Dachshunds are the smallest breed of dog used for hunting. They are low to the ground, which allows them to enter and maneuver through tunnels easily.

When sailors speak of sheets (as in "four sheets to the wind"), they are not talking about sails. A sheet in nautical terminology is a rope or chain.

Lightning has hit the Empire State Building in New York as frequently as 12 times in 20 minutes. The building is hit by lightning about 500 times a year.

Floor cleaning products in Venezuela have ten times the pine fragrance of U.S. floor cleaners. Venezuelan women won't buy a weaker fragrance. These fastidious homemakers may wet-mop their tile floors twice a day, leaving windows and doors open so the scent can waft out to the street to send the

Australia's box jelly is the world's most dangerous jellyfish. Its toxin is more potent than cobra venom and can kill a person in minutes

The smallest visible sunspots have an area of 500 million square miles, about fifty times the size of Africa. The largest sunspots have an area of about 7,000 million square miles.

The squirrel monkey's brain accounts for roughly 5 percent of its body weight — the largest percentage of any other animal. The human brain, by comparison, makes up about 2.3 percent of body weight.

The United States was waging the Mexican War when gold was discovered in California. In fact, California was officially still Mexican territory at the time.

Perhaps not -- Cook's Illustrated conducted blind taste testings of vanillas, and the staff was surprised to find that, in baked goods, expensive, aromatic vanillas performed almost exactly the same as the cheaper brands of real vanilla. The differences virtually disappeared during cooking.

A pig is a hog -- but a hog is not a pig. "Hog" is a generic name for all swine. Per hog-raising terminology, a pig is a baby hog less than ten weeks old.

In Muddy, Illinois, the post office measures only 7½ by 10½ feet, about the size of a garden shed. If it wasn't for a sign hanging above the door stating, "U.S. Post Office, Muddy, IL., 62965," finding the tiny, wooden building could be difficult. It is believed to be one of the smallest post

The Mai Tai cocktail was created in 1945 by Victor Bergeron, the genius of rum, also known as Trader Vic. The drink got its name when he served it to two friends from Tahiti, who exclaimed "Maitai roa ae!" In Tahitian, the phrase means out of this world — the best!

As part of the samurai sword making process a sword tester took the new blade and cut through the bodies of corpses or condemned criminals. They started by cutting through the small bones of the body and moved up to the large bones. Test results were often recorded on the nakago (the metal piece

It is estimated that a plastic container can resist decomposition for as long as 50,000 years.

When young, the hoatzin, a crested, olive-colored South American bird, has claws on its wings.

There really are such thing as "cooties." Though most people believe that "cooties" is just a nonsense word used by children to describe unpleasant insects, cooties are in fact a kind of body lice.

There are more than 7,000 varieties of apples grown in the world. The apples from one tree can fill 20 boxes every year. Each box weighs an average 42 pounds.

The first coin minted in the United States was a silver dollar. It was issued on October 15, 1794.

Because its tongue is too short for its beak, the toucan must juggle its food before swallowing it.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, the wine industry was plagued with bad corks. These gave many wines a moldy, damp-basement smell and taste. Recent research has shown that the nastiness was not exclusively the fault of the corks. It came from insecticides in new wood used when many French wineries renovated their cellars in the prosperous 1980s. ...Read more