Covering Hollyhood Microsoft Google Apple

It is a well known trivial fact that Neil Armstrong was the first man to step onto the moon. However, many do not know that he stepped onto the moon with his left foot.

The very first enclosed shopping mall was and is Valley Faire in Appleton, Wisconsin. Not in Minnesota as most people believe. Appleton is also famous for being the birth place of Harry Houdini and the first city in America to use Hydro-electric power in homes.

U.S. Army doctor D.W. Bliss had the unique role of attending to two U.S. presidents after they were shot by assassins. In 1865 he was one of 16 doctors who tried to save Abraham Lincoln, and in 1881 he supervised the care of James Garfield.

A painting of the Madonna in Fiorano Castle, Italy, escaped without even being scorched when invading soldiers set the castle afire, yet all the rest of the building was destroyed.

In Britain, the law was changed in 1789 to make the method of execution hanging. Prior to that, burning was the modus operandi. The last female to be executed by burning in England was Christian Bowman. Her crime was making counterfeit coins.

In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the first minimum wage in the United States. The new law, considered controversial at the time, established at.25 cents per hour minimum wage and a maximum 44 hour work week for minors.

Many hundreds of years ago when the well-known style of Irish dancing began in the country side of Ireland, most houses of the poor - and that means most houses - only had a dirt floor which was not a lot of use for dancing on if you were holding a ceildh (pronounced kay-lee and meaning party - more or less). So in order to make the dancing easier the owners of the house which was holding the party would take the doors off their hinges and lay them on the floor. There was just enough room on each door for two people to dance, providing they did not fling their arms about - hence the original name for Irish dancing - Door Dancing.

King Charles VII, who was assassinated in 1167, was the first Swedish king with the name of Charles. Charles I, II, III, IV, V, never existed. No one knows why. To add to the mystery, almost 300 years went by before there was a Charles VIII (1448-57).

Before all-porcelain false teeth were perfected in the mid-19th century, dentures were commonly made with teeth pulled from the mouths of dead soldiers following a battle. Teeth extracted from U.S. Civil War soldier cadavers were shipped to England by the barrel to dentists.

At the outbreak of World War I, the American air force consisted of only fifty men.

Akhbar the Great Mughal routed the Hindus under Hemu by turning their elephants against them at the battle of Panipat in the Hindu revolt.

In 1974 there were 90 tornadoes in the U.S. in one day.

In 1937 the emergency 999 telephone service was established in London. More than 13,000 genuine calls were made in the first month.

In ancient Greece, courtesans wore sandals with nails studded into the sole so that their footprints would leave the message "Follow me".

Before winning the election in 1860, Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections for various offices.

Unfortunately Gaius grew up and became emperor, incongruously retaining his boyhood diminutive. "Little boots" in Latin is "Caligula." As you may know, he was a bloodthirsty, sadistic fiend.

"John has a long mustache" was the coded-signal used by the French Resistance in WWII to mobilize their forces once the Allies had landed on the Normandy beaches.

Until the 19th century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia.

Traffic engineering was not developed in London, New York or Paris, but rather in ancient Rome. The Romans, of course, were noted road builders. The Appian Way, for example, stretched 350 miles from the Eternal City to Brundisium. In Rome itself there were actually stop signs and even alternate-side-of-the-street parking.

The first time an enormous amount of clothing was needed all at once was during the Civil War, when the Union needed hundreds of thousands of uniforms for its troops. Out of this need came the ready-made clothing industry.

The first telephone book ever issued contained only fifty names. It was published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone Company in February, 1878.

Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured, they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.

The right arm and torch of the Statue of Liberty crossed the Atlantic Ocean three times. It first crossed for display at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and in New York, where money was raised for the foundation and pedestal. It was returned to Paris in 1882 to be reunited with the rest of the statue, which was then shipped back to the U.S.

Karl Marx was targeted for assassination when he met with two Prussian officers in his house in Cologne in 1848. Marx had friends among the German labor unions, and he was considered a threat to the autocrats. Dressed in his bathrobe, he forced the officers out at the point of a revolver, which, it turned out, was not loaded.

Marco Polo was born on the Croatian island of Korcula (pronounced Kor-Chu-La).

