the 1880s, Steinway’s grand pianos had no more than 85 keys. And the Boesendorfer Concert Grand has 94.

Social researchers note that American bars almost always have television sets but rarely if ever turn on the sound. In a recent study, at least one bartender claimed the TVs provide patrons “something to do with their eyes,” a kind of visual Muzak.

Pope John II, in A.D. 533, may have been the first pope to change his given name. The pope’s actual name, Mercurio, after the pagan god Mercury, wasn’t deemed suitable for the head of the Church.

After Parker Brothers bought the rights to Monopoly in 1934 the company introduced the board game with no tokens, instructing players to use buttons or pennies as markers. The first tokens, added in 1935, were modeled after chess pieces. And in 1937, brand new, die-cast tokens included a car, purse, flatiron, lantern, thimble, shoe, top hat and rocking horse.

TAIL GIVES KITE STABILITY

Some kites depend on a tail for stability. Experts say that for such kites, the tail should be approximately seven times the length of the kite’s spine.

When Levi Strauss arrived in San Francisco in 1853, the city had 399 saloons and 28 breweries. At least 1,200 residents were murdered that year out of a total population of about 70,000.

By 1860, one in eight Americans was foreign-born.

Many modern pearls are bleached to create a uniform color. But in Roman and Medieval Europe, owners are said to have fed their pearls to chickens to acquire the same effect. The fowl’s digestive system reportedly removed blemishes and improved color.

Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, is best known for her work with wounded soldiers in the Crimean war. She also established a nursing school at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London. But before she was famous, Nightingale’s very first patient, in 1837, was a sheepdog with a bruised leg. His name was Cap.

American colonists drank a lot of cider. In one village near Boston, 40 families made about 3,000 barrels of the alcoholic beverage or almost 100,000 gallons. P. Dudley wrote in his book, “Transactions,” that this was just enough cider to last the village for a year.

TWAIN TRIES HAND AT WRITING, SALES DISAPPOINTING

Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” was the first novel he wrote without the help of another author. Initial sales of the book were disappointing.

Ulf Merbold was the first foreigner to fly into orbit and back on an American spacecraft. He was from Germany.

Warren G. Harding was the first U.S. President, who knew how to drive a car when he entered the nation’s top office. For the sake of the President’s safety, however, the Secret Service did not allow Harding to drive while in office.

The Roman Emperor Caligula commissioned a number of royal yachts, each more than 200 feet long. The boats included reception chambers, exercise rooms, baths, a grape arbor, and in at least one case, a brothel.

When Alexander Graham Bell realized he had fallen in love with the young Mabel Hubbard, he wrote her a 17-page letter, expressing his feelings. But he did not ask her to marry him. She was too young. Mabel thought otherwise, and on her 18th birthday, she surprised Bell, telling him she had grown to love him more than anyone except for her mother. She added that they could be engaged as soon as he liked. The two were married 18 months later.

WRIGHT BROTHERS LIVED AT HOME

When the Wright brothers made their first flight, Wilbur was 36 and his brother, Orville, 32. Neither was married, and they still lived at home with their 74-year-old father, Milton, and 29-year-old sister, Katharine. Working as a high school teacher, Katharine also was unmarried.

While at sea, a navigator, standing on deck at five feet above sea level, has a view of 2.5 nautical miles in all directions. The curvature of the earth is such, however, that if that same navigator is elevated 15 feet above sea level, the horizon will be 4.44 miles away.

When growing up, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, inventor of the electromagnetic telegraph, didn’t go by his first name. His parents, Jedediah and Elizabeth, simply called their oldest child Finley.

The first microwave ovens, created by Percy LeBaron Spencer, stood 6 feet tall, weighed more than 770 pounds and cost about $5,000 each.

One of Spain’s national heroes, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar (a.k.a. El Cid), affectionately named his horse babieca, which means dumbbell or idiot. According to legend, when Bivar chose this scraggly colt, his father called him a babieca. Bivar applied the term to his horse, claiming that it would be a reminder of his father’s doubts.

CARDAMOM HARD TO FIND OUTSIDE OF MIDDLE EAST AND SCANDINAVIA

Some spices are closely identified with one particular region and one type of food within that region. For instance, cardamom is used to flavor coffee in Middle Eastern countries. And it is found in Scandinavian breads. But look for cardamom in other foods and other places, and you won’t be likely to find it.

Gerbils in the wild are found almost exclusively in Central Asia. Mongolian gerbils, Meriones unguiculatus, are the variety most commonly kept as pets.

