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Mike Nesmith, of the Monkees, was the heir to a fortune created by his mother's invention of Liquid Paper correction fluid.
With nearly 180,000, Finland has the greatest number of islands of any country in the world; and it has even more lakes than islands.
The world's smallest winged insect is the Tanzanian parasitic wasp. Its wingspan is one-fifth of a millimeter.
Alcohol contains no fat or cholesterol.
The name of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the original draft for the Star Trek TV series was the U.S.S. Yorktown.
Sarsaparilla is the root that flavors old-fashioned root beer.
During a 1957 park visit, Harry S Truman refused to ride the Dumbo attraction at Disneyland, citing the Republican affiliation with the elephant image.
Before it became the Indians, the Cleveland baseball team was known as the Spiders.
Moses "Chief" Yellow Horse, who won 8 games for the Pirates, is widely considered to be the first pure-blooded Native American to play major league baseball.
As incumbent presidents, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Chester A. Arthur all failed to win their parties' nominations in the following election.
There are three species of vampire bats: the Common Vampire Bat, the Hairy-legged Vampire Bat and the White-winged Vampire Bat.
John Lennon's assassin was carrying a copy of "The Catcher in the Rye" when he shot the famous Beatle in 1980.
The U.S. has the strictest youth drinking laws of all western countries and the highest minimum drinking age in the entire world.
The term "thoroughbred" describes a breed of horse whose ancestry traces back to three foundation sires — the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian and the Byerly Turk. The Darley Arabian was the ancestor of 95% of all modern thoroughbreds.
Judy Garland married gay men twice; straight men three times.
Arabic-speaking Egyptians call their nation Misr.
Panama was province of Columbia when the Americans first wanted to build a canal there. In exchange for the right to build the canal, the U.S. backed rebels who used American aid to gain independence from Columbia.
A billabong is a stagnant body of backwater attached to a river or a stream.
Jupiter is thought to have a core of rocky material amounting to several Earth-masses.
More people in the U.S. abstain from drinking alcohol than in any other western nation.
The eight elements of the Buddhist Eightfold Path are right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.
The highest point in Pennsylvania (Mt. Davis, 3,213 ft.) is lower than the lowest point in Colorado (Arikaree River, 3,315 ft.).
Vampire bats prefer horses, cows, and pigs.
There are three popes commonly referred to as "Great," including Leo I, who persuaded Attila the Hun to leave Rome, Gregory I, after whom the Gregorian Chant is named, and Nicholas I, who withstood a siege of Rome.
Some would say that there are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who use binary, and those who don't.
All planets in our solar system orbit the sun in the same direction.
Chernobyl released more radiation than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined.
Sylvia Miles earned a nomination for an Oscar with her performance in "Midnight Cowboy," though it lasted only six minutes.
The only G-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar was Oliver! in 1968.
The only X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar was Midnight Cowboy (1969).
Martin Luther King, Jr. was just 15 years old when he enrolled in Morehouse College.
When the Curtiss Candy Company introduced the Baby Ruth bar in 1921, they claimed it was named in honor of baby Ruth Cleveland, the daughter of President Grover Cleveland. However, she had been dead since 1904, and Babe Ruth was, at the time, the most popular athlete in America.
Louie Armstrong's nickname Satchmo is short for "Satchelmouth."
Sammy Baugh, whose six seasons as NFL passing leader is an NFL record (shared by Steve Young), also shares the NFL record for most seasons leading the league in punting.
Steve Young and Peyton Manning are numbers one and two in NFL career passer ratings. For the season record for passer rating, there are numbers two and one.
Four NFL field goal kickers have enjoyed perfect seasons, ranging from 17/17 to Mike Vanderjagt's 37/37.
When Jackie Robinson was a varsity basketball player at UCLA, his teams were in the midst of an eleven year, 42-game losing streak against crosstown rival USC.
Once in the bottle, whiskey does not improve. The age recorded on a whiskey bottle refers to the number of years it is aged prior to being bottled.
The Los Angeles Rams were the first U.S. football team to introduce emblems on their helmets.
The Grateful Dead called themselves The Warlocks when they first started playing bookstores near Stanford Unversity.
River water salts are mostly calcium and bicarbonate ions, while seawater salts are primarily chloride and sodium.
The theater's limelight literally came from hot blocks of lime that glowed and lit up a stage in those 19th century days before electric lights were available.
The world's windiest place is Commonwealth Bay, in Antarctica, where wind speeds of 200 miles per hour have been recorded, and sustained winds of 150 m.p.h. are frequent.
Female porcupines are only sexually receptive for a few hours a year.
Pearls left in vinegar will eventually dissolve.
In the 1980s, many enraged mobs in rural West Africa killed suspected "penis snatchers", thought to be witches who had the power to actually remove a person's penis through magic.
Chewing gum digests just about as quickly as any other food you swallow.
The Great Wall of China isn't the only manmade structure visible from space. From a normal orbit, astronauts can spot many madmade structures, including pyramids and airport runways.
The largest expanse of sand in the world is the Empty Quarter, in Saubia Arabia.
The heavy tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773, which caused the "Boston Tea Party," resulted in many Americans switching from tea to coffee.
Making recycled paper instead of new paper uses 64 percent less energy and uses 58 percent less water.
