In the Thomas Nast cartoon that first depicted Santa Claus with a sleigh and reindeer, he was delivering Christmas gifts to soldiers fighting in the U.S. Civil War. The cartoon, entitled "Santa Claus in Camp," appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 3, 1863.

Electrical hearing aids were invented in 1901 by Miller R. Hutchinson.

Pink elephants? In regions of India where the soil is red, elephants take on a permanent pink tinge because they regularly spray dust over their bodies to protect themselves against insects. The parades are optional.

Federal regulations specify that 90 percent of peanut butter has to be peanuts.

Michelangelo's David is based on the artistic discipline of disegno, which is built on knowledge of the male human form. Under this discipline, sculpture is considered to be the finest form of art because it mimics divine creation. Because Michelangelo adhered to the concepts of disegno, he worked under the premise that the image of David was ...Read more

Aristotle believed the main purpose of the human brain was to cool the blood.

Birth defects in Moscow are alarmingly high. The infant death rate stands at 15 per 1,000 live births, nearly twice the U.S. rate. American experts believe that chemical pollution, lead poisoning, and/or exposure to radiation are the primary causes of these defects and infant deaths.

Sunday school teachers Patty and Mildred Hill wrote a song in the 1890s that we still sing today. Happy Birthday to You was a rewrite of their earlier song, Good Morning to All.

There are 284 restrooms along the 17.5 miles of corridors in the Pentagon.

Carte blanche, which means unconditional authority or power, was coined during the mid 1600s and literally means in French “blank document.”

The modern Sudoku was designed anonymously by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old retired architect and freelance puzzle constructor, and first published in 1979. Garns added a third dimension to the traditional Roman practice of Latin Squares and presented the creation as a puzzle, providing a partially-completed grid and requiring the solver to fill ...Read more

The word "gazelle" comes from the Arabian term for "affectionate," and it is believed to be inspired by the creature's large, gentle eyes.

American Margot Fraser "discovered" Birkenstock sandals while on a holiday in Germany in 1966. She gained relief from a foot condition, and founded a trading company called Birkenstock Footprint Sandals, Inc. in Novato, California, based on her enthusiasm for the sandals. Renamed Birkenstock Distribution USA, Inc. in 2005, it remains the ...Read more

Chief Sitting Bull was originally named "Jumping Badger." Among some American Indian tribes, it was customary to give newborn males temporary names. The names were changed later, as the boys developed character and showed courage in manhood.

Sliced bread was introduced by Otto Frederick Rohwedder who invented the bread slicer, which he started working on in 1912. At first, Rohwedder came up with the idea of a device that held the slices together with hat pins (not a success). In 1928, he designed a machine 1.52m long by 0.90m high that sliced and wrapped the bread in waxed paper to ...Read more

Iridescent beetle shells were the source of the earliest eye glitter ever used — devised by the ancient Egyptians.

Peanut oil is used for underwater cooking in submarines. Undersea fleets like it because it does not smoke unless heated above 450 degrees F.

A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.

The first state minimum wage law in the U.S. went into effect in Massachusetts on July 1, 1913. It would be another 25 years before the minimum wage law went into effect nationally.

The first true calculator, the abacus, originated in China during the sixth century B.C. Its stone-like beads, shifted along vertical strings, enabled the Chinese to perform basic arithmetical operations with speed and accuracy, the test of a true computer. About 200 years after it was used by the Chinese, the abacus caught on in several ...Read more