When breeders mix species, the first portion of the new name comes from the male and the second come from the female. A lepjag is the product of a male leopard and a female jaguar. A zorse results when a male zebra is bred to a female horse.

The Lone Ranger, a radio-show hero of the 1930s, wore a black mask. He made the mask from part of a black vest that his older brother, Dan, had been wearing when he was murdered by members of the infamous Cavendish Gang. The Lone Ranger originally was part of a group of six Texas Rangers, who were ambushed by that gang. He was the only survivor.

In Sesame Street’s first season, Oscar the Grouch had orange fur.

THE YEAR THAT THE UNIVERSE GOT BIGGER

The universe expanded in 1920. That was the year that astronomer Harlow Shapley convinced fellow scientists that the galaxy was at least 10 times larger than they had previously thought.

Tiramisu, with a name that literally translates to “pick me-up,” is a classic Italian dessert that also has become well-known in the United States. The primary ingredient is Mascarpone, an Italian cheese, made from cream. Connoisseurs say the cheese is sweet and rich, very much like buttercream icing.

Slugs each have a pneumostome or air hole on the side of their bodies for breathing. They may also absorb oxygen directly through their moist skin.

Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula,” was originally titled “The Un-Dead.”

At one point, during the Battle of Jutland in World War I, as British ships were pursuing the German High Seas Fleet under cover of darkness, the British Admiralty lost contact with many of its boats. But German cryptographers were picking up messages from the lost warships and keeping their own ships apprised of British positions. England’s own cryptographers could not detect the weak wireless signals from their ships, so in a turnabout play, they picked up and decoded the German messages, which they used to relocate the British fleet.

THE TRUTH ABOUT POE

Well-known author Edgar Allen Poe was accused of drug addiction, alcoholism, robbing the cradle and even worse. But most of these proved to be lies, spread after he died by a writer, who was jealous of Poe’s many literary accomplishments.

Studies of American shopping habits show that the average consumer, on a visit to the grocery store, sees 317 different products per minute.

Cheetahs used to be found in the Middle East. But no such cats have been seen in the region since 1977.

On the traditional Mohs scale of hardness, diamonds rate a 10 while pearls range from 2.5 to 4. Pearls fall in that lower range because they can be scratched by a knife blade or piece of glass but not by a fingernail.

In spite of the United States’ long-term policy of economic sanctions against Cuba, about 50,000 American citizens visit the island nation as tourists each year.

In 1964, only 4 percent of the nation’s law students were women. Since then, the ratio has risen to almost 50 percent.

An old superstition, regarding bees, holds that if a honeybee enters a home, a visitor will soon follow. If you catch and kill the bee, however, the visit will be unpleasant.

$60 INVESTMENT GOES A LONG WAY

John Jacob Bausch set up an optical goods shop in 1853. But he was short on capital, so he borrowed $60 from a friend, Henry Lomb, promising to make Lomb a partner if the business grew. It did. Bausch & Lomb is the world’s largest provider of eye care products.

America’s first Thanksgiving, memorialized as a coming together of the Pilgrims and their native American friends, was something different from what most of us were taught in school. For one, there was no such thing as Thanksgiving Day. This festival lasted three days and included drinking, gambling, athletic games and target practice. And turkey wasn’t the main dish. Instead, the settlers feasted on venison. Edward Winslow wrote that “We entertained and feasted, and [the Indians] went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation.”

The English word splash is dham in Hindi, plyukh in Russian, plump in Danish and chof in Spanish. The closest Greek equivalent is plitz-platz.

Caraway seeds were an important part of some of the most ancient love potions. That’s because it was believed that the seeds had the magical power to keep items or people from straying. In many cases, valued possessions also would have been sprinkled with the seeds to keep them from being stolen.

HORSES HAVE NO GALL BLADDERS

What do horses, zebras, elephants, rhinos, dolphins, camels, tapirs and rats have in common? No gall bladders.

A law passed in 1659 made it illegal to celebrate the Christmas holiday in colonial Massachusetts. Anybody “found observing, by abstinence from labor, feasting or any other way, any such days as Christmas day” was fined five shillings.

On at least one occasion during World War II, the Nazis built a simulated airfield, complete with wooden buildings and planes. But British intelligence came through. The Royal Air Force sent a single British plane, which dropped one small bomb on the site. But there was no explosion. The bomb was also made of wood.

The ancient city of Corinth used about 50 dogs at night as an early warning system to protect the city against invaders.

