Karen Hill

In 1911, nobody had ever flown across America in an airplane. A motorcycle driver named Calbraith P. Rodgers decided to try to make the trip even though he had had only 70 hours training as a pilot. His airplane was owned by the manufacturer of a popular soft drink and was called the Vin Fizz. … Read more

According to a recent Gallup poll, the kids who hate school the most come from that most polite of all nations, Japan. Why do Japanese children dislike school? Psychologists reason that it is because great pressure it put on Japanese children to get high marks in school. It is said that unless you have very … Read more

In many parts of the world, man is losing his battle against the desert. Iran is one place where he is winning. Iran’s desert is twice the size of the state of Vermont. Parts of it are being sprayed with oil. The oil dries to a gray crust that works like a mulch, protecting the … Read more

Men can hit baseballs harder than women can. They can pick up heavier objects and run faster than women. But are men stronger than women? Their muscles are stronger, that’s all. Women are much stronger than men when it comes to pushing away disease and staying healthy. They are stronger when it comes to living … Read more

It took 35 years to build his tomb, and 700,000 workers were brought from every part of China to do the work. When he was finally buried in it, in 210 B.C., the tomb was covered with earth. When the job was done, a small mountain fifteen stories high had been created. They called it … Read more

His name was Big Nose George Parrott, and he was one of the Old West’s meanest outlaws. He would just as soon murder you’ as shake your hand. When Big Nose Parrott held up a stagecoach, passengers and driver were lucky to come out alive. Big Nose’s luck finally ran out one day in Rawlins, … Read more

It angered King George of England that the pesty Americans had invented the lightning rod. How could a country bumpkin like Benjamin Franklin have invented anything to do with something so complicated as electricity. In the early 1770s, just before the American Revolution, England went ahead and began to install lightning rods on those buildings … Read more

One of our most famous presidents was a smuggler. He was never caught, but he only smuggled once. In 1784, congress asked Thomas Jefferson to travel to Europe to make treaties of friendship and to see if the European nations were interested in buying such American products as tobacco, whale oil, and furs. The European … Read more

They didn’t carry guns or, at least, they weren’t supposed to. But 9-year-olds served in the army during the American Revolution. They were drummer boys. Often, the sounds of their drums were used to send signals from one part of an army to another. More often, the drummer boys beat out the rhythm of a … Read more

Did a king ever give his Toenails as gifts? Yes. One king did, and he did it more than once. King Victor Emmanuel II was the first man to rule over a united Italy and was probably also the first to give away his toenails as presents. Every year while he was king, he allowed … Read more

He was sure his enemies would try to kill him if they knew where he would spend the night. To keep them guessing, he moved from palace to palace, never spending more than one night at a time in any one. They were always kept stocked with food, and each had servants ready to provide … Read more

The present queen of England was born on April 21, 1926, but her official birthday is in June. In fact, whether England has a king or a queen in charge, and no matter what month they are really born, their official birthday is always celebrated in June. The reason is to give everybody a good … Read more

Reading is a very human activity. The act of reading is so complicated that even the most advanced computer can’t do it as well as you can. When you read, you take shortcuts, play hunches, figure things out in advance, and you make all these calculations almost instantly. You see letters in groups and the … Read more

Three of America’s Founding Fathers, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe, died on the Fourth of July. Of the three, James Monroe was the only one who fought in the American Revolution. He fought in many battles and was wounded twice, once at the Battle of Harlem Heights and once at the Battle of … Read more

In the country villages of remote areas of India, this has been going on for hundreds or thousands of years. Here it is the custom for girls to marry when they are 12 or 13. Recently, however, a law has been passed that forbids them from living with their husbands as a family until they … Read more

President Theodore Roosevelt and his family had the most pets. Many were kept at the White House, but most lived at the “Summer White House” in Long Island, New York. If you made a trip to the summer place, you might see a lion, hyena, wildcat, coyote, five bears, an eagle, an owl, a zebra, … Read more

