Cockatiels usually live 15-20 years.

Margarine was invented when Emperor Napolean III offered a prize to anyone who could come up with a substitute for butter.

A cat with a skin wound will have problems with the skin healing faster than the infection.

Mount Urpín, a mountain inside the city of Banská Bystrica (population ~80,000), is the home of 35 endangered animal species.

Marie Curie’s eldest daughter won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, and her youngest daughter’s husband accepted UNICEF’s Nobel Peace prize.

The first denim pants were made in Genoa, Italy for the Genoese Navy. That may be the origin of the term “jeans”.

Gaston Julia, the mathematician who describe the Julia set, lost his nose in World War I.

The first commercially available barbiturate (Veronal, discovered in 1903) was marketed by Bayer. It was not discovered to be addictive until the 1950s.

The first chemical treatment for curling human hair involved a mixture of cow urine and water.

The last soldier killed in World War I was George Lawrence Price. He was 25 years old, and he was shot by a German sniper 2 minutes before the ceasefire went into effect.

Queen Mary I of Scotland inherited the throne when she was six days old. Her coronation ceremony was held nine months later, when she could sit up.

The boats in the It’s A Small World Ride at Disneyland are the original boats built for the 1964 and 1965 World’s Fair. They will be replaced after the holiday season this year.

Raw kiwifruit should not be mixed with milk – it contains an enzyme that will digest milk proteins.

There is a digital sundial in Genk, Belgium.

Pykrete is a frozen mixture of about 14% sawdust or wood pulp and 86% water. During World War II, it was proposed as a building material for aircraft carriers. It has a relatively slow melting rate, much more strength and toughness than plain ice, and it is bullet-resistant.

According to a survey of the color of light in the Universe, the Universe is a pale beige.