Karen Hill

In 1841, the London Times carried a most unusual classified ad. It was placed by a young woman interested in wallpapering her bedroom walls. And she wanted to do it with postage stamps! This young woman thus became the world’s first philatelist, or stamp collector. The millions of philatelists the world over who followed her … Read more

Historians are not certain how the United States began using the $ as a dollar sign. Some believe that it came from a design marked on old Spanish coins called pieces of eight. These pieces of eight were used by Americans as dollars before they coined their own silver dollars. A Spanish piece of eight … Read more

You’d probably like to have the government send it to you, naturally! But the Treasury Department has other ideas. Every day, it collects worn and dirty bills, 4-5 tons of them! Which are too old and worn to be used. These bills are destroyed in a machine called a macerator, which shreds $1,000,000 a minute … Read more

Perhaps you noticed that United States dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and silver dollars have ridges, or grooves, around their edges. They were not put there for decoration, but had a very important purpose at one time in history. During our country’s earlier years, all coins were made of gold or silver, and did not have ridges. … Read more

Surprisingly enough, the answer is 292 ways. If you used all the different American coins minted, pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars, you could actually come up with these 292 different ways. There’s 100 pennies; 20 nickels; 10 dimes; 4 quarters; 2 half-dollars; 1 half-dollar and 2 quarters; 1 half-dollar and 5 dimes; 1 half-dollar, … Read more

Although most of the paper money issued by our government have portraits of presidents, not all do. The presidents who do appear on bills are: George Washington on the $1; Thomas Jefferson on the $2; Abraham Lincoln on the $5; Andrew Jackson on the $20; Ulysses S. Grant on the $50; William McKinley on the … Read more

If you started to count today and continued counting day and night, without stopping, for the rest of your life, you would never get to a last number, because there isn’t one. In the exploration of counting’s limits, we unravel the concept of the last largest number one can count to, delving into the complexities … Read more

Naturally, how long it takes depends on how fast you can count. But if you can count from 1 to 100 in one minute, and you keep counting every minute, without stopping, for eight hours every day (taking time off to eat, sleep, and go to school), you would reach 1 million in 20 days, … Read more

Sounds like some strange animal or a creature from outer space, doesn’t it? But it’s neither of them. A googol is a number, a very large number. You are probably familiar with numbers such as: 1 + 6 zeroes = 1,000,000, one million 1 + 9 zeroes = 1,000,000,000, one billion 1 + 12 zeroes … Read more

1,000,000 seconds equals 11.6 days. 1,000,000 minutes equals 1.9 years. 1,000,000 inches equals 15.7 miles. 1,000,000 feet equals 189.4 miles. 1,000,000 pennies, stacked one on top of another, reach almost one mile high. 1,000,000 dollar bills weigh 2,000 pounds!

The record for the longest letter was established in 1952, during the Korean War. A lady in Brooklyn, New York, wrote to her boyfriend, a private in the U.S. Army, serving in Korea. Instead of using regular writing paper, this ingenious lady used the narrow tape that is found on adding machines, 3,200 feet of … Read more

For the record of the world’s shortest letter, we have to travel back to 1862 in France. The noted writer Victor Hugo had just completed his latest novel, Les Miserables, and had gone away on a vacation. But he was most anxious to learn how the book was selling, so he wrote the following letter … Read more

Although you probably sang the nursery rhyme about London Bridge falling down when you were a child, the actual bridge never quite got that far. The London Bridge going across the Thames River was a stone structure built in the 12th century. At the time, it replaced a wooden one that had been built two … Read more

Long, long ago, people believed that toads used certain mushrooms to sit on. They also believed that toads were poisonous creatures and so the mushrooms they sat on were thought to be poisonous too. But we know today that toads are NOT poisonous creatures. And we also know that very few, if, indeed, any at … Read more

The confetti we throw today at newlyweds and returning heroes is a way of honoring them on special occasions or celebrating their accomplishments. But these little bits of colored paper did not begin as paper at all. Hundreds of years ago, the celebration of carnival days in Italy gave merrymakers an excuse for boisterous carryings-on. … Read more

When you speak or shout or sing or even whisper, the vibrations of your voice send sound waves through the air. These sound waves travel out from your mouth in all directions, out straight, to the right, to the left, and to all the places in between. But when you cup your hands around your … Read more

