A "clue" originally meant a ball of thread. This is why one is said to "unravel" the clues of a mystery.

It was in Indianapolis that Ruth Hoskins learned Lizzie Magie's "Landlord's Game." Taking it back to Atlantic City she made a new board with Atlantic City street names and renamed the game Monopoly. The Atlantic City board made its way to Philadelphia, where it was eventually taught to Charles Darrow, who then began to distribute his hand-made ...Read more

Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, is the name given to emancipation day by African Americans in Texas. On that day in 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger read General Order #3 to the people of Galveston, which began as follows: "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States...Read more

Orca whales are voluntary breathers. For this reason, they sleep with only half of their brain at one time. The other half remains alert to regulate breathing. Resident whales typically remain near the surface, breathing and swimming in a pattern. When traveling together, resident pods have been observed to breathe in unison. Although it is not ...Read more

The nephila spider of India spins its webs with strands that are more than 20 feet long.

The Broadway musical A Chorus Line, written by James Kirkwood, Nicholas Dante, Marvin Hamlisch, and Edward Kleban, employed 510 different members during its record 15-year run at the Shubert Theatre.

The average minimal speed of birds in order to remain aloft in flight is reported to be about 16½ feet per second, or about 11 miles per hour.

The Studebaker auto company produced a car called the "Dictator" from 1927–1936.

The average-size hot tub or spa -- about 4 by 5 feet -- holds about 475 gallons of water.

An alligator can go through 2,000 to 3,000 teeth in a lifetime.

50% of adults in North America will make a New Year's resolution. The top two resolutions are behavioral commitments related to improving one's health namely to cease smoking and decrease one's consumption of alcohol.

We think we cannot see at night. But given enough time to adjust, the human eye can, for a time, see almost as well as an owl's. Ultimately, as the amount of light decreases, an owl detects shapes after a human no longer can.

There are two related concepts worth mentioning: A space fountain would use pellets fired up from the ground by a mass driver, the pellets traveling through the center of a tower. These pellets would impart their kinetic energy to the tower structure via electromagnetic drag as they traveled up and again as their direction was reversed by a ...Read more

In the early 1960s, opinionist William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote the following about the Fab Four: "The Beatles are not merely awful, I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful... They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify ...Read more

According to zoology experts, there is no real difference between doves and pigeons. The choice of name rests almost altogether on custom and geography, although the smaller of the species is, more often than not, called a dove.

Government by a woman or women is called a "gynarchy."

Ghibli studios is the studio founded by Miyazaki and the place he works. It is known for its attention to detail and its natural look and putting a great deal of time and effort into each project. In Ghibli films you can see the wind gently pushing tall summer grass, shadows of clouds roaming the landscape and beams of light lightly highlighting...Read more

Chicago, Illinois is the candy capitol of the world. Chicago has more chocolate manufacturers within a small radius than any other place in the world. This dates back to the 1800's when Chicago was a national hub for transportation and manufacturing, in addition to being very close to sources for key candy ingredients -- milk and corn syrup, it ...Read more

Senior citizens are at greater risk for dehydration than younger people because their bodies are less effective at letting them know when they need water.

Jeff Bezos claims that he coined the name Amazon.com from the earlier name Cadabra.com. But perhaps he had hidden intentions. In the early days of the Internet, when Yahoo was the dominant search engine, results on one page were listed alphabetically. Amazon would always appear above its