All of the officers in the Confederate army were given copies of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, to carry with them at all times. Robert E. Lee, among others, believed that the book symbolized their cause. Both revolts were defeated.

The dirt road that General Washington and his soldiers took to fight off General Clinton during the Battle of Monmouth was called the Burlington Path.

The ancient Etruscans painted women white and men red in the wall paintings they used to decorate tombs.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the first American to have plumbing installed in his house, in 1840.

More than 5,600 men died while building the Panama Canal. Today, it takes more than 8,000 workers to run and maintain the canal. It takes a ship an average of 33 hours to travel the length of the canal.

The German Kaiser Wilhelm II had a withered arm and often hid the fact by posing with his hand resting on a sword, or by holding gloves.

Although most people think that Napoleon was short, he was actually five feet six inches tall (1.676 meters), an average height for a Frenchman in those days.

When Gaius Caesar was a boy, Roman soldiers affectionately nicknamed him "little boots" for the boy-sized military footwear he sported.

DaVinci wrote notebook entries in mirror (backwards) script, a trick that kept many of his observations from being widely known until decades after his death. It is believed that he was hiding his scientific ideas from the powerful Roman Catholic Church, whose teachings sometimes disagreed with what Leonardo observed.

DaVinci made detailed drawings of human anatomy, which are still highly regarded today.

1892 By Presidential Proclamation 1.8 million acres of Crow Indian reservation in Montana were opened to White settlers. The U.S. government had induced the Crow to give up a sizable portion of their land in the mountainous western area of Montana. The Crow received 50 cents per acre for their land.

The steel industry, in 1943, introduced the 5-day, 40 hour work week. Henry Ford adopted it in 1926.

When Napoleon wore black silk handkerchiefs around his neck during a battle, he always won. At Waterloo, he wore a white cravat and lost the battle and his kingdom.

Civil War General Stonewall Jackson died when he was accidentally hit by fire from his own troop.

"Hot cockles" was a popular game at Christmas in medieval times. It was a game in which the other players took turns striking the blindfolded player, who had to guess the name of the person delivering each blow. "Hot cockles" was still a Christmas pastime until the Victorian era.

The 16th century astronomer Tycho Brahe lost his nose in a duel with one of his students over a mathematical computation. He wore a silver replacement nose for the rest of his life.

After being forced to state in public that the earth does not rotate, Galileo is said to have muttered under his breath, "But it does move."

A female pharaoh was unknown in Egypt before Hatshepsut, who had herself portrayed in male costume, with a beard and without breasts.

The first telephone exchange opened on January 28, 1878, in New Haven, Connecticut.

The Taj Mahal complex in India was built between 1631 and 1634 at a cost of about 40-million rupees.

New Zealand was the first place in the world to allow women to vote. The state of South Australia was next, in 1894, and it was also the first place to allow women to stand for parliament.

The U.S. Automobile Association was formed in 1905 for the purpose or providing "scouts" who could warn motorists of hidden police traps.

Soldiers arrived to fight the Battle of Marne in World War I - not on foot or by military airplane or military vehicle - but by taxi cabs. France took over all the taxi cabs in Paris to get soldiers to the front.

Louisa May Alcott, author of the classic "Little Women," hated kids. She only wrote the book because her publisher asked her to.

Despite his great scientific and artistic achievement, Leonardo Da Vinci was most proud of his ability to bend iron with his bare hands.

Catherine the Great relaxed by being tickled.

WWI flying ace Jean Navarre attacked a zeppelin armed with only a kitchen knife.

In 1907 the first taxicab took to the streets of New York City.

When the U.S. War Department was established in 1789, there were 840 soldiers in the regular army. Their job was to supervise public lands and guard the indian frontier.

The traditional symbol of the pawnbroker—three golden balls—is thought to be derived from the coat of the arms of the Medici family, who ruled Italian city of Florence between the 15th and 16th centuries. The symbol was spread by the Lombards—Italian bankers, goldsmiths, and moneylenders who set up businesses in medieval London.

In Northern parts of China it was once a common practice to shave pigs. When the evenings got cold the Chinese would take a pig to bed with them for warmth and found it more comfortable if the pig was clean-shaven.

In 1778, fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.

