Sexual freedom and the elimination of sexual jealousy are a major theme of Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), in which the straitlaced nurse Jill acts as a dramatic foil for the less parochial characters Jubal Harshaw and Mike. Two negative references to homosexuality have been interpreted by some readers as being homophobic, but both deal with ...Read more

Michelangelo's David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture and one of Michelangelo's works of sculpture, holding the title of the most recognizable and infamous statue in the history of art. It has become regarded as a symbol both of strength and youthful human beauty. The 17 foot marble statue portrays the Biblical King David at the moment ...Read more

The world's largest yo-yo resides in the National YoYo Museum in Chico, California. Named "Big Yo," the 256-pound yoyo is an exact scale replica of a Tom Kuhn "No Jive 3 in 1 YoYo." Fifty inches tall and 31.5 inches wide, the yo-yo is made of California sugar pine, baltic birch from the former USSR, and hardrock maple. It was first launched in ...Read more

The town of Fort Atkinson, Iowa was the site of the only fort ever built by the U.S. government to protect one Indian tribe from another.

The sea lion can swim 6,000 miles, stopping only to sleep.

In 1500 B.C. in Egypt, a shaved head was considered the ultimate in feminine beauty. Egyptian women removed every hair from their heads with special gold tweezers and polished their scalps to a high sheen with buffing cloths.

Badminton was once known as battledore and shuttlecock. The game as we know it today took its name from Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England - home of the Duke of Beaufort.

A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of numerous small, often oddly shaped, interlocking and tesellating pieces. Each piece has a small part of a picture on it; when complete, a jigsaw puzzle produces a complete picture. Jigsaw puzzles were originally created by painting a picture on a flat, rectangular piece of wood, ...Read more

Possibly, although it's certainly one of the most parodied. American Gothic is one of the most reproduced, and parodied, images ever. Many artists have replaced the two people with other known couples and replaced the house with well known houses. References and parodies of the image have been numerous for generations, appearing regularly in ...Read more

In the sixteenth century, a Dutchman named Zacharias Janssen developed the microscope lens to such a high degree of refinement that it magnified with little distortion. He became famous for his accomplishment, and was nicknamed "Father of Microscopy." Ironically, Janssen was not trained as a

An exact count of rest areas on the Interstate System is not available. However, a count in 1972 reported 1,214 rest areas in existence. The number still operational today is not expected to differ dramatically from the 1972 figure.

The first baseball game to be televised was not in the United States. It was in Tokyo, Japan.

There are 250,000 species of flowering plants on Earth today.

As portrayed in Action Comics #1, Superman was born on the planet Krypton and rocketed to Earth as an infant by his scientist father moments before the planet's destruction. The rocket landed on Earth where a passing elderly farm couple found the baby and adopted him. As the child grew to adulthood he discovered that he possessed powers far ...Read more

The first person ever awarded a gold record was Glenn Miller for "Chattanooga Choo-Choo."

The brilliant colors in a hummingbird's feather are created by tiny platelets that resemble a pancake filled with air bubbles. They are called "interference colors," and are much like the shimmering colors seen in a soap bubble or in a drop of oil.

Millipedes never have a thousand legs. They can have from a few dozen to several hundred, but not a thousand.

It took 214 crates to transport the Statue of Liberty from France to New York in 1885.

Each year, 9 million tons of salt, more than 10 percent of all the salt produced in the world, is applied to American highways for road de-icing. The cost of buying and applying the salt adds up to $200 million.

The Colgate company started out making starch, soap, and candles.