In 1811, Louisiana was the first state in the U.S. to declare, by statute, English as its official language. It would be 109 years before a second state in the U.S. -- Nebraska -- would issue a constitutional amendment to make English the official state idiom there.

The Tour is a "stage race", divided into a number of stages, each being a race held over one day. The time it takes each rider to complete each stage is noted, recorded, and accumulated. Riders who finish in the same group are awarded the same time, with possible subtractions due to time bonuses. Two riders are said to have finished in the same ...Read more

An estimated 35 million Americans suffer from pollen allergies - or about 1 in 7. People also commonly refer to pollen allergies as "seasonal allergic rhinitis," "hay fever," or "pollinosis." Common symptoms of pollen allergy include; repeated or prolonged sneezing, stuffy and watery nose, swelling, itchy eyes, itchy nose, throat, and mouth, ...Read more

A typical nova explosion releases about as much energy as the Sun emits in 10,000 years, or as much as in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 nuclear bombs.

If the world were to become totally flat and the oceans distributed themselves evenly over the earth's surface, the water would be approximately 2 miles deep at every point.

The Brooklyn Dodgers (who later became the Los Angeles Dodgers) did not get their name because of their sporting ability. The term "dodger" was a shortened form of "trolley dodgers," which was first used to describe Brooklynites for their ability to avoid being hit by trolley cars.

Of all cheese customs, one of the more unusual was that of the "groaning cheese." Years ago in Europe, a prospective father would nibble on a huge chunk of cheese while awaiting the home birth of his child. Instead of pacing outside the bedroom door, the father would eat from the center of the cheese until a large hole had been gnawed out. Later...Read more

A dresser is a piece of furniture, which is similar to a sideboard, but also has shelves above for storing and displaying crockery. This is not to be confused with a chest of drawers, a piece of furniture which has multiple parallel, horizontal drawers stacked one above each other, which is also known (especially in North American English) as ...Read more

According to a study for the University of Tennessee's Noise Laboratory, 60 percent of American college students suffer from some high-frequency hearing loss. The main cause of this premature deafness is noise. Hearing loss has long been linked to exposure to noise. Sustained loud noises -- from vehicles, jet aircraft, stereos, food processors -...Read more

The females of many species of moths are wingless. To compensate for this, their bodies are always larger and heavier than those of their male counterparts.

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

One has to eat 11 pounds of potatoes to put on 1 pound of weight -- a potato has no more calories than an apple.

The father of the pink flamingo (the plastic lawn ornament) was Don Featherstone of Massachusetts. Featherstone graduated from art school and went to work as a designer for Union Products, a Leominster, Massachusetts company that manufactured flat plastic lawn ornaments. He designed the pink flamingo in 1957 as a follow-up project to his plastic...Read more

According to Genesis, chapters 6 to 9, Noah's Ark was a massive vessel built at God's command to save Noah, his family, and a core stock of the world's animals from the Great Flood. The Ark story told in Genesis has extensive and striking parallels in the Sumerian myth of Utnapishtim, which tells how an ancient king was warned by his personal ...Read more

Daddy Cool’s 1971 single "Eagle Rock" remained at #1 on the Australian National charts for a record ten weeks before being replaced by the single "Daddy Cool" by another band cashing in their success.

A two-hour motion picture uses 10,800 feet of film - not including the previews and commercials.

When energy is used, it doesn't disappear; it merely goes elsewhere or is changed into another form.

Dame Judith Anderson received two Emmys, one in 1954 and the other in 1961, for Best Actress in a Single Performance for Macbeth, becoming the first person in TV history to win the trophy twice for the same role in two different feature productions.

What do bats' wings, elephants' ears, flamingos' legs, rabbits' ears, goats' horns, and human skin all have in common? They radiate heat to providing cooling for the animal.

The rush of air produced by a cough moves at a speed approaching 600 miles per hour.