Jack Broughton was one of the most revered boxing figures in England. He was buried at Westminster Abbey, the burial place of British nobility, although Broughton was not a member of English royalty.

Astronomers know that over the next few billion years, the sun will swell so large as to envelop Earth. If we're still here, we'll probably fry and the planet will be vaporized. There's a chance, however, that the changing mass of the sun will cause Earth to move into a more distant and pleasant orbit. One mathematical calculation shows it would...Read more

In 1916, Jones Wister of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania invented a rifle for shooting around corners. It had a curved barrel and periscopic sights.

Abraham Lincoln offered this timeless, usually unheeded, piece of advice to lawyers: "Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbor to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough."

While in no danger of outright extinction, the most common edible banana cultivar 'Cavendish' (extremely popular in Europe and the Americas) could become unviable for large-scale cultivation in the next 10-20 years. Its predecessor 'Gros Michel' has already suffered this fate. Like almost all bananas, it lacks genetic diversity, which makes it ...Read more

The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad.

With its duplex suites starting at $1,095 and reaching $18,000 per night, the Burj al-Arab, or tower of the Arabs, the world's tallest hotel, opened on December 1, 1999. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan was the suite's first guest, staying there the month before the hotel's official opening. As a guest of the premier hotel, you can take a ...Read more

The Modern Prometheus is the novel's subtitle. Prometheus, in some versions of Greek mythology, was the Titan who created mankind, and Victor's work by creating man by new means obviously reflects that creative work. Prometheus was also the bringer of fire who took fire from heaven and gave it to man. Zeus then punished Prometheus by fixing him ...Read more

Holmes never said these famous words, at least not in the canonical works written by Conan Doyle. The first appearance of “Elementary, my dear Watson” is in the 1909 PG Wodehouse novel Psmith, Journalist. However, Holmes neither says it nor does he appear in the book. Thus the first use by Sherlock Holmes himself is postulated to have ...Read more

The creme filling used in Oreo cookies one year could ice all the wedding cakes served in the United States for two years! That's 4,724,000 three-tier wedding cakes.

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

Olympic (or Amateur) boxing is found at the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games. Olympic boxing prizes point scoring rather than physical damage or knockouts. Bouts comprise four rounds of two minutes in Olympic and Commonwealth, and three rounds of two minutes in a national ABA (Amateur Boxing association) bout, each with a one-minute interval...Read more

Famous writer Oscar Wilde bragged that he gave his talent to his work and saved his genius for his life.

Jim Morrison found the name "The Doors" for his rock band in the title of Aldous Huxley's book "The Doors of Perception, which extolls the use of hallucinogenic drugs.

One of Napoleon's drinking cups was made from the skull of the famous Italian adventurer Cagliostro.

The Black Mission fig, the most popular variety of fig growing in desert areas, is so named because of its color and because it was the variety introduced at the California and Southwestern Spanish missions.

Scientists can condense matter to greater densities and temperature than those at the center of the sun. Fusion-energy research at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California uses 20 laser beams to concentrate on targets so tiny that dozens can be gathered on the head of the pin.

When barbecuing, wait until the final 5 to 15 minutes of cooking time to put on the BBQ sauce -- this helps prevent scorching.

The first recorded use of the term spyware occurred on October 17, 1994 in a Usenet post that poked fun at Microsoft's business model. Spyware later came to refer to espionage equipment such as tiny cameras. However, in early 2000 the founder of Zone Labs, Gregor Freund, used the term in a press release for the ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall. ...Read more

Greyhounds have the best eyesight of any breed of dog.