The oldest person on record is Methuselah (969 years old).

Lady Peseshet of Ancient Egypt (2600-2100 BC) is the world’s first known female physician.

There are more than 600 million telephone lines today, yet almost half the world’s population has never made a phone call.

The word “electric” was first used in 1600 by William Gilbert, a doctor to Queen Elizabeth I.

English sailors came to be called Limeys after using lime juice to combat scurvy.

Adriaan van der Donck was the first and only lawyer in New York City in 1653.

Herbert Hoover is the only president to have an asteroid named after him. It was called Hooveria, and the reason it’s not on my asteroid list is because I don’t know of the asteroid number.

The first U.S. national monument was Devils Tower in Wyoming named by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

None of Franklin Pierce’s children was alive to see his presidency (3 children).

Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, was named for the original landowner, Vernon Washington.

President James Buchanan was a gracious host. When the Prince of Wales visited the White House in the fall of 1860, so many guests accompanied him, there weren’t enough beds. The story goes that the president decided to sleep in the hallway.

Chevy Chase was a battle that took place on the english-Scottish border in 1388.

Chemical and biological warfare have been used long before World War 1. During the Peloponnesian War in the 5th century BC, Spartans used sulphur and pitch to overcome the enemy. During ancient and medieval times, soldiers sometimes threw bodies of plague victims over the walls of besieged cities, or into water wells. During the French and Indian wars in North America (1689-1763), blankets used by smallpox victims were given to American Indians in the hope they would carry the disease.

The first reference to a handgun was made in an order for iron bullets in 1326.

In 1998, the US spent more than $35 billion on its nuclear weapons programme.

The first recorded revolution took place at around 2800 BC when people from the Sumerian city of Lagash overthrew bureaucrats who were lining their own pockets but kept raising taxes.

To make one kilo of honey bees have to visit 4 million flowers, traveling a distance equal to 4 times around the earth.

Of the more than $50 billion worth of diet products sold every year, almost $20 billion are spent on imitation fats and sugar substitutes.

The soda fountain was patented by Samuel Fahnestock in 1819, with the first bottled soda water available in 1835.

Aluminum cans were introduced in 1957 and two years later the first diet cola was sold.

Maria Ann Smith introduced the Granny Smith apple in 1838.

A diamond will break if you hit it with a hammer.

Organist William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781 with the first reflecting telescope that he built. He named it Georgium Sidium in honour of King George III of England but in 1850 it was renamed Uranus in accordance with the tradition of naming planets for Roman gods.

Plates carrying the continents migrate over the earth’s surface a few centimetres (inches) per year, about the same speed that a fingernail grows.

The tail of the Great Comet of 1843 was 330 million km long. (It will return in 2356.)

During a total solar eclipse the temperature can drop by 6 degrees Celsius (about 20 degrees Fahrenheit).