Did You Know?

# The word ALPHABET is derived from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet - ALPHA and BETA.

# The word vaccine originates from the Latin word for cow - VACCA from which they were first derived from.

# 33 + 43 + 53 = 63

# Humpty Dumpty was a cannon.

# The maximum prize one could earn on a single day of Jeopardy! is $566,400.

# Ice is a mineral.

# 97% of the Earth's water is in the oceans.

# Lake Baikal in the south central part of Siberia is 5,712 feet (1.7 kilometers) deep. It's about 20 million years old and contains 20 percent of Earth's fresh liquid water.

# On average, there are about 100 lightning strikes every second worldwide.

# There is a glacier at the equator on Mt. Cotopaxi in Ecuador.

Did You Know?

* If the enemy is in range, so are you.

* Incoming fire has the right of way.

* Don't look conspicuous: it draws fire.

* The easy way is always mined.

* Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.

* Professionals are predictable, it's the amateurs that are dangerous.

* The enemy invariably attacks on one of two occasions:
a. When you're ready for them.
b. When you're not ready for them.

* Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy someone else to shoot at.

* If you can't remember, the claymore is pointed at you. Claymores are labeled "This side toward enemy" for a reason.

* If your attack is going well, you have walked into an ambush.

* Don't draw fire, it irritates the people around you.

* The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.

* When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is *not* our friend.

* If it's stupid but works, it isn't stupid.

* When in doubt empty the magazine.

* Never share a fox hole with anyone braver than you.

* Anything you do can get you shot. Including doing nothing.

* Make it too tough for the enemy to get in and you can't get out.

* Mines are equal opportunity weapons.

* A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.

* Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything.

* The quartermaster has only two sizes: too large and too small.

* Five second fuses only last three seconds.

* It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.

* Tracers work both ways.

Did You Know?

# The Moose is the world's largest deer.

# The Arctic Jellyfish can have a diameter of 7 1/2 feet (2.28 M) and tentacles stretching 120 feet (36.3 M)

# The male Emperor Moth can smell a female 6.8 miles (11 km) away.

# The Peregrine Falcon can swoop up to 217 MPH (350 km/h).

# The Anchovy is a dwarf herring.

# The Koala lives entirely on eucalyptus and does not drink water.

# The Sloth grows green algae on its hair for camouflage.

# The Sperm Whale can dive to a depth of over 8,000 feet (2,400 M).

# The Ribbon Worm can digest 95% of its own body when food is scarce.

# The Swift is a bird that remains airborne for 2-3 years, during which time it sleeps, drinks, eats, and mates on the wing.

# The African Earthworm can grow up to 22 feet (6.5 M) in length.

# The Arctic Tern migrates 14,000 miles (22,530 KM) each way.

Did You Know?

In The 1500's:

England is old and small and they started running out of places to bury people. So, they would dig up coffins and would take their bones to a house and reuse the grave. In reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they thought they would tie a string on their wrist and lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night to listen for the bell. Hence on the "graveyard shift" they would know that someone was "saved by the bell" or he was a "dead ringer".

Did You Know?

You can't get much older than 6 million years. That is when the first human beings, known as Hominidae, evolved. They were not like apes; they had bigger brains, different teeth, and walked upright. Would you like an introduction to some of your ancestors?

Australopithecus, also called “southern ape,” lived in Africa in 3 million B.C. Some were the size of modern people; others were as small as chimpanzees. Their heads were apelike with low foreheads, flat noses, and jutting jaws. “Lucy” was a complete australopithecus found in Ethiopia in 1974. (She was named for the Beatles' song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which was playing in the camp when she was excavated.) Lucy was 20 years old when she died.

Homo habilis, or “Handymen,” lived 2 million years ago and used tools. Their brain was half the size of the human brain today. Their heads were rounder and faces smaller than those of australopithecus. Homo habilis was the first to build huts for shelter. “Piltdown Man” was long accepted as a skeleton of Homo habilis. In 1953 he was shown to be a hoax made from a human skull, ape's jaw, and the bones of extinct animals.

Homo erectus, the “stand-up people,” lived 1 million years ago and were the first people to use fire. Their skulls were thick, their faces flat, and they had a sloping forehead with no chin. They lived in China, Japan, Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Neanderthals lived in Europe about 150,000 years ago and were the first to wear clothes. They looked much like modern people except that their skulls bulged more at the back and they had receding chins, larger cheeks, and more pronounced eyebrow ridges. They were also smaller and stockier and had heavier features. They cared for their sick and buried their dead. Less than half the population reached the age of 20.

Homo sapiens means “wise humans.” We are Homo sapiens and first lived on earth about 100,000 years ago. By 33000 B.C. we were the dominant species, living everywhere but in North and South America. We look different from our ancestors because of our smaller teeth, flat foreheads, straight faces, and rounded heads. We were the first of the earth's inhabitants to communicate through art, the spoken word, and religion.

