The first leap year was 46 B.C. It was then that the Julian calendar of 365.25 days was adopted. The calendar required that an extra day be added every fourth year.
An average bolt of lightning raises the air temperature along its way to about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The scientist George Washington Carver (1864-1943) was trying to find ways to diversify southern agriculture. Long dependent on cotton, the South’s economy was threatened by the boll weevil and depleted soil. Carver showed that the neglected peanut, soybean, and sweet potato could produce hundreds of trade goods and replace soil minerals depleted by cotton. The…
Smiling is easier on the face than frowning. It takes 17 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.
Started in 1891 by President Theodore Roosevelt, the national system of forest reserves now consists of 154 forests administered by the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. The total area of the reserves is over 343,000 square miles.
Man evolved in the Pleistocene epoch, which began about 2.5 million years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago. We now live in the Recent (or Holocene) epoch, beginning about 10,000 years ago.