The word “novel” originally derived from the Latin novus, meaning “new.”

The words “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were penned in the 17th century by English philospher John Locke.

2 billion people still cannot read.

It is said that if a statue of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, like the Zizkov Monument, the person died of natural causes.

The German PJ Reuter started a foreign news agency in 1858. Today Reuters is one of the biggest news agencies in the world.

While attending Princeton, Prison Break star Wentworth Miller traveled the world performing with the school’s acapella group, The Princeton Tigertones

Butt-Kicking Kill Bill siren Uma Thurman is a crafty one. “I knit” she admits, adding “I love glue gun projects”

Christina Applegate attended the 1989 MTV Movie Awards with Brad Pitt, but dumped him at the event and left with someone else. “We were really good friends when I was about 16. We went to the awards and I ditched him! I left him there and I feel really bad about it…I really really do. I left with somebody else”

Russell Crowe was once a pompadoured singer named Russ Le Roq. His first single was “I want to be like marlon brando”…even though he’d never seen a Brando movie when he wrote the song.

American Beauty star Thora Birch’s mom acted in 21 adult films including Deep Throat under the name Carol Connors before retiring in 1993.

The world’s largest coins, in size and standard value, were copper plates used in Alaska around 1850. They were about a metre (3 ft) long, half-a-metre (about 2 ft) wide, weighed 40 kg (90 lb), and were worth $2,500.

In 2000, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is the second wealthiest woman, with $5,2 billion.

Australians are the heaviest gamblers in the world; an estimated 82% of Australians bet. That is twice as much per capita as Europeans or Americans. Yet, Australia, with less than 1% of the world population, has 20% of the world’s poker machines.

A third of the world’s people live on less than $2 a day, with 1,2 billion people living on less than $1 a day.

In the 1400s, global income rose only 0,1% per year; today it often tops 5%.

John Tyler was the first president to marry while in office.

U.S. President George Washington, the first president, was the first person to breed roses in the United States. George Washington laid out his own garden at Mount Vernon and filled it with his own selections of roses. He named one of his varieties after his mother and it is still being grown today.

The White House purchased 12 tons of jelly beans during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

One Native American has served as vice president of the United States. Charles Curtis of Kansas was President Herbert Hoover’s vice president. Curtis’s mother was a full-blooded member of the Kaw tribe.

The word “sneaker” was coined by Henry McKinney, an advertising agent for N.W. Ayer & Son.

Air-filled tyres were used on bicycles before they were used on motorcars.

Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.

The can opener was invented 48 years after cans were introduced.

In 1895 French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiere demonstrated a projector system in Paris. In 1907 they screened the first public movie.