In 2003, more than 200 million boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mints were sold in the U.S. But the popular cookie ranks only third on the list of the nation's best-selling cookies. Chips Ahoy ranked second on the list, and Oreos took first

When her husband was in office, Barbara Bush received sacks of mail complimenting her on her "womanly" figure, a change of course considering her stick...read more

I claimed recently that there is no patron saint of beer. Alert reader Robert Spinden pointed out that even if there is no patron saint, there certainly is a prayer (from St. Brigid):

"I would like a great lake of ale for the King of Kings;

I would like the people of heaven to be drinking it through time eternal.

I would like the viands of faith and pure piety;

I would like the flails of...read more

For years, Salt Lake City, Utah, has been the Jell-O capital of the world (although the title was briefly lost to Des Moines, Iowa, in 1999, and then retaken). In Salt Lake City, lime is the favorite flavor

The albatross is known to shut down half of its brain during long flights and let the other half function as a kind of automatic pilot, making it possible for the bird to fly distances of up to...read more

In the 12th century, Mayans used cocoa beans as cash. At that time, a rabbit cost approximately 8 cocoa beans, while the purchase of a slave required at least 100

The Dagwood sandwich, a creation of "Blondie" cartoonist Chic Young, consists of beef tongue, onion, mustard, sardines, beans and horseradish.

In the United States, approximately four bathing suits are sold per second.

Although...read more

Considering the work of Dante's "Inferno," Galileo deduced that Lucifer must have measured 2,000 arm-lengths long

When first introduced in July 1956, the NBC peacock had 11 plumes. After a 1986 redesign, the peacock was scaled down to only six plumes, one for each division of NBC.

In the United States, olives come in seven different sizes: small, medium, large, extra large, jumbo...read more

A recent study found that hamsters that spent their early days in an environment with less daylight were more likely to be anxious and depressed than those hamsters raised in an environment where they saw more of the sun

As of 2006, only seven NFL teams had no cheerleading or dance squads: the Bears, Browns, Giants, Jets, Lions, Packers and Steelers.

The average American drives 15,000 miles each...read more

About 81 percent of American men and 67 percent of women say they are above-average drivers. Only about 1 percent of all drivers admits to being below-average

The Greek philosopher Socrates wrote that men should marry: "By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."

Los Angeles has been home to four major-league...read more

Killing all the insects in the world would require an estimated 1,104,120,000,000 bug zappers

A general rule of thumb among animals is that meat-eaters sleep more than vegetarians. For instance, a meat-eating brown bat may sleep for up to 20 hours a day, while a grazing horse may sleep for as little as two hours.

John Brallier became the country's first "professional" football player...read more

Scientists found that television makes hens less anxious and aggressive. The hens were shown random television images for 10 minutes each day, and the most relaxing images were those of fish and flying toasters

In 2008, college football marked the 50-year anniversary of its newest scoring option, the two-point conversion.

A survey of listeners on "Car Talk," a syndicated show on National...read more

When Ruth van Herpen kissed a painting by American artist Jo Baer, her red lipstick stains cost the Oxford art museum $1,260 to remove. "I only kissed it to cheer it up," van Herpen explained in court. "It looked so cold."

"The Price Is Right" broke the record for longest-running daily game show in 1991. Up until that point, the position had been held by "Truth...read more

The spitball or shineball was outlawed in professional baseball games before the 1921 season. But officials allowed the 17 pitchers who depended on the pitch to continue using it for the remainder of their careers. Burleigh Grimes pitched the last legal spitball in 1934

Julius Caesar of Rome renamed the month Quintilis to Julius (July). His successor, Augustus, renamed the month Sextilis to Augustus...read more

The Volstead Act of 1919, which provided for the enforcement of the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) required that a drink have at least .005 parts alcohol in order for it to be considered "intoxicating liquor."

Although it's known as garlic in the English-speaking world, the member of the onion family has many other names: chesnock (Russian), ajo (Spanish), alho (Portuguese), Knoblauch...read more

In 1993, Germany's Beck's brewery paid NASA $130,000 to study whether beer could be brewed in space

The standard Ping-Pong ball weighs 2.5 grams or about 0.9 ounces.

In 1999, animal rights activists in Britain were responsible for more than 1,200 fire bombings and acts of vandalism. In the U.S., there were only 313 such acts between 1979 and 1993.

According to Myo-ei Shonin (c. 1200)...read more

Regardless of the size of an iceberg, only one-ninth of it appears above the water line. The other eight-ninths remains submerged

The average weight of Americans increased by 8.5 pounds from 1991 to 2000.

President Theodore Roosevelt has a mixed record when it comes to conservation. The president better known as Teddy set aside more than 230 million acres for national parks and nature preserves...read more

In Shakespeare's "Macbeth," the three witches use the following ingredients in their potion: poison'd entrails, toad, fillet of a fenny snake, eye of newt, toe of frog, wool of bat, tongue of dog, adder's fork, blind-worm's sting, lizard's leg, howler's wing, scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, witches' mummy, maw and gulf of ravin'd salt-sea shark, root of hemlock...read more