All the early American colonies had apple cider. But 17th century authorities agreed that the very best cider came from New Jersey.

The great composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, never attended school. But Mozart did receive a quality education — taught at home by his father. It is said that he was very good at mathematics. And he could speak seven different languages.

The dot over the letter i is called a tittle.

ROMAN EMPEROR PAMPERED HIS HORSE

The Roman emperor Caligula’s favored horse, Incitatus, ate from an ivory manger and drank from a golden bowl.

In NASA’s 1978 astronaut selection process, out of as many as 10,000 applicants, psychological testing narrowed the field down to only about 150 finalists.

Woodrow Wilson was the first American President to join the Automobile Association of America. The AAA emblem is still displayed on the Pierce-Arrow that served as Wilson’s car while he was in office.

Most kites require a wind speed of 8 to 12 miles per hour for successful flight.

Susan B. Anthony claimed that the bicycle did more to emancipate women than any other invention.

Of the world’s royal yachts, the oldest belonged to the Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops. It was 143 feet long and included a kind of air conditioning. Wet reed mats were laid across the top of the pharaoh’s cabin. The luxurious boat was buried alongside Cheops’ tomb at Giza’s Great Pyramid.

Fennel, a spice originating near the Mediterranean, carries the genus name foeniculum, which is Latin for “little hay.”

The National Geographic Society, founded in 1888, is the world’s largest nonprofit educational and scientific institution. The organization’s journal, National Geographic, is read by more than 40 million people.

WORLD'S OLDEST NATIONAL ANTHEM

Japan’s national anthem, “Kimigayo” or “The Reign of our Emperor,” was composed about 1,100 years ago, making it the world’s oldest such song.

Of people infected with the West Nile virus, less than 1 percent becomes seriously ill.

A popular recipe for imitation pearls in the 15th century called for ground up seed pearls, glass and fish bones. Snail slime and egg whites were then added in order to bind the material.

A human body contains about one quart of blood for every 30 pounds of weight.

Oil was discovered in Iran in 1908. Commercial discoveries of oil in Iraq were made for the first time in 1927 and in Saudi Arabia in 1938.

The average American supermarket carries more than 10,000 different products.

In the aftermath of the historic battle at the Alamo, Mexican Gen. Santa Anna had all the American corpses soaked in oil and then set on fire. Only three Americans survived: Susanna Dickinson, her 15-month-old baby and Joe, a slave who had belonged to Col. William B. Travis.

Anise tastes more like licorice than licorice. That’s because an oil — distilled from the anise plant — is what gives licorice its distinctive taste. The licorice plant tastes like licorice, but experts claim it’s just not the same.

CUBAN OLYMPIAN WASN'T FOCUSED

Cuban postman Felix Carvajal should have won the 1904 Olympic marathon, according to several observers. Instead, he only placed fourth. The problem? Carvajal made many stops along the course to chat with spectators. At one point, he even took a break to pick some apples and eat them. More than half of that year’s competitors were unable to finish the marathon because of the heat. But Carvajal had a grand old time.

The first photographs of another planet came from Mariner 4 in July 1965. The planet was Mars.

The original formula for pewter required four parts tin and one part lead.

The average jack rabbit is known to hit a top speed of nearly 40 miles per hour.

A match between All Star New York and Brooklyn was the first baseball game to charge admission. It was held at Fashion Race Course on Long Island in 1857, and the cost was 50 cents per person.

The British Isles are home to six native languages: English, Scots Gaelic, Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Manx and a French patois in the Channel Islands. Cornish used to be part of the list, but its last native speaker died at the end of the 19th century.

WHO NEEDS MIRRORS?

When Ford Motor Company introduced its first Mustang, the car was designed to appeal to younger drivers with a base-bottom price of $2,345. But some consumer advocates claimed that the low price was more gimmick than substance. In order to get a car at that price, customers had to accept a vehicle with no sun visors or outside mirrors.

The meat packing industry in New Zealand has been freezing and shipping lamb to Great Britain since 1882.

America’s G.I. Bill, passed in 1944, guaranteed that the nation’s soldiers would be treated better. Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders received campaign ribbons. Veterans of World War I went home from service with just $60 in cash. But because of the new legislation, serviceman returning from World War II, were guaranteed unemployment pay, education grants and housing loans.

According to phone book records, New York City’s most common surname is Rodriguez with 22,712 entries. Williams is second with 18,236. Smith takes third place with 16,316. Brown (15,485) and Rivera (14,831) round out the top five.

