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.