The Coliseum received its name not for its size, but for a colossal statue of Nero that stood close by, placed there after the destruction of his palace.

While performing her duties as queen, Cleopatra sometimes wore a fake beard.

The Aztec Indians in Central America used animal blood mixed with cement as a mortar for their buildings, many of which still remain standing today.

American astronomer, mathematician, clock-maker, surveyor and almanac editor Benjamin Banneker has been called the "first black man of science." Banneker took part in the original survey of Washington, DC. His almanac was published 1792 to 1797.

Pope Paul IV, who was elected on 23 May 1555, was so outraged when he saw the naked bodies on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel that he ordered Michelangelo to paint on to them.

President George Washington oversaw construction of the White House, but he never lived there. It was our second President, John Adams, elected in 1796, who first lived in the White House. His term was almost over by the time he moved in, and only six rooms had been finished.

Seating on the first scheduled inter-city commuter airplane flight consisted of moveable wicker chairs. There were 11 of them on the first Ford Tri-Motors. After several years, Ford replaced them with aluminum framed leather chairs.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the first American to have plumbing installed in his house, in 1840.

New York was the first state to require the licensing of motor vehicles. The law was adopted in 1901.

The practice of exchanging presents at Christmas originated with the Romans.

Before 1863, postal service in the United States was free.

Louis XIV had forty personal wigmakers and almost 1000 wigs.

Czar Paul 1 banished soldiers to Siberia for marching out of step.

The first advertisement printed in English in 1477 offered a prayer book. The ad was published by William Caxton on his press in Westminster Abbey. No price was mentioned, only that the book was "good chepe."

Civil War General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson has two separate burial sites. His left arm, which was amputated after the battle of Chancellorsville was buried on a nearby farm. A week later, Jackson died and was buried in Lexington, Virginia.

The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.

George Washington, who was nearly toothless himself, was meticulous with the teeth of the six white horses that pulled his presidential coach. He had their teeth picked and cleaned daily to improve their appearance.

Fourteen years before the Titanic sank, novelist Morgan Robertson published a novel called "Futility". The story was about an ocean liner that struck an iceberg on an April night. The name of the ship in his novel - The Titan.

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

It took 20,000 men 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.

Vincent Van Gogh painted a picture a day in the last 70 days of his life.

In the original architectural design, the French Cathedral of Chartes had six spires (It was built with two spires).

The Tower of London, for which construction was begun in 1078 by William the Conqueror, once housed a zoo. It also has served as an observatory, a mint, a prison, a royal palace, and (at present) the home of the Crown Jewels.

Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps.

Napoleon constructed his battle plans in a sandbox.

Historians report that the Roman Emperor Gaius (Caligula) (AD 37-41) was so proud of his horse that he gave him a place as a senate consul before he died.

Shakespeare spelled his OWN name several different ways.

Alexander the Great was an epileptic.

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.

Salim (1569-1627, heir to the throne of India, had 4 wives when he was only 8 years of age.

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David; Clubs - Alexander the Great; Hearts - Charlemagne; and Diamonds - Julius Caesar.

The last words spoken from the moon were from Eugene Cernan, Commander of the Apollo 17 Mission on 11 December 1972. "As we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind."

Louis XV was the first person to use an elevator: in 1743 his "flying chair" carried him between the floors of the Versailles palace.

All the dirt from the foundation to build the World Trade Center in NYC was dumped into the Hudson River to form the community now known as Battery City Park.

The first Bowie knife was forged at Washington, Arkansas.

Human skulls had been used as drinking cups for hundreds of years. The muscles and flesh were scraped away, the bottom was hacked off and then they were suitable to hold any beverage.

The first European to visit the Mississippi River was DeSoto.

Emir Beysari (1233-1293), an Egyptian of great wealth, drank wine from gold and silver cups, yet he never in all his life used the same cup twice.

Florence Nightingale served only two years of her life as a nurse. She contracted fever during her service in the Crimean War, and spent the last 50 years of her life as an invalid.

Alexander Hamilton and his son, Philip, both died on the same spot, and both during duels. Philip went first, 3 years before his father would be killed in that same field by Aaron Burr.