Many people learning English find it a very difficult language to pronounce and spell. Many writers, too, complain about this very same thing, since a sound can be spelled by several different letters, and a letter can have several different sounds. One very famous English writer, George Bernard Shaw, felt very strongly about this. One … Read more

The expression “slapstick comedy” today refers to low, rough humor, rather than the kind that uses words to put across a joke. Typical examples of slapstick are a comic fall and a custard pie in the face. The word “slapstick” goes back to the 17th century Italian pantomime theater. Because pantomine uses no words, the … Read more

Even though we call 365 days a year, the earth does not revolve around the sun in 365 days. Rather, it takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to do this. The extra time is made up by adding one extra day to the end of February every four years, EXCEPT in … Read more

All things made of wood, furniture, stairs, and all parts of houses, keep changing size because wood expands with heat and contracts with the cold. Wood also swells when the air is moist, then shrinks when the air is dry. So when you walk up stairs at night and you hear them creak, they probably … Read more

Lie detectors cannot actually identify lies; all they can do is detect certain activities of a person’s body that are usually associated with lying: abnormal perspiration and flushing of the face, rapid breathing, increased heartbeat, and excessive swallowing. Because this method does not actually guarantee the truth, the results are not generally accepted as evidence … Read more

The only country in the world today that can make such a claim is Israel. And the language is Hebrew. Here’s how it began. Thousands of years ago, Hebrew was the spoken language of the Jews in their homeland. But as cruel pharaohs drove them out and they scattered, the language slowly fell into disuse … Read more

You have probably seen and heard a great many words in the English language that end with “ology.” This is a suffix, which comes from a Greek word meaning “the study of.” Some of the more familiar words using this suffix are: anthropology, the study of man astrology, the study of the influence of the … Read more

The busts of four American presidents carved into the side of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota hold the record as the world’s largest sculpture. The heads alone of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt stand 60 feet high. Had their whole bodies been carved as well, each man … Read more

All your troubles would be over if you had a magic square! At least that’s what people believed long ago in China, India, Greece, and Rome. A magic square is an arrangement of numbers in the shape of a square. The numbers are arranged so that the sum of each horizontal row, each vertical column, … Read more

Although garlic is most often used today to season foods, it had many other uses, mostly superstitious, throughout history. The ancient Romans, for example, fed it to their soldiers because they believed it had the power to make the fighting men strong and courageous. In the Middle Ages, garlic was eaten as a defense against … Read more

Perhaps you thought it was John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Most people do! Back in the 1980s, the busiest airport in the entire world was Chicago International Airport, also called O’Hare Field. At O’Hare, planes took off and landed every 42.5 seconds around the clock. That means 85 take-offs and landings every … Read more

There is no such thing as an “air pocket.” When someone has been on an airplane trip and says, “We hit an air pocket and boy did we drop for a few seconds!” he is really talking about a downdraft. A downdraft is a downward current of air or wind. An “air pocket,” or a … Read more

Since the time of the ancient Egyptians, people have worn charms, or talismans, for two reasons, to ward off evil or disease, and to bring good fortune. Not only were these charms worn by living Egyptians, but they were also placed inside the coffins of mummies to assure them a happy afterlife. Among the most … Read more

Sailors making their first trip across the equator must take part in a special rowdy “first-crossing” ritual. An older, more experienced sailor acts the part of Neptune, King of the Sea, and directs other sailors in ceremonially dunking each of the first crossers into the water.

The annoying housefly “bugs” people living in all states, except Alaska. Because of Alaska’s cold climate, flies cannot breed there. However, some houseflies have been known to visit Alaska, coming in on planes and ships, but they live only a short time and cannot reproduce because of the cold.

