The U.S. Army and Navy listened for radio signals from Mars on August 22, 1924, but came up empty-handed.

There are more than 13,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S., or about one for every 23,000 Americans.

Ian Fleming came up with the name “James Bond” after looking at the author of a West Indies birding book sitting in his bookshelf.

If you were to try to live on ordinary bread, you would become hypernatremic (too much sodium in the blood). Most breads contain so much salt that a greater amount of water than is contained in a loaf is needed to rinse that loaf’s sodium out of your body.

Military-issued P-38 and P-51 can openers were also known as “John Waynes” because he was shown opening a can of K rations in a training film.

This article appears in December 4 • 2009.

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