The British once went to war over a sailor’s ear. It happened in 1739, when Britain launched hostilities against Spain because a Spanish officer had supposedly sliced off the ear of a ship’s captain named Robert Jenkins.

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.

According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Egyptian men never became bald. The reason for this, Herodotus claimed, was that as children Egyptian males had their heads shaved, and their scalps were continually exposed to the health-giving rays of the sun.

During the California Gold Rush of 1849 miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the extremely high costs in California during these boom years it was deemed more feasible to send the shirts to Hawaii for servicing.

Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.

On November 29, 1941, the program for the annual Army-Navy football game carried a picture of the Battleship Arizona, captioned: "It is significant that despite the claims of air enthusiasts no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs." Today you can visit the site—now a shrine—where Japanese dive bombers sunk the Arizona at Pearl Harbor only nine days later.

Limelight was how we lit the stage before electricity was invented. Basically, illumination was produced by heating blocks of lime until they glowed.

When airplanes were still a novel invention, seat belts for pilots were installed only after the consequence of their absence was observed to be fatal - several pilots fell to their deaths while flying upside down.

The first wooden shoe comes from the Netherlands. The Netherlands have many seas so people wanted a shoe that kept their feet dry while working outside. The shoes were called klompen and they had been cut of one single piece of wood. Today the klompen are the favorite souvenir for people who visit the Netherlands.

Incan soldiers invented the process of freeze-drying food. The process was primitive but effective — potatoes would be left outside to freeze overnight, then thawed and stomped on to remove excess water.

Values on the Monopoly gameboard are the same today as they were in 1935.

Escape maps, compasses, and files were inserted into Monopoly game boards and smuggled into POW camps inside Germany during W.W.II; real money for escapees was slipped into the packs of Monopoly money.

The first United States coast to coast airplane flight occurred in 1911 and took 49 days.

John Hancock was the only one of fifty signers of the Declaration of Independence who actually signed it on July 4.

No automobile made after 1924 should be designated as antique.

The first dictionary of American English was published on April 14th, 1828, by - who else? - Noah Webster.

The last words spoken from the moon were from Eugene Cernan, Commander of the Apollo 17 Mission on 11 December 1972. "As we leave the Moon at Taurus-Littrow, we leave as we came, and, God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind."

The first Eskimo Bible was printed in Copenhagen in 1744.

Henry Ford flatly stated that history is "bunk."

In 1956 the phrase, "In God We Trust", was adopted as the U.S. national motto.

The first paperback book was printed - by Penguin Publishing in 1935.

In France - Captain Sarret made the first parachute jump from an airplane in 1918.

"Scientific America" carried the first magazine automobile ad in 1898. The Winton Motor Car Company of Cleveland, OH, invited readers to "dispense with a horse".

The Chinese, in olden days, used marijuana only as a remedy for dysentery.

The ancient Egyptians recommended mixing half an onion with beer foam as a way of warding off death.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore garments made with thin threads of beaten gold. Some fabrics had up to 500 gold threads per one inch of cloth.

More than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky. Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Then they rubbed it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality.

The Aztec Indians of Mexico believed turquoise would protect them from physical harm, and so warriors used these green and blue stones to decorate their battle shields.

The first man to distill bourbon whiskey in the United States was a Baptist preacher, in 1789.

On international license plates Spain is represented by the letter E for Espana.

Arguably the largest state in the world, Western Australia covers one-third of the Australian continent. It spans over 2.5 million square kilometers (1 million square miles).

Pennsylvania has more covered bridges than any other state. Vermont, a much smaller state, claims a greater density of covered bridges. (More bridges per square mile). Parke County, Indiana, claims more covered bridges than any other county, but Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, comes in second.

If global warming forecasts are true, the island country of Tuvalu might cease to exist within 100 years.

Surprisingly, there was a time that the Vatican owned shares of the Watergate complex in Washington DC, the Pan American building in Paris, and the Hilton hotel in Rome.

The volume of water in the Amazon river is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined.

The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia, at just 1.75 sq miles/4,53 sq km.

St. Petersburg, FL once had 427 consecutive days of sunshine.

The state of Oregon has one city named Sisters and another called Brothers. Sisters got its name from a nearby trio of peaks in the Cascade Mountains known as the Three Sisters. Brothers was named as a counterpart to Sisters.