Cro-Magnon people were named after the Cro-Magnon caves near Dordogne, France, where their remains were discovered. They were early Homo sapiens, quite tall and erect.

Did You Know?

Brazil’s most popular and festive holiday is Carnival. In fact, many people consider Carnival one of the world’s biggest celebrations. Each spring, on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday, the streets of Brazil’s largest city, Rio de Janeiro, come alive with wild parties, festivals and glamorous balls.

The Samba School Parade is the highlight of the four-day event. About 3,000 performers, clad in ornate costumes embellished with feathers, beads and thousands of sequins, dance down the parade route alongside dazzling floats and into the Sambadrome-a dance stadium built for the event. Judges award a prize to the most spectacular group of dancers.

Did You Know?

# The anole (Anolis Carolinesis), or American chameleon, is a small lizard found in the southeastern United States. Not a true chameleon, the anole is a member of the iguana family and is noted for its color changes.
# A chameleon can move its eyes in two directions at the same time.
# Dolphins sleep at night just below the surface of the water. They frequently rise to the surface for air.
# A cockroach can live for up to a week without a head.
# An albatross can sleep while it flies. It apparently dozes while cruising at 25 mph.
# Amazon ants (red ants found in the western U.S.) steal the larvae of other ants to keep as slaves. The slave ants build homes for and feed the Amazon ants, who cannot do anything but fight. They depend completely on their slaves for survival.
# The hummingbird is the only bird that can hover and fly straight up, down, or backward!
# A leech is a worm that feeds on blood. It will pierce its victim's skin, fill itself with three to four times its own body weight in blood, and will not feed again for months. Leeches were once used by doctors to drain “bad blood” from sick patients.
# Lovebirds are small parakeets who live in pairs. Male and female lovebirds look alike, but most other male birds have brighter colors than the females.
# Only female mosquitoes bite. Females need the protein from blood to produce their eggs.
# Cats have about 250 muscles in each ear.

Did You Know?

#The Tropical Orb Weaver spider spins a web over 18 feet (5.5 M) in circumference.

#The Moose is the world's largest deer.

#The Arctic Jellyfish can have a diameter of 7 1/2 feet (2.28 M) and tentacles stretching 120 feet (36.3 M)

#The male Emperor Moth can smell a female 6.8 miles (11 km) away.

#The Peregrine Falcon can swoop up to 217 MPH (350 km/h).

#The Anchovy is a dwarf herring.

#The Koala lives entirely on eucalyptus and does not drink water.

#The Sloth grows green algae on its hair for camouflage.

#The Sperm Whale can dive to a depth of over 8,000 feet (2,400 M).

#The Ribbon Worm can digest 95% of its own body when food is scarce.

#The Swift is a bird that remains airborne for 2-3 years, during which time it sleeps, drinks, eats, and mates on the wing.

#The African Earthworm can grow up to 22 feet (6.5 M) in length.

#The Arctic Tern migrates 14,000 miles (22,530 KM) each way

Did You Know?

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Born: 5/29/1917
Birthplace: Brookline, Mass.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Brookline, Mass., on May 29, 1917. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, was ambassador to Great Britain from 1937 to 1940.

Kennedy was graduated from Harvard University in 1940 and joined the navy the next year. He became skipper of a PT boat that was sunk in the Pacific by a Japanese destroyer. Although given up for lost, he swam to a safe island, towing an injured enlisted man.

After recovering from a war-aggravated spinal injury, Kennedy entered politics in 1946 and was elected to Congress. In 1952, he ran against Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts, and won.

Kennedy was married on Sept. 12, 1953, to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, by whom he had three children: Caroline, John Fitzgerald, Jr. (died in a 1999 plane crash), and Patrick Bouvier (died in infancy).

In 1957 Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize for a book he had written earlier, Profiles in Courage.

After strenuous primary battles, Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination on the first ballot at the 1960 Los Angeles convention. With a plurality of only 118,574 votes, he carried the election over Vice President Richard M. Nixon and became the first Roman Catholic president.

Kennedy brought to the White House the dynamic idea of a “New Frontier” approach in dealing with problems at home, abroad, and in the dimensions of space. Out of his leadership in his first few months in office came the 10-year Alliance for Progress to aid Latin America, the Peace Corps, and accelerated programs that brought the first Americans into orbit in the race in space.

Failure of the U.S.-supported Cuban invasion in April 1961 led to the entrenchment of the Communist-backed Castro regime, only 90 mi from United States soil. When it became known that Soviet offensive missiles were being installed in Cuba in 1962, Kennedy ordered a naval “quarantine” of the island and moved troops into position to eliminate this threat to U.S. security. The world seemed on the brink of a nuclear war until Soviet premier Khrushchev ordered the removal of the missiles.