The Queen of England has the tiny stove, and she has a working refrigerator six inches high, a one inch-high kitchen scale that actually weighs things, a five-inch vacuum cleaner that sucks up dust, and a golden, carved piano eight inches from front to back on which every black and white key plays its own … Read more

Shortly before he became king of France in 1830, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, spent some time traveling in the United States. He and his two younger brothers stopped one night at an inn in Winchester, Virginia. The innkeeper, Mr. Bush, was delighted to have such an important guests, and he gave them the best … Read more

It doesn’t get very cold in the winter in the Indian city of Calcutta. Even had they heard of ice in 1833, most of the city’s people had never seen it. So, when Frederick Tudor’s ship arrived in Calcutta harbor with a shipment of ice from the ponds of New England, it caused a great … Read more

Early American pioneers found that living in separate cabins did not offer them protection from Indians. So all the settlers who lived near one another would get together and build a fort. They would construct cabins inside the fort along one wall. Like the rooms in modern motels, these cabins were in a straight line, … Read more

Queen Charlotte was the wife of George III, king of England during the American Revolution. Queen Charlotte was so fond of sniffing the powdered tobacco called snuff, that “Snuffy Charlotte” became her nickname. Colombus discovered natives of the New World smoking tobacco during his first voyage, but it wasn’t until 1532, forty years later, that … Read more

No, but those who wanted William Henry Harrison to become president did. During the campaign of 1840, Harrison’s friends made a large paper ball and rolled it all the way from Kentucky to Baltimore, Maryland, where the convention was to be held. They carried a sign that read, “Keep the Ball Rolling.” All this might … Read more

In 1823, Captain John Cleves Symmes, a war hero, went to talk to the members of the U. S. Congress. He asked them to give him a ship and a few brave scientists for a journey to the center of the earth. He planned to sail there by going down a hole he believed existed … Read more

The man who sells more big diamonds than any other dealer in the world is forbidden to have a picture taken of his face. His name is Harry Winston, and because the police and insurance companies are afraid he will be kidnapped or robbed, what he looks like remains a mystery. In a picture, his … Read more

John II was king of France during one of the nation’s wars with England. He was captured by the English in 1356 at the Battle of Poitiers. Since he was a king, the English didn’t want to keep him in jail, they wanted to exchange him for money. They released him when he promised he … Read more

President John Quincy Adams, president from 1825 to 1829, got caught nude. He was an early riser. He was often up at 4 AM while it was still dark outside. He did this so he would have the time to write in his personal diary. However, on the mornings when it was very warm, the … Read more

His name was Robert Todd Lincoln. He was the oldest son of Abraham Lincoln, and he thought he was a jinx. He had the terrible bad luck to be present at the assassinations of three US presidents. Young Lincoln was away at college during most of the years his father was president. He returned to … Read more

There are a lot of crazy automobile drivers in this world, but it is the Japanese who take the cake. They have more accidents than anybody else, based on the size of their population. Not many people get killed in these accidents. Not many people even get injured. They just keep bumping into one another, … Read more

President Reagan liked to take a few weeks off to spend time at his ranch in California, but he worked at being president even while he is there. President Eisenhower loved to play golf and could be found on the golf course two or three times a week. But the man who liked to escape … Read more

Do you hear a lot of griping and complaining around you? Are your friends always saying this is wrong, that is terrible, and that other thing ought to be changed? Well, if you hear a lot of that here in the US, you ought to hear what’s going on in Italy and Japan. More people … Read more

Men with four-inch fingernails? During the late 1800s and even during the early 1900s, it was the custom among the ruling classes and the very wealthy of China for men to allow one fingernail to grow to a length of four or five inches. Because such a fingernail could not possibly remain on the hand … Read more

