Special playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If captured they could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.
The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
If a statue in the park 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, the person died of natural causes.
It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw up. The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of its mouth.Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the stomach's contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.
The saying "it's so cold out there it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey" came from when they had old cannons like ones used in the Civil War The cannonballs were stacked in a pyramid formation, called a brass monkey. When it got extremely cold outside they would crack and break off... Thus the saying.
Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.
Goethe couldn't stand the sound of barking dogs and could only write if he had an apple rotting in the drawer of his desk.
The caracters Bert and Ernie on "Sesame Street" were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life.
To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs -- it will let you go instantly.
Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and correct itself.
Kids who learn how to cook are more interested in trying new foods.
