Poet Laureate

No U.S. poet laureate served longer than Joseph Auslander, who filled the honorary position from 1937 to 1941. The second-longest serving poet laureate, Robert Pinsky, filled the post from 1997 to 2000.

Mmm

On television's "The Simpsons," Homer Simpson's favorite phrase, "Mmm," has been used in response to the following: doughnuts, money, the Land of Chocolate, invisible Cola, free goo, caramel, organized crime, unprocessed fish sticks, a foot long chili dog and hog fat.

The Id

Sigmund Freud first referred to the unconscious mind as "es," the indefinite pronoun "it" in German. But translators believed the English word "it" was too vague, which made Freud's idea sound unscientific, so they changed it to "id."

Tupperware

The first piece of Tupperware, a bathroom cup, was created by Earl D. Tupper in 1942. It was introduced to department stores in 1945. Tupper later created the home party in order to increase sales of his popular plastic products.

Cutting

Although the fine diner might carve a roast, other meats require other cutting terms. For instance, the true gourmet would thigh a pigeon, chine a salmon, culpon a trout, tranch a sturgeon, tame a crab, barb a lobster, wing a partridge, frusche a chicken, rear a goose or break a deer.

Panama Hats

Panama hats are so named because the popular headgear was frequently shipped from Panama during the 19th century. But the hats, woven from the leaves of the Carludovica palmate tree, are actually made in Ecuador.

Other

In the 1990 U.S. Census, almost 10 million respondents reported their race as "other." In follow-up questionnaires, 59 percent of those same respondents reported being white.

Washington's Birthday

For the first 19 years of his life, George Washington celebrated his birthday on February 11. But when the British Parliament replaced the Julian calendar with the Gregorian calendar in 1752, Washington moved the annual observation of his birthday 11 days later to February 22.

Edith Roosevelt

A lifelong Republican, Edith Roosevelt, who hated making public statements, broke her ban on public speaking in order to speak out against her cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and in support of his opponent, Herbert Hoover.

Play It Again

Humphry Bogart is widely believed to have said, "Play it again, Sam," or something like it in the movie "Casablanca." The truth, however, is that he didn't. Ingrid Bergman comes the closest with her own line in the film: "Play it, Sam."

Groundhogs

Researchers found that over a 60-year period in which groundhogs were used to predict the weather, the North American mammals were right only 28 percent of the time.

Evolution

The first comprehensive theory of evolution couldn't possibly have been created by Charles Darwin. Why not? Because he'd only just been born. French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck formulated his theory on evolution in 1809, roughly 50 years before Darwin published his own book "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection."

Family Photos

In America's family photos, Mom is in the picture more than three times as often as is Dad. On a weekly radio quiz program, one contestant suggested this may be because Dad is usually the family member taking the picture. If true, this would explain why even the family dog is featured 25 percent more often than is Dad.

Souvenirs

First Lady Caroline Harrison (1832-1892) occupied herself while living in the White House by producing souvenir china for tourists. She even designed a line of china for the Harrison administration that was used for serving food at state functions.

Badger Forecast

German immigrants to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, brought with them to America an old tradition in which badgers predict the weather. As it turns out, however, in Punxsutawney, groundhogs are easier to find.

Paparazzi

Paparazzi are the hordes of aggressive photographers that closely follow every celebrity move. But the Italian word used to describe these journalists actually means mosquitoes.

Mayan Calendar

The Mayans had a civil calendar or Haab that used 18 months of 20 days with a 5-day period at the end of each year, called Uayeb. The South American culture also had a divinatory calendar or Tzolkin, which had days numbered 1 to 13 and also named days in a cycle of 20 names. The sequence started over every 260 days and synchronized with the Haab every 52 Haab years, a time at which the Mayans believed the world might end. The master Mayan calendar, which purportedly counts down from the beginning of the world, is set to finally reach zero in December 2012.

The Commandments

As usual, Hollywood didn't get it quite right. In "The Ten Commandments," starring Charlton Heston, Moses goes up Mount Sinai twice. In the biblical book of Exodus, however, Moses climbs Mount Sinai at least seven times.

Tourism

France remains the world's most popular tourist destination with a little more than 10 percent of the world's travelers each year. The country of Spain is the second most popular travel spot.

Queen Victoria

A total of eight geographic locations have been named for Queen Victoria: Victoria, Australia; Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River at the borders of Zambia and Zimbabwe; Victoria Island (off northern Canada); Lake Victoria in Africa; Victoria Land, a row of mountains in Antarctica; Victoria Nile in Uganda; and Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada.

Istanbul

Istanbul was once Constantinople, but that wasn't its original name. The largest city in Turkey was originally called Byzantium but was renamed in 330 C.E. when Roman emperor Constantine I made it the capital of his empire. The Ottoman Turks renamed it again in 1453.

Pasta

Contrary to popular belief, Marco Polo couldn't have brought pasta to Italy from China. Why not? Probably, experts say, because Italy already had pasta. In fact, Marco Polo wrote in his journal that the people of China ate vermicelli and lasagna noodles, indicating that Italians had plenty of experience with pastas.

Carrots

A serving of 2-1/2 ounces of carrots contains the entire recommended daily intake of Vitamin A. For the recommended daily intake of Vitamin C, 2-1/2 ounces of green peppers will do the trick.

Asia

Asia most likely gets its name from the Assyrian word "asu," meaning "sunrise" or "east." The word originally applied to the east coast of the Aegean Sea and gradually came to stand for the entire continent.

Wimbledon

Lily de Alvarez may not be well remembered in the sport of tennis, but she owns an important first at Wimbledon. In 1931, Lily became the first woman to wear shorts while competing in the tennis tournament.

Snow

Some have claimed that the Inuit language has at least 40 words for snow. Here are just a few: aniugaviniq (hard, frozen snow), apigiannagaut (the first snowfall of the fall), katakartanaq (snow with a crust that gives way under the feet), kinirtaq (compact, damp snow), mannguq (melting snow), masak (wet, falling snow) and matsaaq (half-melted snow).

Quoted

The most-quoted book is the Bible, and Shakespeare's works take second place. According to the Smithsonian, a group of stories published by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is the third most-quoted piece of literature. The book, "Alice's Adventures Under Ground," was published with a pseudonym; Dodgson wrote under the name Lewis Carroll.

Greenland

Greenland isn't green. Instead, an ice sheet that measures an average of 1,000 feet thick covers 84 percent of the world's largest island. (Australia is bigger, but geographers generally categorize it as a continent rather than as an island.) Norse explorer Eric the Red reputedly gave Greenland its name in order to make it sound more appealing to would-be settlers. Besides, it's not often called Greenland any more, at least not by its residents. After being granted home rule by Denmark in 1979, residents took on the name Kalaallit Nunaat.

Blood Bank

American surgeon Richard Charles Drew (1904-1950) designed and operated the world's first blood bank. The blood bank, however, which opened in 1940 in New York City, never allowed Drew to donate any of his own blood because he was black.

Stanley Cup

Lord Stanley, the Canadian governor-general, donated the Stanley Cup, the oldest trophy in professional sports. But Stanley was recalled to England before the 1893 series, making it so that he never actually got to see a Stanley Cup game.

Pretzel Logs

In a 1995 Snack Food Association poll, 37 percent of Americans identified Abraham Lincoln as the president who "best personified pretzel logs," and 25 percent of Americans picked Ronald Reagan as the president "who best personified cool ranch tortilla chips."