Badminton was once known as battledore and shuttlecock. The game as we know it today took its name from Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England - home of the Duke of Beaufort.

A highly coveted necktie is the Battle of Britain tie, which was designed by and is still sold at Gieves and Hawkes. Only British airmen who fought in the battle are entitled to wear this dark blue tie, which bears the rose of England and a tiny outline of the British Isles woven on it in gold. The company will only sell one after receiving ...Read more

American Margot Fraser "discovered" Birkenstock sandals while on a holiday in Germany in 1966. She gained relief from a foot condition, and founded a trading company called Birkenstock Footprint Sandals, Inc. in Novato, California, based on her enthusiasm for the sandals. Renamed Birkenstock Distribution USA, Inc. in 2005, it remains the ...Read more

The playing field at the new Arizona Bank One Ballpark (BOB) is the only field in Major League Baseball that faces directly north, unlike other fields, where the third-base line points north. The grass on the playing field is De Anza zoysia, a hybrid specially formulated for hot, desert climates. It tolerates low-light conditions well — an ...Read more

Pink elephants? In regions of India where the soil is red, elephants take on a permanent pink tinge because they regularly spray dust over their bodies to protect themselves against insects. The parades are optional.

The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome, Italy in 133 B.C. London, England reached the mark in 1810 and New York City, USA made it in 1875. Today, there are over 300 cities in the world that boast a population in excess of 1 million.

Besides exchanging gifts they eat turkey on Christmas Day, and in some places there are even community Christmas trees. They decorate their houses with evergreens and mistletoe, and in some homes Christmas carols are sung gaily.

In 1976, a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift officially married a 50-pound rock. The ceremony was witnessed by more than twenty people.

1918, Walt Disney was 16 -- too young for the military. When he heard that the Red Cross Ambulance Corps would accept 17-year-olds, he lied about his age, joined, and began training. He almost missed his chance when he came down with influenza in an epidemic that killed about 20 million people worldwide. The war ended. But the Ambulance Corps ...Read more

On August 12, 1895, Minnie Dean became the first woman to be hanged in New Zealand. Her crime was "baby farming." She would adopt unwanted babies for a certain fee and then dispose of them, a "service" she began in 1889. The police caught on to Minnie after six years and found her to be most certainly guilty when they dug up three bodies of ...Read more

According to the Hostess website, Christopher Sell invented the "fried twinkie" at the ChipShop, his restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. It was described by the New York Times in this way: "Something magical occurs when the pastry hits the hot oil. The creamy white vegetable shortening filling liquefies, impregnating the sponge cake with its ...Read more

There are some differences on driving in Japan that tourists should know. Motorists drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right, like in the United Kingdom. In areas where the cops are few, people routinely speed 30 km over the speed limit (50 kph), and taxi drivers are notorious for their aggressive driving. The ...Read more

It is not against the law in the U.S. to be a drug addict. In 1962, the Supreme Court called imprisonment for being an addict cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Bill of Rights.

Tennis pro Evonne Goolagong's last name means "kangaroo's nose" in one of Australia's aboriginal languages.

The brass family of instruments include the trumpet, trombone, tuba, cornet, flügelhorn, French horn, saxhorn, and sousaphone. While they are usually made of brass today, in the past they were made of wood, horn, and glass.

The modern Christmas custom of displaying a wreath on the front door of one's house, is borrowed from ancient Rome's New Year's celebrations. Romans wished each other "good health" by exchanging branches of evergreens. They called these gifts strenae after Strenia, the goddess of health. It became the custom to bend these branches into a ring ...Read more

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

The hum of a hummingbird comes from the super-fast beat of the wings. The smallest ones beat their wings the fastest - up to 80 times per second. Even the slower beat of bigger hummingbirds (20 times per second) is so fast you can only see a blur.

The most common proposal is a tether, usually in the form of a cable or ribbon, that spans from the surface to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit. As the planet rotates, the inertia at the end of the tether counteracts gravity and keeps the tether taut. Vehicles can then climb the tether and escape the planet's gravity without the use of ...Read more

California is the second-largest cheesemaking state after Wisconsin. It is the leader in producing Hispanic-style cheeses such as Monterey Jack.