Although most kids probably hate to take either, you might be interested in knowing that the bathtub in your house holds between 40 and 45 gallons of water. But when you take a shower, say for about five minutes, you are using only about 15 to 20 gallons of water. So if you are interested … Read more

A Chinese book written in 200 B.C. mentions a method of relieving pain and treating disease which was old even at that time. This ancient procedure, called acupuncture, is still practiced today, not only in China, but in many parts of the Western World as well. Acupuncture is based on the idea that everything in … Read more

In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans were fond of making lists of structures man had built, structures so big or so unusual that any traveler visiting a particular country would have to see them. The following seven structures, or wonders, are what these ancient people considered the biggest or most unusual in their time. … Read more

As usually described, the rope trick is performed in India by a fakir, a Muslim beggar who claims to perform miracles. The fakir begins to chant a story of what he is doing, as he takes out a rope, which rises and stiffens instead of falling down. Then the fakir bids a young boy, his … Read more

No! “Cat’s Cradle” is the name of a string game in which children loop string around their fingers. It is a game played by children everywhere today. Cat’s cradle did not originate as a child’s game; rather it goes back to adult uses of string all over the world. For example, in the Far East, … Read more

To understand the reason, we must consider two groups of believers. The first group says that all living things are somehow connected. In order to thrive, plants, just like animals and people, need to sense that they are loved. Thinking warm thoughts and saying encouraging things to a plant will have a good effect on … Read more

Although it may look like one, the ouija board is not considered a toy by many people who believe in its powers. A ouija board is a rectangular board containing an arch formed by all the letters of the alphabet. The words “yes” and “no” appear on either side, and the numbers 1 through 10 … Read more

In the Mid-East country of Iran, many villagers in outlying areas gather around a central dish of food on the floor for a community meal. They sit in a kneeling position, because according to the laws of their prophet, Mohammed, that position showed sympathy for slaves who had to kneel before their masters. After washing … Read more

If you ever get to attend a wedding feast of the Bedouin tribes of Africa, you will be served the largest single dish of food in the world. It is a whole roasted camel stuffed in an Amazing way. First, cooked eggs are stuffed into fish. Next, the fish are stuffed into cooked chickens. The … Read more

To civilized people, the practice of cannibalism, or eating human flesh, is a horrible thought! Yet it was practiced by many primitive tribes and may still be practiced in some parts of the world today. These tribes didn’t eat human flesh because they liked it; they did it because it was usually part of a … Read more

Some Eskimo tribes and some South Sea Island tribes consider belching at the end of the meal a form of politeness. It is their way of saying to a host, “Thank you. The food was excellent.”

Although the boy king, Tutankhamen, was a rather unimportant ruler 3200 years ago in Ancient Egypt, dying at the age of 18, the discovery of his tomb in 1922 gave the world its first “real-life” examples of these ancient peoples’ practice of burying their pharaohs with their treasures. Archeologist Howard Carter had been searching for … Read more

A trip from the floor to the rim of the Grand Canyon will take you on a tour of one billion years of the earth’s history. The gorges, canyons, and ravines of Arizona’s natural wonder were created by the Colorado River as its rushing waters cut into the rocks. It is the largest land gorge … Read more

For hundreds of years, wooden shoes, called klompen, were worn by most Dutch people for very practical purposes. Because much of Holland lies below sea level, there are a great many areas that are marshy and damp. It is from these areas that Holland, or its real name The Netherlands, meaning “low lands,” got its … Read more

The real-estate game of Monopoly is the all-time best-seller among board games. Since it was introduced in 1935 and up through 1974, more than 80,000,000 sets have been sold! The company that manufactures the game, Parker Brothers, prints $18,500,000,000,000 (181/4 trillion dollars) worth of play money for Monopoly every year. This is more than the … Read more

The frankfurter, like the hamburger, had its beginnings in Germany, where as a sausage it was served on a plate with a piece of bread and a pile of sauerkraut on the side. It wasn’t until the frankfurter came to America that the hot-dog-on-a-bun was created. Sausages had been a popular dish throughout Europe for … Read more

Absolutely not! Hamburger is made of ground-up beef. Its name came not from what’s in it, but from the place it originated Hamburg, Germany. However, the idea of ground-up meat can be traced even farther away, to the Baltic countries. There, in the Middle Ages the Tartar people scraped raw meat, seasoned it with salt, … Read more

Have you ever picked up a large shell on the beach and held it to your ear? If so, you were probably amazed to hear sounds, like the roar of the ocean, reach your ear from inside the shell. But how could that be? Well, it can’t! This is simply an exciting idea created perhaps … Read more

First of all, the jumping bean is not actually a bean; it’s a seed. And it doesn’t actually jump; rather, it rolls and tumbles. The Mexican Jumping bean is really a three-celled bean pod that grows in Chihuahua, Mexico. It is the seed of the yerba de flecha, a Mexican rubber tree plant. The plant’s … Read more

