Only 11% of the Secret Service are women.

Less time separates us from Tyrannosaurus Rex than separated Tyrannosaurus Rex from Stegosaurus.

Sir Charles Isham introduced garden gnomes to England in 1847. He brought 21 of them back from a trip to Germany and put them as ornaments in the gardens at Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire. Only one of that original batch survives. His nickname is Lampy.

Seth MacFarlane's favorite movie is The Sound of Music.

Women don't want to know their real clothing size, so manufacturers re-label bigger sizes with smaller numbers. In 1958, a size 8 corresponded with a bust of 31 inches, a waist of 23.5 inches, and hips of 32.5 inches. In ASTM's 2008 standards, a size 8 had increased by five to six inches in each of those three measurements, becoming the rough equivalent of a size 14 or 16 in 1958.

Elvis Presley’s mom, Gladys, gave him his own silverware to use at the school cafeteria.

Archaeologists at the University of Naples believe Marco Polo may have been a con man who never made it farther than the Black Sea. Instead of traveling to faraway places like China, he may have collected stories from other people.

Modern buttermilk evolved in the 1920s. In the 18th century, it was a by-product of making butter, not a sour, yogurty beverage.

In 1975, India had about 600 million people and 2 million phone lines, so having a phone was a luxury. If you wanted to call another city, you had to book a "trunk call" and wait all day to be connected. Or you could pay eight times the going rate for a "lightning call," which took a half hour.

According to writer Jonathan Gottschall, an average daydream is about 14 seconds long and we have about 2,000 of them a day.

Toilet tissue used to be called "therapeutic paper" back when it was introduced in 1857 by Joseph Gayetty.

The part of a key that you hold while turning it is called the bow. The bit is the pronged part that enters and activates the lock, and the shaft connects the two.

Hamsters can remember their relatives.

The first Moscow tavern or kabak that could serve distilled liquor was exclusively reserved for the Oprichniki, Czar Ivan the Terrible's secret police. Their black robes included an insignia of a severed dog's head.

Clint Eastwood almost played Two-Face, a villain on the Sixties Batman TV series. The show was canceled before filming of that episode began.

Marilyn Monroe got pregnant while filming Some Like It Hot.

Some cooks believe food items cooked with wine or liquor will be nonalcoholic because alcohol evaporates quickly when heated. However, a 1992 study found some of the alcohol remains: after one hour of baking or simmering 25% remains, and 10% after two hours.

The "Carbon Footprint of Spam" study found that one spam message produces the equivalent of 0.3 grams of CO2.

In the 17th century, sailors found that a simple noose set on deck with a few dried biscuits as bait was enough to trap a bird called a booby – hence the phrase "booby trap."

Kamikaze pilots didn't wear helmets; they wore flight caps.

California horticulturalist Luther Burbank invented the Russet Potato.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, people in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland pay on average less than $130 a year for cell phone service. Americans pay $635.85 a year.

By some estimates, a third of all text messages in China today are spam.

Legendary actress/sex symbol Mae West was thrown in jail in 1927 for writing, producing, directing, and starring in a play called Sex, because it was deemed too lewd and risqué. She served eight days of her 10-day sentence and liked to brag afterwards that the warden let her wear her own silk underwear instead of the usual scratchy, prison-issued ones.

John Lennon said the reason for the song "I Am the Walrus" was to confuse, befuddle, and mess with Beatles experts.

Che Guevara's paternal grandparents were both born in the U.S. His great-grandparents had gone to California for the Gold Rush.

Nowadays, 20% of third-grade boys and 18% of third-grade girls have a cell phone, according to a 2011 Massachusetts study. Thirty-nine percent of fifth graders have cell phones and more than 83% of middle school students have one.

What did poet W.H. Auden and writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Graham Greene have in common? They were Benzedrine addicts.

In 2014, parts of the remains of the late Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, and James Doohan (who played Mr. Scott on the original Star Trek series) will be put on a rocket ship called Voyager and sent into deep space. Another portion of Roddenberry's remains traveled on a orbital rocket ship with the remains of Timothy Leary on April 21, 1997.

The Federation of American Scientists has pegged the annual operating cost of a Nimitz-class carrier at $120 million.

All Texas driver's licenses have an intentional error on them. On the reverse, the first I in "directive" is not dotted.

Maslenitsa, one of Russia's most popular gourmet festivals, starts before the Lent fast, during which people cannot eat any animal products. At this year's fest, chefs made pancakes topped with caviar and stuffed with brains. One of the festival's highlights is burning a dummy dressed as Lady Maslenitsa.

According to SquareTrade, more than one in seven iPhone 4 owners will damage their phone within the first year, the highest rate of any smartphone. Plaxo Research reports that 19% of people drop their smartphones in the toilet.

What do Kim Basinger and Scott Bakula have in common? Pet hermit crabs.

Wyatt Earp died in Los Angeles in 1929. His last words were: "Suppose ... suppose ...."

In Bermuda, they fly kites made with wood and tissue paper on Good Friday. The shape of the kite and the use of wood is meant to symbolize the cross. The flying of the kite symbolizes Jesus' ascension to heaven.

Jews in Afghanistan and Iran hit each other on the head with scallions during the ceremonial Passover meal, known as the seder. The tradition is so that they do not forget being slaves in Egypt.

The Holiday Bowl has never been played on a holiday.

In a 1999 interview with Dan Lybarger, Mel Brooks said, "I never cared about religion, but I prayed to silent movies."

Charles Schultz did not like calling his comic strip Peanuts.

Americans work on average two hours out of every day to pay for their cars. A bicycle costs only 3.84 minutes.

More than 30 million Chinese people live in caves, many of them in Shaanxi province. A 750-square-foot cave with three rooms and a bathroom can be advertised for sale at $46,000. A simple one-room cave without plumbing rents for $30 per month.

Actress Demi Moore's recent medical emergency and the subsequent release of the 911 tape related to the incident has led state assemblywoman and former 911 dispatcher Norma Torres (D-Pomona) to consider a revision to California Public Records law that will allow for 911 calls to be classified in the same manner as medical records, and therefore kept private.

Over time, astronauts come to resemble Charlie Brown. Lack of gravity causes their faces to get rounder.

Astronauts lose their sense of smell in space.

Jackie Gleason didn't like to rehearse for episodes of The Honeymooners.

Aluminum used to be more precious than gold because it was hard to extract from ores. The cap of the Washington Monu­ment is made from 100 ounces of pure aluminum. The invention of the Hall-Héroult process in 1886 caused the price to drop permanently.

Ötzi the Iceman, who died 5,300 years ago and whose body was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991, had type O blood and was lactose intolerant.

Czech scientist Jaroslav Flegr thinks your cat could be making you crazy, due to a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii found in cat feces. He believes it can cause car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders, such as schizophrenia.