It was President Lyndon B. Johnson. He served marvelous steaks, baked potatoes, corn pudding, and pecan pie. President Johnson was a very good and fast walker. Because he didn’t like to waste time, he often called press conferences at the last minute and had the reporters ask questions while he was taking one of his … Read more

Humpback Whales are indeed social animals among humans. They are easily approachable, curious, and display many behaviors such as breaching the water. This makes the animal ideal for whale watching. The humpback whales that come to the ocean waters off the Hawaiian Islands swim alongside people and have never been known to harm anyone. They … Read more

Long before Grover Cleveland became president, he was a sheriff in Erie County, New York. As a law officer, one of his duties was to be in charge of hangings. While he was a sheriff, he had to hang two criminals. Cleveland was always a very busy man. In the course of three and a … Read more

Throughout most of the world during the 1600s, most men wore hats all the time. They would wear them inside their own home, at meals, in bed, outside, and on any important occasion. There is no exact record of the date when it began to be thought impolite to do some of these things. Ever … Read more

Except for his boots, an Eskimo’s complete winter outfit weighed only 10 pounds, yet he was able to stay warm in the very coldest weather. How? He knew the secret of using air as insulation. His cold-weather clothes consisted of two suits of trousers and shirts worn over each other, a hooded parka, and a … Read more

To make them look old, of course. Sounds silly, but it is true. If a cowboy wore a new hat, he might be taken for a “tenderfoot,” a newcomer. Even if an old-time Westerner wore a new hat, he was teased about it. The men of the Old West wanted their hats to look old … Read more

A stewardess, Vesna Vulovic, flying for a Yugoslav airline, fell from a height of over 31,000 feet and lived to fly again and again. On January 26, 1972, the DC-9 on which she was working blew up at 33,330 feet while flying over Czechoslovakia. When she was found, she was strapped to an airline seat … Read more

One hundred thirty miles southwest of Tokyo, Japan, in the city of Hamamatsu, men fight with kites every year during three days in early May. The combat began many centuries ago, when the ruler of the region celebrated the birth of his first son by flying kites. Two million people a year come to see … Read more

In France at the end of the 1700s, women wore their hair in the strangest fashion you can imagine. They wore wigs that rose two and a half to three feet above their heads. Some of the women were so tall they had to ride on the floor of their carriages in order to fit … Read more

Fire walkers can, and few people know how they do it. These amazing people, who live in Hawaii, India, and on certain islands of the South Pacific, actually walk on fire. A big trench is dug in the ground and is filled with fire. Eventually, it burns down to a bed of glowing, red-hot coals. … Read more

There is no proof that such a thing is possible, but there have been people who seemed to be able to foresee the future. One such person was David Goodman Croly, a successful journalist who lived between 1829 and 1889. One of the things he foresaw long before it happened was World War I. He … Read more

It is western Burma, and the women with the long necks are the tribeswomen of Padaung. Brass rings worn around the necks of the women make their necks look as though they were twelve inches long. Each of the rings is one-third of an inch in diameter. There are 36 of them, and they weigh … Read more

Such a man was Kuda Bux. Bux was a Pakistani who made his living displaying his amazing talent to paying viewers. Doctors all over the world examined and tested him, and none could ever call his remarkable ability a trick. Through the heaviest bandages, he could read books and newspapers. The bandages were often applied … Read more

That famous “hole in the ground” is the subway. England is the home of the subway. The first system, called the London Transport Executive, began to operate in 1863, while the United States was deeply involved in the Civil War. The Longest Subway System In The World is the The London Tube, with 408 km … Read more

Until the early 1960’s, headhunting was a common practice among the Ilonget tribesmen who live deep in the jungles of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. For a young man of this tribe, the taking of a human head was the way he demonstrated that he was brave and grown up. When he returned … Read more

Every joint in your body is slicker than a skate on ice. As a matter of fact, your body is so well lubricated at its joints that they have only one-third the friction of a sharp skate slicing its way over a hard-frozen pond. The human body is truly amazing. Did you know that a … Read more