Fortune cookies are an American invention.
Creedence Clearwater Revival began as The Blue Velvets, then called themselves the Visions, and soon after, The Golliwogs.
The end of a hammer head opposite the striking face is called a peen.
In the 51 years since the Detroit Lions last won the NFL championship, the franchise has notched just a single playoff victory.
The Cleveland Browns are named after Paul Brown, who founded the Cincinnati Bengals. Yes, he founded the Browns, too.
The most lopsided score in NFL history was the 1940 Chicago Bears' 73-0 victory over the Washington Redskins for the NFL championship.
In Sag Harbor, New York, you may neither skinny-dip nor change into your bathing suit inside your car. Either act can get you arrested.
About 3.1 people are killed in wood chipper accidents each year.
The Appalachian Trail crosses 14 states, six national parks and eight national forests.
Except for the north and south designations, every continent's name ends with the same vowel with which it begins: America, Antarctica, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa.
Nevada is the world's third largest gold producer, behind parts of South Africa and Australia.
There are some 50 different species of sea snakes, and all of them are venomous. They thrive in abundance along the coast from the Persian Gulf to Japan and around Australia and Melanesia.
Haleakala is the largest dormant volcano in the world.
Hawaii was the most populous U.S. territory to ever become a state.
The U.S. flag was last redesigned in 1960. It was the 27th change in the history of the American flag.
The Hawaiian islands have but one navigable river — Kauai's Wailua River.
Molokai, Hawaii's 5th-largest island, is so small in terms of population that the post office there will deliver mail to residents whether or not you specify an address. The island and the name of the addressee are sufficient to tell the carrier where the letter goes.
According to the state constitution of Hawaii, any island not named as belonging to one of the state's four counties is considered part of Honolulu. Most of the islands within the 1,500 mile Hawaiian Archipelago are thus deemed part of Honolulu, making it by far the largest city in the world.
The islands of Maui, Lanai, Molokai and Kahoolawe were all part of a single, larger island until about 200,000 years ago. If sea levels fell 500 meters, they would again form a single island that scientists refer to as Maui Nui.
The apostrophe [ ' ] in the middle of many Hawaiian words and names is called an Okina.
More than 1,500 miles long, from east to west, Hawaii is the widest state in the United States.
For 38 years, the highest scoring official college football game of all-time was a 1968 Division III game in which North Park beat North Central 104-32. In October 2007, Weber State defeated Portland State 73-68, breaking the old record by three points. This time, the record lasted just two weeks, until Hartwick College edged Utica College 72-70.
Georgia Tech beat Cumberland College in 1916 by a score of 222-0, but the game was not considered "official" and in any event, the NCAA didn’t start recognizing such statistics until 1937.
Ashley Baker, a kicker for the football team at Division III school Framingham State College, is the all-division career point leader among all female college football players.
Alaska and Hawaii are the only states that border no others.
Hawaii (owhyhee) means "homeland."
Pineapples were made famous in Hawaii, but they first arrived there in European ship holds, which filled them from Paraguay.
The southern most city in the United States is Na'alehu, Hawaii.
More people (1.5 billion viewers) tuned in to see Elvis perform his "Aloha From Hawaii" concert than watched the first moon landing (1.2 billion viewers).
Q: Where in the U.S., other than Hawaii, can you find a rain forest?
A: Alaska.
The highest elevation on the planet is the top of Mount Everest, which is 29,035 feet above sea level. However, the tallest single mountain, base to tip, is Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which rises 32,000 feet from the ocean floor.
There are 132 Hawaiian Islands, but only eight are considered the "main" islands: Hawaii, Oahu, Kauai, Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai, Niihau.
Day lengths in the tropics do not vary enough to justify Daylight Savings Time. Hawaii, the only U.S. state in the tropics, does not observe DST, nor do Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam or the Northern Marianas.
The Orange Bowl is not played at the stadium known as The Orange Bowl.
The University of Miami's 70-year run of home games at the Orange Bowl ended in 2007 with a 48-0 shutout loss to Virginia. It was the Hurricanes' home worst shutout loss ever.
The Orange Bowl's other tenant, the Florida International University Panthers finished their stay at the Orange Bowl with a 38-19 win over North Texas, snapping their nation's-worst 23-game losing streak.
Q: Which college football teams play their home games in stadia that host BCS bowls?
A: UCLA (Rose), Tulane (Sugar) and Miami (Orange). Arizona State was part of the club until 2006 when the Fiesta Bowl moved to the University of Phoenix Stadium.
The Fiesta Bowl's first conference tie-in was with the WAC (Western Athletic Conference) champion. Arizona State won four of the first five Fiesta Bowls.
Bockscar was the name of the B-29 that dropped the second atomic bomb, on Nagasaki. It was named after its regular commander, Captain Frederick Bock. Bock was not the pilot who flew the Nagasaki mission, however.
The only team to have played in at least one Rose Bowl and yet never won nor lost is Navy, which tied Washington in the 1924 game. The only other tie in Rose Bowl history came between Cal (2-5 in other games) and Alabama (4-1 in other games).
Texas has the most Rose Bowl wins (2) without a loss.
Alabama has the most Rose Bowl appearances (6) of any school outside the Big Ten and Pac-10. Only five Pac-10 teams and two Big Ten teams have played in more Rose Bowls.
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