Titanic

Philadelphia's Billy Carter, a first-class passenger of the "Titanic," brought along his 35-horsepower Renault motorcar, packed away in the ship's hold. Carter also brought 24 polo sticks, 60 shirts and 15 pairs of shoes for the voyage.

Nose

Sixteenth-century Dutch humanist Erasmus offered this advice for blowing the nose: "to blow your nose on your hat or clothing is rustic . . . nor is it much more polite to use your hand . . . . It is proper to wipe the nostrils with a handkerchief and to do this while turning away, if more honorable people are present."

Anthem

One of the world's best known tunes is Britain's anthem "God Save the Queen." That's because the same melody is used for patriotic songs in Germany, Russia, Sweden, Lichtenstein and the U.S.

Flea

Under ideal conditions, a flea might live for as long as a year. But the typical flea survives for only two or three months. And without a reliable host for food, the flea may die after only a few days.

Truman

While running for his first political office in 1922, Harry Truman went through Ku Klux Klan initiation rites to help his chances of winning the county election. But it's reported that he refused to join the organization when he learned of its agenda, earning himself fierce political enemies.

Insects

Not everyone agrees on how an insect sounds. English speakers describe the sound a bee makes as bzzz. But the Japanese say it bunbun, and Germans prefer summ summ. Korean speakers insist that bees sound more like boong-boong.

Cotton

Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, got his start, forging nails during the Revolutionary War. After the war, however, England flooded the American market with nails, bringing prices to record lows. Whitney switched to making hatpins and enjoyed a near-monopoly in his section of Massachusetts.

Hollywood

Cecil B. De Mille put Hollywood on the map with a 90-minute western, "The Squaw Man," released in 1914. De Mille first planned to film the feature in Arizona, but that southwestern state's natural scenery didn't fit the script. So De Mille went on to Los Angeles at the suggestion of a friend and found what he was looking for in the recently annexed Hollywood.

Patron

St. Louis is the patron saint of barbers. Taxi-drivers are overseen by St. Fiacre while St. Jerome looks out for librarians. The patron saint for gravediggers? St. Anthony.

Carrots

Carrots are more nutritious cooked than when eaten raw. That's because each of the orange vegetables has tough cellular walls that prevent the human body from breaking down much more than 25 percent of the available beta carotene.

Zoo

The Philadelphia Zoo claims to be America's first such institution. It was chartered in 1859 but did not open to the public until 1874. Likewise, supporters of Chicago's Lincoln Park have insisted that it was the first. They point to the donation of a pair of swans in 1868 to back their claim. But Chicago had no director for its zoo until 1888. New York's Central Park Zoo is also in the running. That destination opened as a menagerie in 1864 and slowly transformed itself into a full-fledged zoo.

Garage

President William H. Taft converted the White House stables into a garage where he stored his four automobiles: two Pierce-Arrows, a Baker electric run-about car and a steamer from the White Sewing Machine Company.

Ants

The caterpillars of the Australian imperial blue are herded like cattle by ants. When tapped by an ant, the caterpillar excretes highly nutritious, sugary drops from a gland on its back. In exchange, the ants keep the caterpillars safe from parasitic flies and predatory wasps.

Hair

The International Association of Hair Restoration Surgery reports that male pattern baldness starts most commonly among men ages 40 to 50 and for male youth in their late teens.

Personals

Reading the personal ads? Here are some common abbreviations. SOH: sense of humor. PA: photograph appreciated. OHAC: own house and car. ANI: age not important. NLP: no losers please.

Barnum

The New York Sun ran a front-page obituary for showman P.T. Barnum on April 7, 1891. But Barnum, creator of the Greatest Show on Earth, wasn't dead. He had complained that the media only said nice things about a person who had already passed away. The newspaper proved Barnum wrong, running the piece early and giving him a chance to read his own memorial.

Crows

Augury often uses the counting of crows or magpies to predict the future. This practice is where we get the poem, "One for sorrow / Two for joy / Three for a letter / Four for a boy / Five for silver / Six for gold / Seven for a secret never to be told."

Holes

Most cheeses don't have holes. But French cheesemakers have developed a classification system for those that do. A cheese with tiny holes, such as the Tomme de Savoie, falls into the "Les yeux de perdrix" or partridge eyes category. Mimolette, a cheese with small holes, is categorized as "petit pois" or little peas. Medium-holed cheeses, such as Comt, are called "cerises" or cherries. Emmental, a cheese with the largest of holes, is called a "noix" or walnut cheese.

Astroturf

Indiana State University is home of the first outdoor stadium to install Astroturf. But it wasn't the first stadium to get the material. That honor goes to a Houston sports venue, where Monsanto's Chemgrass was installed two years earlier in 1965. The monofilament ribbon file product was named after that stadium - the AstroDome.

Water

The Amazon River discharges about 8 trillion gallons of water each day into the ocean. That's 60 times as much as the Nile and 11 times more than the mighty Mississippi.

Tornado

The United States had its largest tornado outbreak in April 1974. A total of 148 tornadoes hit 11 states and killed 315 people in just over 16 hours. More than 5,300 people were injured in the storms.

Fast Food

U.S. consumers spent $6 billion on fast food meals in 1970. By the year 2000, however, that number had grown to $110 billion, and it is now more than $130 billion, more than any other country in the world.

Holiday

Although the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, it had voted two days earlier to sever ties with England. In fact, John Adams claimed, in a letter to his wife, that July 2 would become the national holiday: "It will be celebrated by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other."

Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is the nation's oldest such orchestra. It was founded in 1842 by a group of musicians who wanted to bring to America the kind of quality music making that could be found in great European cities.

Caves

The first cave drawings discovered in modern times were found in Spain's Altamira caves in 1879. Archaeologists report that the dwellers of these underground caves used small stone lamps fueled with animal fat to light the walls and ceiling while creating their designs.