In southern France, some people burn a log in their homes from Christmas Eve until New Year’s Day. This stems from an ancient tradition in which farmers would use part of the log to ensure a plentiful harvest the following year.

Water is so scarce in the arid regions of China that, in the grasslands, the people never take baths, and sometimes must wash their faces in yak's milk.

The tarantula spends most of its life within its burrow, which is an 18-inch vertical hole with an inch-wide opening. When male tarantulas are between the ages of 5 to 7 years, they leave the burrow in search of a female, usually in the early fall. This migration actually signals the end of their life cycle. The males mate with as many females ...Read more

The last person to be guillotined in France, Hamida Djandoubi, was executed in 1977.

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 General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park, California, is the largest tree in the world. It weighs more than 6,000 tons.

The now-extinct ancestor of the horse, eohippus, had a short neck, a pug muzzle, and stood no higher than a medium-sized dog.

The ancient occupation of the "Gold Beater" was one who flattened out gold nuggets by hammering them in between the outside membrane of the large intestine from an ox (known as "Goldbeater skin") to produce the gold leaf used in decorative gilding. The adhesive used to attach this metal to paper or plaster, in ancient times and still today, is.....Read more

The White House receives approximately 6,000 visitors a day and has 6 floors (two are basements), 132 rooms, 32 bathrooms, 147 windows, 412 doors, 12 chimneys, 3 elevators, and 7 staircases. It takes 570 gallons of white paint to cover the outside.

Salt Lake City, Utah, gets an average of 17 inches more snow annually than Fairbanks, Alaska. Santa Fe, New Mexico, gets an average of 9 inches more snow each year than New Haven, Connecticut.

The Bear Road Elementary School children in North Syracuse were instrumental in getting the Governor to sign a bill making the Apple Muffin the official New York State muffin.

France is the largest Western European country. Its area is slightly less than twice the size of Colorado.

In 1962, University of Utah student Nolan Bushnell received his first exposure to video games, playing Spacewar in the University's computer lab. Bushnell spent the next 7 years trying to reproduce Spacewar on a smaller, less expensive computer. When it was finally completed in 1971, Bushnell's Spacewar variation (dubbed "Computer Space"), ...Read more

The country with the most post offices is India with over 152,792, compared with just over 38,000 in the United States.

The term "sandlot baseball" originated in San Francisco. The term dates to the 1860s when a cemetery that stands where the Civic Center is now located was converted into a park. A sand hill was leveled to create a 17-acre park, which became known as the sandlots.

Libra the Scales is the only inanimate symbol in the zodiac.

Alchemy refers to both an early protoscience and an early philosophical discipline, both combining elements of chemistry, metallurgy, physics, medicine, astrology, semiotics, mysticism, spiritualism, and art. Alchemy has been practiced in Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Persia, India, and China, in Classical Greece and Rome, in the Islamic ...Read more

After signing a major label deal with Elektra Records in 1984, Metallica released a new album entitled Master of Puppets on February 21, 1986. The album is regarded by many fans as their finest work and is considered by some to be the greatest heavy metal album of all time. Despite the fact that no singles were ever released for the album...Read more

In the city of Reykjavik, Iceland, one can see the stars eighteen hours a day during the heart of the winter. During the summer, sunlight is visible 24 hours a day.