Los Angeles and San Francisco become 2.5 inches closer together each year because they are on opposite sides of the San Andreas fault.

Residents of the Havasupai Indian Reservation in Northern Arizona get their mail delivered by mule.

Ellis Island opened to begin the processing of what would amount to more than 20 million immigrants to the United States in 1892. The immigration center was also used as a deportation station, and later, a Coast Guard Station, and then, a national park. Ellis Island is now a museum.

The twin towers of New Yorks World Trade Center contain 208 elevators. Elevators rank as the safest form of transportation, boasting only one fatality every 100 million miles traveled. Stairs, in comparison, are five times more dangerous.

The Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. has 365 steps, representing every day of the year.

When the Eiffel Tower was built in 1884, Parisians referred to it as "the tragic lamppost" and nearly universally hated it.

The royal house of Saudi Arabia has close to 10,000 princes and princesses.

The first people to arrive on Iceland were Irish explorers, in 795 A.D.

The Philippines consist of 7,100 islands.

The country of Costa Rica does not have an army.

Morocco was the first country to recognize the United States in 1789.

Persia changed its name to Iran in 1935.

Adolf Hitler had planned to change the name of Berlin to Germania.

The smallest country in Central America is El Salvador.

There are more people in New York City (7,895,563) than there are in the states of Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Hawaii, Delaware, and New Mexico combined.

There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin, Ireland; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; and more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel.

US Route 66 ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, approximating the course of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, a railroad which, we might mention, no longer goes to any of those three towns.

Toronto’s original name was York, but it had another name long before that. The area near the shores of Lake Ontario was called "the meeting place" by the Ojibway of Southern Ontario. Their word: Toronto.

Mongolia is the largest landlocked country.

There is a resort town in New Mexico called "Truth or Consequences."

Several nations (Norway, Australia, New Zealand, France, Great Britain, Chile, and Argentina) have advanced claims on sections of the continent of Antarctica. The United States does not recognize any claims.

In ancient Japan public contests were held to see who in a town could break wind loudest and longest. Winners were awarded many prizes and received great acclaim.

Pittsburgh was named for a British prime minister.

Katmandu is the capital of Nepal.

Spains biggest source of income is tourism.

Honolulu boasts the only royal palace in the U.S.

The city of Dallas is known as "The Big D."

Zanzibar is known as "Spice Island."

The largest lake in South America is Lake Maracaibo.

The three winter months in the southern hemisphere are June, July and August.

Norway contains the largest icefield in Europe.

The largest island in the Mediterranean sea is Sicily.

The Sahara desert is expanding half a mile south every year.

Thailand used to be called Siam.

The largest city in Africa is Cairo in Egypt.

The Nile river flows North.

The Sphinx sits on guard over the Great Pyramids.

England is smaller than New England.

Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined.

Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.

In 1825 Upper Peru became Bolivia.

Without any greenhouse effect, Earth would be cold and lifeless with an average temperature of 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

In May 1948, Mt. Ruapehu and Mt. Ngauruhoe, both in New Zealand, erupted simultaneously.

In the Andes, time is often measured by how long it takes to smoke a cigarette.

In Papua New Guinea there are villages within five miles of each other which speak different languages.

In Calama, a town in the Atacama Desert of Chile, it has never rained.

The forest of Canadian Lake District is so dense that during winter the snow stays on top of the trees and the forest floor stays bare.

The 4-H Club started in Holmes County.

The King and Queen of the Gypsies are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Meridian.

The oldest Holiday Inn is in Clarkesdale.

The birthplace of Elvis was in Tupelo.

Football great Walter Peyton was from Columbia.

The first PTA was in Crystal Springs.

The company that makes Icee Drinks is in Edwards.

Belzoni is the Catfish Capital of the world.

Mississippi was the first state to outlaw imprisonment of debtors.

Coca Cola was founded by Joseph A. Biedenharn in Vicksburg.

The Mississippi Legislature passed one of the first laws in 1839 to protect the property rights of married women.

The Vicksburg National Cemetery is the second oldest in the country.

Resin Bowie, the inventor of the Bowie knife is buried at Pt. Gibson.

The International Checkers Hall Of Fame is in Petal.