The popular KitchenAid mixer originally was called the H-5. It was the world’s first domestic mixer to come with its own fixed stand and bowl.

HARVARD EXPELS STUDENTS WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT FOOD

Students at Harvard rioted in 1766 over the poor quality of food, and at least half of the 155 students were expelled.

When Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the mercury thermometer in 1714, he calibrated it such that 0 was set to the coldest temperatures found during winter in Western Europe. At the other end of the scale, 100 corresponded to the region’s summer highs.

Alligators grow nearly one foot per year until they reach a length of about 11 feet.

Ricotta means re-cooked. The whey that is left over from the making of other cheeses is re-heated, forming snowy-white curds. Thus, Ricotta cheese is a dairy product. But it is not a true cheese.

Ty Cobb’s 1910 batting title was awarded in error. “The Sporting News” discovered in 1981 that one game had been counted twice, giving Cobb an average of .385 when he had only earned .383. During that same season, Nap Lajoie of Cleveland had earned a .384 batting average.

A cat’s normal body temperature ranges from 100.5 to 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the “Iliad,” Homer claims that a Greek herald, Stentor, had a voice as loud as that of 50 ordinary men. That’s why, even today, a loud voice is sometimes called stentorian.

HUMAN BEATS ELEPHANT ON BLOOD CELL SIZE

The elephant may be the largest of land mammals, but its red blood cells are smaller than those found in humans.

The eggplant is a member of the potato family.

The crew of Apollo 11 spent about 22 hours on the moon in July 1969 with one 2-1/2 hour moonwalk. In November of the same year, the crew of Apollo 12 spent 31 hours on the lunar surface, collecting rock samples during two moonwalks.

Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, handed out the prizes at the 1904 Olympic Games in St. Louis, Mo.

Allspice comes from the berries of pimento dioica, an evergreen tree, native to Jamaica. The berries are most fragrant before they ripen, so when the fruit is harvested, berries that have matured are thrown away.

From 1870 to 1900, more than 30 American women designed and patented dishwashing machines. But Josephine Cochran stands above the rest. Her commercial dishwasher was the first to be manufactured. According to one newspaper, Cochran’s machine was “capable of washing, scalding, rinsing and drying from 5 to 20 dozen dishes of all shapes and sizes in two minutes.”

Results of a 2000 poll indicate that only 42 percent of American households have a gun.

CROWS PREFER CUSTOM NESTING MATERIALS

When making a nest, the common crow prefers maroon-colored grapevine bark to all other materials.

Space flight was attempted as early as the 16th century when a Chinese bureaucrat, Wan Hu, attached 47 black powder rockets to the base of a specially-built chair. After the smoke from the exploding rockets had wafted away, Wan Hu and his chair had disappeared, never to be seen again.

From 1700 to 1900, about 1 billion people died from tuberculosis.

Ancient Romans considered pearls the frozen tears of the gods. Greeks, on the other hand, held that pearls were the result of lightning strikes at sea. Other peoples believed that the jewels were solidified rain or dewdrops that had been captured by clams.

In 1976, the average American consumed 55 pounds of fats and oils, 300 cans or bottles of soda, 200 sticks of chewing gum, more than 20 pounds of ice cream, 18 pounds of candy, five pounds of potato chips, 63 dozen doughnuts and at least 50 pounds of cookies and cakes.

At least 60 percent of Saudi Arabia’s population lives along the shores of the Red Sea and in the coastal region.

In the 19th century, well-known place-names such as New York, New Jersey and New England were hyphenated.

AMERICANS LOVE MONEY

A traveler once wrote of the United States, “I know of no country, where the love of money has taken a stronger hold on the affections of men.” The man was Alexis Charles Henri Clerel de Tocqueville. He made the observation in 1831.

The Converse Chuck Taylor All Star, created in 1917, is the bestselling sneaker model of all time. Taylor, who played for the Akron Firestones, started working for Converse, selling its basketball shoes in 1918. His signature was added to the sneaker’s All Star ankle patch in 1923. The company sells about 4.5 million pairs of All Stars each year.

Hailstones may fall at night or in the morning, but they are most common during the afternoon.

Attendance at America’s major league baseball games first surpassed the 5-million mark in 1904. The American League had 3,024,028 guests at 154 games that year, and the National League sold 2,664,271 tickets.

