Bottle caps, or "crowns," were invented in Baltimore in 1892 by William Painter. Painter proved his invention's worth when he convinced a local brewer to ship a few hundred cases of beer to South America and back and they returned without a leak.

One hundred years ago, visitors to Cave of the Winds in Colorado carried candles and lanterns along ghostly, dark halls that seemed to have no end. Today, cave enthusiasts can spend an hour or more with an authentically dressed 1800s guide, viewing truly spectacular rooms in the cave, using only the illumination from hand-held lanterns. One of ...Read more

Centipedes, or members of the class Chilopoda, always have an uneven number of pairs of walking legs, varying from 15 to more than 171 pairs. Common house centipedes (Scutigera coleoptrato) have 15 pairs of legs.

A leisure suit is a fashion of the 1970s, consisting of a shirtlike jacket and matching pants. Frequently the fabric used was double knit polyester though not all fashions using this fabric are automatically leisure. In fact, the fashion has some precedence in styles of the 70s and earlier, but only became popular when -- with the creation and ...Read more

A diamond will not dissolve in acid. The only thing that can destroy it is intense heat.

Glamorous sex kitten during the 1950s, starring in movies such as Trapeze and Solomon and Sheba, Gina Lollobridgida retired from films in the 1970s to become a professional photographer.

According to John Adams, "The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival." Adams's prediction was off by two days as Americans celebrated independence on July 4, the date shown on the Declaration ...Read more

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

Out of the 650 known species of leeches, Hirudo medicinalis is the most common used by doctors.

The hummingbird's tiny brain, 4.2% of its body weight, is proportionately the largest in the bird kingdom.

Though the Las Vegas sprawl measures 15 miles wide by 15 miles long, most of the 30 million tourists each year tend to mob the 6-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard that includes both the Strip, home to the city's glittering, impressive major casinos, and the downtown area.

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.

Because of their acute sense of smell, dogs are trained to sniff out everything from drugs to bombs to iron ore. In Ontario, Canada, instruments couldn't locate where natural gas was escaping from a pipeline buried 18 feet underground. Trained German shepherds were brought in. The dogs worked in sub-zero temperatures and covered nearly 100 miles...Read more

The Boeing 767 aircraft is a collection of 3.1 million parts from 800 different suppliers around the world: fuselage parts from Japan, center wing section from Southern California, and flaps from Italy.

A bubble is round because the air within it presses equally against all its parts, thus causing all surfaces to be equidistant from its center.

The term "feather in your cap" came from the American Indian tradition of obtaining feathers for headdresses. Birds were captured, some feathers plucked, and the birds were released. Each feather represented an act of bravery. The fashion of decorating hats with feathers declined in the twentieth century because too many birds were being ...Read more

In the sixteenth century, a Dutchman named Zacharias Janssen developed the microscope lens to such a high degree of refinement that it magnified with little distortion. He became famous for his accomplishment, and was nicknamed "Father of Microscopy." Ironically, Janssen was not trained as a

A flea is capable of jumping 13 inches in a single leap. In human terms, this would be equivalent to a person leaping 700 feet in one bound.

Edward VI did not desire that the Crown go to either the Lady Mary or the Lady Elizabeth; consequently, he excluded them from the line of succession in his will, which was unlawful, because it contradicted an Act of Parliament passed in 1544. Under the guidance of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, Edward VI instead devised the Crown to ...Read more