The bell we now call the Liberty Bell was originally ordered by the Assembly of the colony of Pennsylvania from a foundry in England. When the bell arrived from England in 1752 and was hung in the State House in Philadelphia, it was simply called the State House Bell. The first time that the new … Read more

Many people believe that a fork-shaped twig can locate water if that twig is placed in the hands of the right person. That person is called a dowser. If, for example, a farmer wants to dig a well on his property, it would be very costly to dig just anywhere and come up with nothing. … Read more

Since the United States Postal Service introduced the system of zip codes, mail has been getting delivered more quickly and more efficiently. Here’s how zip codes work. The United States and its possessions are divided up into 10 large areas. Each area has a number between 0 and 9. Suppose, for example, the zip code … Read more

You may have wondered why, since it was Columbus who discovered America, why wasn’t it named Columbia, after him? Historians tell us that when Columbus discovered our land, he didn’t believe that he had found a new continent; he simply believed that he had found an unexplored part of the continent of Asia. He even … Read more

Spook Hill is a most unusual street in Lake Wales, Florida. While there are no spooks, ghosts, or goblins living on the street, the strange and mysterious happenings there have given Spook Hill its name. If you were standing at the bottom of Spook Hill and dropped a ball, the ball would roll uphill! If … Read more

Beginning in the Stone Age and up through the early 20th century, there have been tribes of head-hunters in different parts of the world. These people believed that a man’s soul was located in his head, and by capturing the heads of their enemies, they would benefit their own people, increase their cattle, and improve … Read more

When bread is old, it develops a furry, green or gray coat called mold. Mold is actually a patch of tiny plants which grow more rapidly than the weeds in your garden. Since no one “plants” this mold on the bread, where then does it come from? The plant’s spores, which are its reproductive bodies, … Read more

The doughnut didn’t always have a hole! These round, flat, fried cakes were once filled, with soggy centers. At least, that’s the way they were eaten when early Dutch settlers brought them to Colonial America. Then in 1847, a 15-year-old boy, Hanson Crockett Gregory, was in the kitchen of his Rockport, Maine, home watching his … Read more

One of America’s favorite Chinese dishes, Chop Suey, is not Chinese at all! Even though it is served in thousands of Chinese restaurants all over the country, this dish of meat, fish, bean sprouts, celery, onions, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms is definitely American in origin. Chop Suey is said to have been created in a … Read more

It may seem difficult to believe but the average American adult eats 525 pounds of food each year of his life. Taking a life span of 70 years, that person will eat: 35 turkeys 23 hogs 14 head of cattle 2 calves 12 sheep 880 chickens 770 pounds of fish. By now, you’re probably not … Read more

You probably have been slapping a few pieces of bologna or spreading some peanut butter and jelly between two slices of bread for as long as you can remember and calling it a sandwich. But there wasn’t always a thing called a sandwich. Here’s how the sandwich was born. The sandwich began in the 1700s, … Read more

In the Himalaya Mountains of Tibet, local legends describe a creature who has been named the Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman. People who claim to have seen him say he is a hairy beast with a large apelike body and a near-human face. He is said to be about 8 feet tall, with long brown … Read more

About 90 million years ago, huge animals roamed our land and seas. We know that dinosaurs have become extinct, but we do not know for certain what has happened to such huge sea beasts as the forty-foot-long mosasaurs. Could they have managed to survive in the deep lakes and oceans? In Loch Ness, a 750-foot … Read more

Although American police departments were formed after a study of the British police system, American policemen did not inherit the British nickname for their officers. Instead, American policemen became known as “cops” or “coppers.” There are two theories as to how these names came about. Some say that because New York policemen once wore an … Read more

Although London established its first police force of sixty-eight men in 1737, the city’s growth during the next two hundred years produced a great deal of poverty, rioting, and looting. Then in 1829, Sir Robert Peel formed the London Metropolitan Police. It was a large, well-trained force that was much more effective than any earlier … Read more

OOBE stands for “out of body experience,” a name given to an unusual kind of travel. Some people believe that we all really have two bodies, a physical body and a spiritual body. Furthermore, they believe that it is possible to separate the two, and to send just the spiritual body on a trip. In … Read more

Yes! There is probably more than 4 billion dollars in lost treasure scattered throughout the United States. Lost and never found. Where did it come from? Some of it is loot buried by robbers, loot that was never recovered because the men were either shot or hung before they could dig it up. Some of … Read more