In the 1930s, the United States Public Health Service found that people, living in towns with naturally fluoridated water, had half as many cavities as the rest of the population. Acting on the study, many cities added fluoride to their drinking water, and by 1986, 60 percent of all U.S. citizens had fluoridated tap water.

ELECTRIC IRON PREDATED FIRST POWER STATION

When Henry W. Seely invented the first electric iron in 1882, he was a little bit ahead of his time. The country’s first power station didn’t start generating electricity until three months after the debut of Seely’s invention. And Seely did it again, just one year later, inventing a working, cordless electric iron in 1883.

Louis XIV is often called the most powerful of France’s many kings. But most of that credit is due to a secret weapon: intelligence. Louis XIV employed a mathematician, Antoine Rossignol, who was skilled in the art of cryptography and could read the secret messages of all the world’s kings and nobles.

When the Egyptian pharaohs’ bodies were mummified, one of the spices used in the process was cinnamon.

Although 55 United States’ athletes took part in the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, most of them did not know they were competing in the Olympics until they won. That’s because the proper name of the event only appeared on the medals. Even the official program identified the “world’s amateur track and field championships” as part of the Paris Exposition.

The Zodiac is the name given to the path that the Sun appears to travel through the heavens.

Valley Forge Deserters

During the winter of 1777-78, the American forces at Valley Forge suffered from cold weather, a lack of provisions and the threat of mutiny. Many soldiers simply deserted rather than continue to endure such hardship. On average, 8 to 10 men left the Continental Army each day.

When measured in terms of energy, the condensation heat released by a hurricane in one day could provide heat and light to U.S. homes and businesses for almost six months.

In 1824, when Lord Byron died in Greece, the attending physician removed and measured Byron’s brain. Its weight of “about six medicinal pounds” made it one of the largest human brains on record and at least 25 percent larger than the average.

Lucy Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, became the first college graduate to preside over the White House.

Etymologists claim that the English buckaroo most likely came from the Spanish word, vaquero, meaning cowboy or cattle driver.

In the late 1980s television show, “Beauty and the Beast,” Ron Perlman spent nearly five hours each day, getting made up for his role as Vincent, the beast. The series ended about a dozen episodes into its third season.

First Liquid Bleach Factory

Opened in 1913, the Electro-Alkaline Company of Oakland, Calif., was America’s first commercial scale liquid bleach factory. But an engineer for one of the company’s equipment suppliers suggested that the bleach needed a snappier name. That engineer, Abel M. Hamblet, designed a diamond-shaped logo and combined the names for the product’s two active ingredients, chlorine and sodium hydroxide, coining the brand-name Clorox.

Only two U.S. Presidents are buried at Arlington National Cemetery: William Howard Taft and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

In the English language, the letter Z shows up only once, on average, in every 1,000 letters. On the other hand, the letter E would be used about 130 times in that same passage while the letter T would appear 93 times.

At 23 years old, George Armstrong Custer was the youngest man ever to become a general in the U.S. Army.

The average person swallows almost 600 times a day.

Etymologists claim that the word bridegroom first got its start as the Old English brydguma. Bryd became bride. Guma, a poetic word for man, became gome. But by the 16th century, nobody remembered what gome meant, so they replaced it with the term for a servant-male: groom.

Body Shop Sells

The Body Shop, which sold its first product in 1976, now makes a sale every 0.4 seconds.

If a consumer suspects that the “100 percent wool fabric” actually contains cotton, there is a simple test that can be used to determine the truth. Fill a metal container with water, and for every pint of water, add a tablespoonful of lye. Boil the fabric for at least 15 minutes. The wool should dissolve completely. The cotton will be unaffected.

A group of seven rabbits eats about as much as a single sheep.

Before they were the Pirates, Pittsburgh’s baseball team was known as the Innocents because of its weak first season. In 1890, the team won only 23 games and lost the other 113.

Julia Grant was the first wife of an ex-president to write her own autobiography. But publishers weren’t impressed, and the book went unpublished until 1975.

Bakers have always known that whole grain loaves stay fresh longer than white bread.

Originally called New Amsterdam, today’s New York also took the name New Orange, starting in August 1673. But that name didn’t last long. In February 1674, the name was restored to New York.

Egyptians Have Heart, Babylonians Choose Liver

Ancient Egyptians held that the heart was the most important of organs. Babylonians, on the other hand, assigned emotion and spirit to the liver. The Mesopotamians tried to hold on to the best of both worlds, linking emotion to the liver and intellect to the heart.

