NOT BAAAD

In Tibet and other parts of the Himalayas, sheep are used as pack animals.

The sole survivor of Gen. Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn in Montana was a horse. His name was Comanche.

Q-tips originally were called Baby Gays.

The state bird of Kentucky is the Cardinal.

Russia’s Mir space station spent 5,511 days in space, orbiting the Earth 86,330 times.

In Korea, kite fighting was named a national sport in 1921.

In spite of Robert E. Peary’s claim that he had reached the North Pole in 1908, violent east winds, shifting ice and Peary’s own failure to measure longitude make it likely that he missed the pole by as much as 60 nautical miles.

The Mercantile Agency, established by Lewis Tappan, became one of the nation’s first, successful credit rating agencies. Tappan commissioned correspondents, who operated as investigators, ferreting out a subject’s net worth, business prospects and moral character. Abraham Lincoln was one of Tappan’s correspondents. Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland and William McKinley also worked for the company.

Pearls once commanded incredible prices. For instance, the Roman general Vitellus sold one of his mother’s pearls and used the proceeds to finance an entire military campaign.