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.