The highest man-made temperature 70 million degrees Celsius was generated at Princeton University in a fusion power experiment in 1978.

Because its eyeball is fixed, the whale must move its huge body to shift its line of sight.

In October 1995, the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space. NASA and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, created the technology with the goal of feeding astronauts on long space voyages, and eventually, feeding future space colonies.

The shoestring was invented in England in 1790. Prior to this time, all shoes were fastened with buckles.

The average wired adult will spend 5.3 percent of the rest of his or her life online, according to research firm Cyber Dialogue, based on an extensive survey of Internet users. The study's results showed that the average adult online today will spend a total of 23.5 months of his or her life

Using a graphite tennis racket reportedly helps prevent the onset of "tennis elbow."

In 1982, its inaugural year, The Weather Channel lost $10.6 million, and came dangerously close to being shut down. In fact, the network didn't make any money until 1985. Since then, The Weather Channel has steadily grown to where it is now seen in more than 67 million homes, or 98 percent of

The smallest visible sunspots have an area of 500 million square miles, about fifty times the size of Africa. The largest sunspots have an area of about 7,000 million square miles.

Badminton was first recognized as an official sport in the Olympic Games during the 1992 Summer Games. More than 1.1 billion people watched badminton's Olympic debut on TV.

Nearly 60 percent of women say they receive at least eleven e-mails a day, whereas only 49 percent of men say they do.

In the U.S. and France, a septillion is represented by the number 1 followed by 24 zeroes; in Great Britain and Germany, it is the number 1 followed by 42 zeroes.

Le Siecle, a French daily, produced a 9x9 grid with 3x3 sub-squares as early as 1892, but used double-digit numbers rather than the familiar 1-9. In 1895, another French daily, La France, created a puzzle that used the numbers 1-9 but did not mark the 3x3 sub-squares. These weekly puzzles were a feature of newspaper titles including L'Echo de ...Read more

On December 2, 1942, a nuclear chain reaction was achieved for the first time under the stands of the University of Chicago’s football stadium. The first reactor measured 30 feet wide, 32 feet long, and 21.5 feet high. It weighed 1,400 tons and contained 52 tons of uranium in the form of uranium metal and uranium oxide. Although the same ...Read more

The kiwi, national bird of New Zealand, can't fly. It lives in a hole in the ground, is almost blind, and lays only one egg each year. Despite this, it has survived for more than 70 million years.

During the bubonic plague of London, the city was sealed off to avoid contamination. This meant no food was permitted in. The only people willing to trade with London were the Dutch, who left food on jetties and then would take the money left there. They used to steel their nerves with liquor before landing on the plague-infested shores, hence "...Read more

In the TV sitcom Cheers, the legal capacity of the popular Boston bar was 75. It was shown in a notice posted over the door.

In Somalia, Africa, it's been decreed illegal to carry old chewing gum stuck on the tip of your nose.

Humans, if they are very sensitive, can detect sweetness in a solution of 1 part sugar to 200 parts water. Some moths and butterflies can detect sweetness when the ratio is 1 to 300,000.

In 1943, Percy Clark of UCLA made the mistake during the Rose Bowl game of being tackled behind the goal line while attempting to return a punt against Georgia. UCLA lost the game, 2-0. One newspaper carried the headline "CLARK 2, UCLA 0." Clark was openly shunned by classmates and, in despair, he quit college a week later. He moved to the woods...Read more

Chocolate was once considered a temptation of the devil. In Central American mountain villages during the 18th century, no one under the age of 60 was permitted to drink it, and churchgoers who defied the rule were threatened with excommunication.