Alcorn State University in Lorman is the oldest black land grant college in the world.

The oldest field game in America is Stickball founded by the Choctaw Indians of Philadelphia.

The McCoy Federal Building in Jackson is the first federal building in the U.S. named for an African American.

MCW in Columbus was the first state college for women in the country

There are 3,900 islands in the country Japan, the country of islands.

French speaking residents of Belgium are called Walloons.

The most remote island in the world is Tristan da Cunha, which is above the sub-Antarctic zone.

West Virginia consists of those counties of Virginia which refused to secede from the Union at the start of the Civil War. Maine used to be part of Massachusetts. The original colonies made all kinds of land claims for the frontier west of them.

Since the 1930’s the town of Corona, CA has buried, and lost, all 17 of its time capsules.

The largest country in Africa is the Sudan. The Arc of the Covenant is said to be located in Axum, Ethiopia.

Australia is the richest source of mineral sands in the world.

The city of Istanbul straddles two separate continents, Europe and Asia.

The smallest state in the US has also the longest name. The official name of Rhode Island is Rhode Island and Plantation Provinces.

The official, neutral name of Switzerland, which has multiple official languages, is the latin "Confederation Helvetica", or the Helvetic Confederation, thus the "CH" on license plates, stickers and e-mail addresses.

Shortest Intercontinental Commercial Flight in the world is from Gibraltar (Europe) to Tangier (Africa.) Distance 34 miles, flight time 20 minutes.

People in Sweden, Japan, and Canada are more likely to know the population of the United States than are Americans.

Dominica, Mexico, Zambia, Kiribati, Fiji and Egypt all have birds on their flags.

Australia is the richest source of mineral sands in the world.

Iowa has more independent telephone companies than any other state.

Reversing Falls is in Canada, where the St. John River flows into the Bay of Fundy at St. John, New Brunswick. The rapids at this juncture flows normally at low tide, backwards at high tide. Between tides there is a 15-minute period in which the river is placid and boaters sail by very quickly.

The many sights that represent the Chinese city of Beijing were built by foreigners: the Forbidden City was built by the Mongols, the Temple of Heaven by the Manchurians.

Devon is the only county in Great Britain to have two coasts.

Only five countries in Europe touch only one other: Portugal, Denmark, San Marino, Vatican City, and Monaco.

There are only three world capitals that begin with the letter "O" in English: Ottawa, Canada; Oslo, Norway; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The chiao is an official unit of currency in China. Also known as jiao, it is a copper-zinc coin that is one-tenth of a yuan and equal to 10 fen.

The San Blas Indian women of Panama consider giant noses a mark of great beauty. They paint black lines down the center of their noses to make them appear longer.

Despite a population of over a billion, China has only about 200 family names.

The Hudson River along the island of Manhattan flows in either direction depending on the tide.

Although people in the majority of countries of the world drive on the right side of roads, there are some fifty nations in which people drive on the left. These include England and many former English colonies such as Australia and New Zealand—but not the U.S. or Canada. There are several non-English countries where people also drive on the left including Japan.

Using satellite-surveying techniques, scientists have determined that Los Angeles, California is moving east. At a rate estimated to be about one-fifth on an inch per year, the city is moving closer to the San Gabriel Mountains.

La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia is the highest capital in the world. Ski resorts there operate only on weekends during the South American summer (November to March). At an elevation of over 17,000 feet, it is too cold to operate during the South American winter.

In Brazil, Christmas is celebrated with fireworks.

Alaska is the only state without a state motto.

Antarctica is the only continent that does not have land areas below sea level.

In downtown Lima, Peru, there is a large brass statue dedicated to Winnie-the-Pooh.

If you could cut out the United States, its center of gravity would be at Friend, Nebraska.

Rome is considered "The Eternal City."

There is a prison in Ossining, New York named "Sing Sing."

Mount St. Helens dropped 1,313 feet in 1980.

Guam has seven public elementary schools.

On a trip to the South Sea islands, French painter Paul Gauguin stopped off briefly in Central America, where he worked as a laborer on the Panama Canal.

The original fifty cent piece in Australian decimal currency had around $2.00 worth of silver in it before it was replaced with a less expensive twelve sided coin.