A sudden “thaw,” or the appearance of one, in the cold war came with the agreement with the Soviet Union on a limited test-ban treaty signed in Moscow on Aug. 6, 1963.

In his domestic policies, Kennedy's proposals for medical care for the aged and aid to education were defeated, but on minimum wage, trade legislation, and other measures he won important victories.

Widespread racial disorders and demonstrations led to Kennedy's proposing sweeping civil rights legislation. As his third year in office drew to a close, he also recommended an $11-billion tax cut to bolster the economy. Both measures were pending in Congress when Kennedy, looking forward to a second term, journeyed to Texas for a series of speeches.

While riding in an automobile procession in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, he was shot to death by an assassin firing from an upper floor of a building. The alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was killed two days later in the Dallas city jail by Jack Ruby, owner of a strip-tease club.

At 46 years of age, Kennedy became the fourth president to be assassinated and the eighth to die in office.

Did You Know?

* Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.

* On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

* Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

* In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.

* Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

* The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.

* The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

* In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

* It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honeymonth" or what we know today as the "honeymoon."

* "Minding your p's and q's" comes from early typesetting. The letters are in reverse making it very easy to confuse the two.

* Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.

Did You Know?

How Coins Are Made!

Step 1: Blanking	The U.S. Mint buys strips of metal about 13 inches wide and 1,500 feet long to manufacture the nickel, dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar. The strips come rolled in a coil. Each coil is fed through a blanking press, which punches out round discs called blanks. The leftover strip, called webbing, is shredded and recycled. (To manufacture the cent, the Mint buys ready-made blanks after supplying fabricators with copper and zinc.)
Step 2: Annealing, Washing and Drying	The blanks are heated in an annealing furnace to soften them. Then, they are run through a washer and dryer.
Step 3: Riddling	The shiny blanks are sorted on a “riddler” to screen out any that are the wrong size or shape.
Step 4: Upsetting	Next, the good blanks go through an upsetting mill. This raises a rim around their edges.
Step 5: Striking	Finally, the blanks go to the coining press. Here, they are stamped with the designs and inscriptions, which make them genuine United States coins.
Step 6: Inspecting	A press operator uses a magnifying glass to spot-check each batch of new coins. Then all the coins go through a coin sizer to remove any misshapen or dented ones.
Step 7: Counting and Bagging	An automatic counting machine counts the coins and drops them into large canvas bags. The bags are sewn shut, loaded on pallets, and taken by forklifts to be stored in vaults. New coins are shipped by truck to Federal Reserve Banks. From there, the coins go to your local bank!

Did You Know?

# The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
# There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
# Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
# The average secretary's left hand does 56% of the typing.
# A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
# There are more chickens than people in the world.
# Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
# A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
# A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
# If you are a goldfish, you probably won't even remember what website brought you to this page.

Did You Know?

In November 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt and some of his friends went on a hunting trip to Mississippi. After hours of searching, Roosevelt and his group had not come across any wild animals. Finally, the group did track down and surrounded a helpless bear. One of the guides asked the president to shoot the bear so he could win a hunting trophy. The president refused, and news reporters throughout the country spread the story of Roosevelt's kind act.

Not long after this took place, a famous cartoonist named Clifford Berryman drew a cartoon based on Roosevelt 's rescue of the bear. When a store owner in Brooklyn saw the cartoon, he decided to make toy bears to sell in his shop. He asked president Roosevelt for permission to use the name “"Teddy's Bear"” for his toys, as a reminder of the bear Roosevelt had set free.

Nowadays, everyone knows these toys as Teddy Bears, but few people know that they were named after President Theodore “"Teddy"” Roosevelt.

Did You Know?

A tsunami (pronounced soo-nahm-ee) is a series of huge waves that happen after an undersea disturbance, such as an earthquake or volcano eruption. Tsunami is from the Japanese word for “harbor wave.”

The waves travel in all directions from the area of disturbance, much like the ripples that happen after throwing a rock. The waves may travel in the open sea as fast as 450 miles per hour. As the big waves approach shallow waters along the coast they grow to a great height and smash into the shore. They can be as high as 100 feet. They can cause a lot of destruction on the shore. They are sometimes mistakenly called “tidal waves,” but tsunami have nothing to do with the tides.

Did You Know?

Traveling between Moscow and Vladivostok, the Trans-Siberian Express makes the longest regular train trip in the world, covering 5,778 mi and making 91 stops over the course of nine days.

Did You Know?

When forces act in the same direction, they combine to make a bigger force. When they act in opposite directions, they can cancel one another out. If the forces acting on an object balance, the object does not move, but may change shape. If the forces combine to make an overall force in one direction, the object moves in that direction.