Murphy's 1949 autobiography To Hell and Back became a national bestseller. In the book Murphy modestly describes some of his most heroic actions -- without portraying himself as a hero. Instead, he chose to praise the skills, bravery, and dedication of the other soldiers in his platoon. Murphy played himself in the inevitable 1955 ...Read more

The lungs of an average adult, unfolded and flattened out, would cover an area the size of a tennis court.

Moderate dancing burns 250 to 300 calories an hour. Twenty minutes of moderate dancing will elevate heart rate up to aerobic levels. One study found polkas, swing dancing, and waltzes to be particularly effective for weight loss.

Young cockroaches need only a crack as thin as a dime (about .5mm wide) to crawl into. Adult males can squeeze into a space of 1.6mm or the thickness of a quarter. Pregnant females need the most space to hide: 4.5mm or a space as tall as two stacked nickels.

Woodbury Soap was the first product to show a nude woman in its advertisements. The year was 1936. Edward Steichen's photograph showed a rear, full-length view of a woman sunbathing – wearing only sandals.

In Australia, the Number 1 topping for pizza is eggs. In Chile, the favorite topping is mussels and clams. In the United States, it's pepperoni.

As with boot cut hems, the trend began in Europe and spread rapidly around the world. Today both boot cut and flare leg pants remain popular both in denim and higher quality office wear. In menswear straight leg also gave way to boot cut looks, again initially in Europe, and has made it's leap into flare leg, for officewear, the same as what ...Read more

The letter "W" is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't have just one syllable – it has three.

A new star is born in our galaxy is born every 18 days. About 20 new stars are born each year. For comparison, there are 100,000 million stars in our galaxy.

The bumblebee does not die when it stings it can sting again and again. In bumblebee hives, the entire colony, except for the queen, dies at the end of each summer. Each year, an entirely new colony of bees must be produced.

In Morocco's High Atlas Mountains, the shape of a single Ait Hadiddou woman's hood determines her eligibility status for marriage. A rounded hood alerts that she is available to single men only by traditional betrothal. A peaked hood is worn by a widow or divorcée. This signifies that the woman is open to a proposal of instant marriage without ...Read more

The average human eyelash lives about 150 days.

In recent years, young people have begun to use the term "preppy" as slang to describe those who appear clean-cut or strive to seem better off financially than others in a middle class environment. In most regions, especially amongst young people, this usage has virtually replaced the traditional

In Worcester, Massachusetts, the city has proclaimed itself the birthplace of the yellow smiley face, saying senior citizen-resident Harvey Ball first drew it in 1963 to help subdue the bitter aftermath of a corporate takeover.

The Sahara Desert comprises an area as large as Europe. Its total land mass is some 3,565,565 square miles.

Brazil is a land with a lot of big creatures -- it is home to the world's largest snake (the anaconda, measuring up to 35 feet in length), largest spider, largest rodent (the capybara, a sort of guinea pig the size of a police dog), and the world's largest ant.

“Toboggan” is derived from the Algonquin language and loosely meant “instrument with which to drag a cord.”

Abraham Lincoln offered this timeless, usually unheeded, piece of advice to lawyers: "Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbor to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough."

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.