People weren’t quite sure, at first, how to deal with the electric lightbulb. In order to assist and assure consumers, the Edison Company created the following sign: “This room is equipped with Edison Electric Light. Do not attempt to light with match. Simply turn key on wall by the door. The use of electricity for lighting is in no way harmful to health, nor does it affect soundness of sleep.”

Margaret James of Charlestown, Mass., became the first person in America convicted of witchcraft. She was executed on June 15, 1648, almost 50 years before the Salem witch trials.

An expert on dandelions claims that at least 93 different insects visit the flower for its copious supplies of nectar.

The twisting column of air that makes a tornado may reach speeds of up to 400 miles per hour. The average tornado touches down to form a track about an eighth of a mile wide and 10 miles long.

Spice or Herb?

The traditional distinction between spices and herbs is one of location. If it grows in the tropics or subtropics, it’s a spice. But if it grows in the temperate zone, which includes most of Europe and the United States, it’s an herb.

The use of codes and ciphers is as old as history itself. But today’s secret writing is much more complex than that used in ancient times. Julius Caesar, for example, used a simple substitution code. Each letter in a message was replaced with one that was three letters further on in the alphabet.

U.S. President John Quincy Adams bought a chess set and a billiard table while in office. His political opponent, Andrew Jackson, made much of the purchase during the next presidential election, claiming that Adams had installed “gaming furniture” in the White House at public expense. Jackson’s ensuing victory was substantial with 178 electoral votes to Adams’ 83.

At the Olympic games of 1896, held in Athens, the United States had no official team. But its athletes won nine of the 12 track and field events. The remaining gold medals went to Great Britain (2) and Greece (1).

The moon has a diameter of 2,160 miles.

Costly Costume Party

During the Boston Tea Party on Dec. 16, 1773, patriots, dressed as Indians, dumped 342 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor. The tea was valued at more than £10,000, which would now be worth about $1.8 million.

Charles H. Dow and Edward D. Jones worked together in 1876 as financial reporters for “The Providence Star.” In 1882, the two writers teamed up to create there own newspaper that would eventually be known as “The Wall Street Journal.” But the stock-watching duo remains best-known today for their creation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. It appeared in the journal as a daily feature, starting in October 1896.

In the region of Auvergne in France, legend has it that young men, recently returned from military service would walk along the country lanes, looking for the farmhouse that had the largest number of Gaperon cheeses drying on the windowsills. The number of Gaperons was directly correlated to the size of a farmer’s herd and thence a good indication of his wealth: the richer the farmer, the more desirable his daughter.

A 1980s survey of 70,000 homemakers found that vacuuming was America’s most popular housecleaning task while dusting and polishing took second place, followed in third place by washing clothes. The least-enjoyed task? Washing dishes.

CONVERTING WIND TO ELECTRICITY

Scientists claim that economically converting wind into electricity requires an average wind speed of 14 miles per hour. The Office of Energy Information Administration says that 37 states have locations with sufficient wind speed for establishing such wind farms.

A male donkey is a jack. A female donkey is a jennet.

Turtles have no teeth.

In 2003, the U.S. Mint produced more than 12 billion new coins. Of those, pennies accounted for more than half of all production, with 6.8 billion created. Quarters were second at a count of 2.3 billion new coins. Just over 2 billion new dimes were also made that year.

Tennessee became the country’s 16th state in 1796. But for many in the former territory’s eastern counties, this was not their first experience with statehood. Those counties had briefly seceded from North Carolina and declared themselves the State of Franklin in 1784, a government which stayed in place for almost four years.

If the average man never shaved, his beard would grow to almost 30 feet during his lifetime.

The entire United Kingdom is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon.

A sneeze may project particles from the nose and mouth at rates, approaching 100 miles per hour.

ICELANDERS LIKE FISH

Iceland leads the world when it comes to per-person fish consumption. Japan is second, with Portugal close on its heels. What about the U.S.? A distant 14th place. Pass the fish sticks.

Louis Pasteur pioneered a process for sanitizing wine, beer and milk, and he developed a cure for rabies. Jonas Salk created a vaccine for polio. But who remembers Peter Moller? In 1854, this Norwegian pharmacist invented a method for producing medicinal cod liver oil, which fast became the best answer to the disease of rickets in malnourished children. And he was showered with awards.

Mother Nature sometimes gets confused as evidenced in Evans, Colorado. Residents of the town reported a rain of corn that lasted several hours. And in Aug. 2001, thousands of corn husks fell on Wichita, Kan., area homes. Eary.