Delivering fresh milk was a problem in the days before refrigeration. In small towns and cities around the world, a farmer often delivered milk to his customers in the freshest way he knew. He brought the cow with him. The customer bought what he or she needed. The cow delivered the milk right into the … Read more

The Indians of the Southwest and Mexico live in a hot, dry region. It is the kind of land where few plants can grow. Corn won’t grow there, but these original Americans had “popcorn.” They had no rubber trees, but by chewing the ends of a short plant until the sap came out and then … Read more

Recent scientific studies have proven that there is nothing as good for people as the light of the sun. That doesn’t mean sunburn, just plenty of natural light. The natural light of the sun produces certain hormones in our bodies, and these hormones tend to keep us from becoming sick. Our skin produces Vitamin D … Read more

Many people believe that Harry Houdini was the greatest escape artist of all time. And perhaps he was. He performed escapes all over the world while tied, chained, and weighted. He managed to escape from nearly every type of container. Many of his most exciting performances were escapes made while he was imprisoned underwater. Houdini … Read more

If birds and flowers can have inner clocks that tell them when to fly south or when to bloom, why can’t humans? Why can’t all animals? Scientists at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts are certain that they have found this special clock in the human brain. It tells us when to sleep and when to … Read more

SmokeJumpers jump just where you’d guess they might, into smoke. The name smoke jumper is given to a very special group of 350 forest firefighters. These man are trained to parachute from low-flying planes into parts of the forest that are hard to reach. Their job is to try to stop a forest fire before … Read more

Two of the most famous sharpshooters of all time were Annie Oakley and Daniel Boone. Annie toured with Bufffalo Bill’s Wild West show for 17 years during the late 1800’s. She was such a crack shot that the emperor of Germany performed in her act when the show came to his country. He would put … Read more

The Continental army, the American forces of the Revolutionary War, had its share of great athletes. George Washington was himself a fine wrestler and took on all corners. He was also a champion broad jumper. The title of “strongest” probably belongs to Peter Francisco, who at age 16, stood six feet six inches and weighed … Read more

Her name was Deborah Gannett. On May 21, 1782, she disguised herself as a man and enlisted in the Continental army as a soldier under the name Robert Shurtleff. She was a very good soldier, fought in many battles, and was wounded twice. When a British musket ball was buried in her leg, an officer … Read more

Amelia Earhart was one of America’s greatest airplane pilots. In 1937, when she and her navigator, Frederick J. Noonan, were attempting to fly 27,000 miles around the world, their plane suddenly disappeared without a trace. A radio message was received that said the gas supply was running low, but they didn’t sound worried. The last … Read more

Dwight David Eisenhower, the thirty-fourth president of the United States, played semi-pro baseball for a short time between graduating from high school and attending West Point. Known by his nickname, “Ike,” he was born in Denison, Texas, but two years later his family moved to Abilene, Kansas. His family was too poor for him to … Read more

On a spring afternoon in May, 1823, a youth appeared out of nowhere, staggering along the streets of Nuremburg, Germany. He asked to be taken to the military fort, where he handed the officer in charge two letters that said his first name was Casper and that he was 13 years old. The letters requested … Read more

After fifteen years of spectacular robberies, the Wild West’s most notorious outlaw, Jesse James, was shot in the back by two members of his gang. They were out to collect a $10,000 reward for his capture, “dead or alive.” The strange thing was that when they brought his body in, they were arrested for murder … Read more

Mathew Brady was a photographer, and he became famous because he was the first American to shoot and document a war. Brady’s 3,500 photographs taken during the Civil War provided the very first such record of any American war. The pictures he took brought the real meaning of the fighting to the families at home. … Read more

Yes, it’s true. They eat not only dirt, but newspaper, wood, starch, charcoal, and lumps of clay. They don’t do it as a joke. Thy eat these non-foods because they feel they must. They have what is known as a craving for them. Nobody knows why such cravings exist or what need is filled when … Read more

