The modern dinner plate is a fairly recent development. Until the 15th century, it was customary to eat on a thick slice of stale bread, called a "trencher," that soaked up the juice.

Jerk barbecue can be traced to the 1600s, when Jamaican runaway slaves preserved and cooked meat in dug-out pits and basted it with native herbs, spices, and chile peppers. The name "jerk" has uncertain origins. It is believed by some culinary experts to be derived from the Spanish word "charqui," which means dried meat, or from the French term ...Read more

As recently as half a century ago, there was no clear understanding as to why the sun shines. The discovery that it is due to nuclear-fusion reactions was not made until the 1930s, by Hans Beth and Carl von Weizsacker.

Rainbow Bridge, Nature's abstract sculpture carved of solid sandstone, is the world's largest natural-rock span -- 278 feet wide and 309 feet high. Technically, it is located in Utah just north of the Arizona state line, but "Arizona Highway's Travel Arizona" book cites it as a local attraction.

If a pin was heated to the same temperature as the center of the Sun, its heat would set alight everything within 60 miles of it.

Some neutron stars spin 600 times a second, which is as fast as a dentist's drill.

The rare metal gallium melts at 86 degrees Fahrenheit. It is safe to touch; if you hold a piece of it in your hand and wait, it will melt.

John VIII (died 882) was the first Pope to be murdered – he was poisoned and then clubbed to death.

A rainbow is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a nearly continuous spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines onto droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere. It takes the form of a multicoloured arc, with red on the outside and violet on the inside. Even though a rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of ...Read more

The name of the broken-down, partially blind old horse Ichabod Crane rode in Washington Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow was Gunpowder.

Located about 45 miles south of San Francisco, San Jose was the first nonreligious community founded in California. Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe was settled in 1777 by enterprising farmers who wanted to make themselves and the bountiful region independent of Mexico and the network of Spanish missions for their supplies. Fruit and olive trees,...Read more

The collection of antique dog collars at the popular tourist site of Leeds Castle, four miles east of Maidstone in England, spans five centuries and is the most comprehensive collection of its kind in the world. The collection has more than 100 collars and related exhibits tracing the history of canine neckwear from Medieval times to the present...Read more

The hottest day ever in Canada was July 5, 1937 when the mercury soared to 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) in Midale and Yellowgrass, Saskatchewan. But that's downright chilly compared to the United States where the temperature hit 56.7 (135 F) degrees Celsius on July 10, 1913 at Death Valley, California, and Al'azizyah, Libya, where ...Read more

The groom's cake dates back to the mid-19th century. At that time, the traditional wedding cake had evolved from a popular single-layer fruitcake into a stacked pound-cake shaped like a church steeple. But guests still wanted fruitcake. To appease the masses, newlyweds would serve two cakes -- the wedding cake and the fruitcake. The wedding cake...Read more

Fogs over the seas on the Grand Banks, Newfoundland, Canada, can last for weeks on end. These are the longest-enduring fogs recorded in the world.

The average life span of London residents in the middle of the 19th century was 27 years. For members of the working class, that number dropped to 22 years.

"Ichigensan okotowari" is a custom developed in ryotei ( Restaurants which serve authentic traditional Japanese cuisine) in Kyoto. It means that you must be introduced by someone to be welcomed. The reason for this is it enables the restaurant to give its warmest hospitality and services to all its customers. Business cards are preferred to ...Read more

Although tornadoes have been observed on every continent except Antarctica, most occur in the United States. They also commonly occur in southern Canada, south-central and eastern Asia, east-central South America, Southern Africa, northwestern and southeast Europe, Italy, western and southeastern

The coffee filter was invented by Melitta Bentz, in Germany in 1908. She pierced holes in a tin container, put a circular piece of absorbent paper in the bottom of it and put her creation over a coffee pot.

For many years, the globe on the "NBC Nightly News" spun in the wrong direction. On January 2, 1984, NBC finally set the world spinning back in the proper direction.