In Ancient Rome, rich families had a special cake which was used only in wedding ceremonies. At one point in the ceremony, the guests broke the cake over the bride’s head. This symbolized their wish for a life of wealth and happiness for the young couple. Then each guest would scramble for the crumbs of … Read more

The custom of tying old shoes to a newly married couple’s car to announce their happy news goes far back in history to a time when cars were not yet invented and probably not even thought about. During these early times, the bride’s father gave all her old shoes to her new husband. This was … Read more

Rice has been a part of wedding ceremonies for many centuries because throughout the ages it was a symbol for fruitfulness, a wish for the couple to have great prosperity and many children. But the rice was used in different ways by different societies. In some societies, the rice was worn or carried by the … Read more

Although a bride wears a veil today to look attractive, this was not why veils were originally worn in wedding ceremonies. In ancient societies, marriages were usually arranged by the parents of the bride and groom. And it was the custom that the groom should not see his bride until their wedding day, when part … Read more

The custom of having a best man at a wedding goes back to earliest times, when a groom set out to simply capture his bride. Usually, several good friends including one leader accompanied him, heavily armed. These warriors defended the groom against other men who might try to capture the bride or even against the … Read more

Old Roman law required ten witnesses at every wedding to make it legal. But because these ancient people were highly superstitious, they believed that evil spirits envied the happiness of the bride and groom. So they had several of these witnesses dress exactly like the bride and groom to confuse the evil spirits and prevent … Read more

Throughout history, there have been three types of weddings. The first type was the marriage of primitive man, who simply stole the woman he wanted for his wife and dragged her off to his cave. The second type, as man became more civilized, was marriage by contract or purchase. In this type, the groom bought … Read more

When a person is hypnotized, he is usually in a kind of trance, but is wide awake and aware of everything happening around him. He is different from a sleeping person because he can walk, talk, write, and be active in any way that the hypnotist suggests. In order for a person to be hypnotized, … Read more

UFOs, or Unidentified Flying Objects, definitely do exist. That is, objects in the sky or objects landing from the sky have been reported by highly trustworthy people. Some of these people have even photographed them. But only some of these objects have been identified. Each year, the U.S. government receives hundreds of reports of these … Read more

A perpetual calendar is one that shows the day of the week for any year, past, present, or future, you might want to look up. The 14 calendars show when any date falls from the year 1776 to the year 2000. Simply look in the index for the year of your choice and find the … Read more

In 335 B.C., the Greek philosopher and writer, Plato, wrote a tale about a splendid empire on a mythical island in ‘ the Atlantic Ocean. He called this empire Atlantis. But historians and writers down through the ages have questioned whether Plato’s tale was truth or fiction. According to Plato, Atlantis had a very advanced … Read more

Gargoyles are weird stone figures which are half human and half animal or half bird. They sit on edges of roofs of many old cathedrals, palaces, and other buildings. But these frightening figures are not there to frighten away passers-by; they serve a very useful purpose. Gargoyles are actually waterspouts to catch the rain as … Read more

Pictures and written records show that candy was made and eaten in Ancient Egypt over 4,000 years ago. These records show that honey, figs, and dates were the chief sweetening ingredients, since sugar was not yet known. As the taste for candy spread, each tribe had its own candy-maker, who guarded his secret recipes very … Read more

No. Even though the part of the potato we eat grows in the ground, it is not the root of the plant. It is the underground part of the stem that has thickened. This part of the stem is called a tuber. Tubers thicken and grow big because they store the food supply for the … Read more

The small dents in a potato are what people have long been calling its “eyes.” But these eyes are really buds on the potato, buds that have not developed. However, these buds are important to potato farmers, for it is from them that new potato plants will grow. Each potato is cut apart, with a … Read more

Of the 56 men who signed this important document in American history, only one man actually signed it on that historic date. That man was John Hancock, whose name appears above and larger than all the other names. It wasn’t until August 2, 1776 that 52 other men signed it, for it was then that … Read more

The Pentagon, which is the headquarters of the United States government’s Department of Defense, was the biggest office building in the world when it opened on January 15, 1943. It lies on the west bank of the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, just across from Washington, D.C. The Pentagon was named for its shape, which … Read more