They would, could, and do. It is a custom among the Brahman people of southern India that a younger son cannot marry before his older brother does. When it looks like the older son cannot find anyone to marry, and the younger son has already found a willing wife, an odd thing happens. The older … Read more

Francis Henry Egerton, the eighth Earl of Bridgewater was a British eccentric. The earl owned many dogs and dressed them in tiny, well-made leather boots. Every evening, he dined with a dozen of his dogs at his large dining room table. Since he owned more than twelve dogs, the dogs had to wait their turn … Read more

President Grant did when he visited Central City, Colorado. It was 1873, and Central City was in the middle of a gold and silver mining boom. Throughout Colorado and elsewhere, the town was known as the “richest square mile on earth.” That claim may or may not have been true, but for awhile the town … Read more

Petalesharo was the son of a Skidi Pawnee Chief whose tribe had captured a young and beautiful Comanche girl in the year 1817. For an entire year she was treated like a royal princess, unaware that she was soon to die as part of a human sacrifice ritual. At the appointed time, she was given … Read more

Blackbeard the Pirate used to put lighted matches under his hat so he could enjoy the sound and smell of his hair burning. Blackbeard’s real name was Edward Teach. He was born around 1680 in Bristol, England. From a very young age he wanted to be a pirate. In order to learn his “trade,” he … Read more

The Zulus are a tribe of people who live in Africa. When their country has been without rain for a long time, they bury their children in the earth leaving only their heads above ground. It is the Zulus’ belief that the sky will take pity on the youngsters and send down rain. When the … Read more

They don’t have presidents in India, but there is a group of people called Todas who think the milkman is the greatest hero on earth. They think he is far more important than a president. In fact, he is the most important man in town. In spite of the honor this man has, he has … Read more

It happened in 1914, during the early days of movies. Movie makers wanted real-life pictures for a war movie. They knew that Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary leader was about to go to war against the dictator of Mexico. The movie company signed a contract with Villa. Villa agreed to fight his war the way … Read more

The famous French poet Charles Baudelaire took great delight in shocking both his friends and strangers. One of his favorite pranks was to walk a lobster through the streets of Paris on a leash. A few years earlier, the famous Countess of Eglintoune tried to shock her friends in another way. She would invite them … Read more

Queen Elizabeth I got in a lot of trouble when she first ate with a fork. The leaders of the Church of England said that she had insulted God when she didn’t use her fingers to eat meat. Of course, all of this happened back in the 1600’s, right after the fork was invented. Before … Read more

Ludwig Van Beethoven, one of the greatest composers of all time, believed that having cold water poured over his head helped him to dream up beautiful music. Many people called “creative geniuses” have had strange ideas of what helps them create. The famous writer Charles Dickens said his bed always had to face the North … Read more

What this great American president hated was his nickname, Abe. He even disliked the nickname “Honest Abe.” Lincoln was honest, but he wasn’t above trickery. While serving as a state lawmaker, he had a very cunning trick. If he didn’t think his side was going to win a vote and knew that if he wasn’t … Read more

Because as a young man he had a dream in which he saw himself astride a horse and in battle unharmed by bullets and arrows. Behind his ear was a smooth stone, and in his long unbraided hair was the feather of a red hawk. Crazy Horse became convinced that so long as he was … Read more

When this great Sioux warrior died, he was secretly buried, and only his parents knew the location of his grave. They kept the secret, and it died with them. Chief Crazy Horse was the greatest of the Oglala Sioux and after he and Sitting Bull defeated General Custer, the U. S. Army decided that Crazy … Read more

Because the great pitcher Charles Albert Bender, better known as “Chief Bender,” was a Chippewa Indian, and the fans thought that making the “war whoops” would upset him and make him lose his pitching control. It didn’t. Bender would just call these fans “foreigners” and keep right on pitching his magical brand of baseball. Bender … Read more