FACTS OF THE MONTH:

Swimmer Mark Spitz holds the record for most gold medals in a single Olympics (seven). Speed skater Eric Heiden holds the record for most in a single Winter Olympics (five).

More than 98% of a chimpanzee's genetic code are the same as that of a human's.

In the early 1950s, Nelson Mandela helped set up South Africa's first black law firm.

Trick photography was discovered by accident in 1896, when Georges Melies was filming Paris crowds. His camera kept jamming, with the result that the developed film showed people instantaneously appearing & disappearing.

Pope John Paul II is the Vatican's first non-Italian pope in four centuries.

Scientists estimate over eight million animal and plant species in the world. So far they have only named 1.5 million.

The home VCR was introduced in 1972, at a cost of a few thousand dollars.

Although people who listened to the Nixon-Kennedy presidential debate on the radio felt Nixon won handily, Kennedy was the victor on TV, due to a recent illness Nixon had not fully overcome by the time of the debate.

When Arthur C. Clarke wrote "2001: A Space Odyssey" he imagined the discovery of the monolith on the moon as occuring in 2001 and the trip to Jupiter happening in 2003. When it came time to film the sequel 2010, however, events were moved up two years: the monolith was found in 1999, Discovery going dead in 2001.

The first successful human heart-transplant patient, Louis Washkansky, died of lung complications eighteen days after the operation. His new heart continued beating until the end.

During World War II every German spy in Britain was caught.

The patriarch of the Kennedy family, Joseph Kennedy, was the U.S. Ambassador to Britain (1936-40).

The first shopping mall was constructed in Detroit in 1954.

An estimated seventy percent of the European Jewish population were killed in World War II.

Of the 89 films made by Charlie Chaplin, 35 of them were made in his first year in front of the screen, 1914.

Hitler wore glasses, but had his speeches written in extra-large type so he wouldn't have to wear them in public.

There are more telephones in Tokyo than in all of Africa.

The "Star-Spangled Banner" was written in 1814 but didn't become the National Anthem until 1931.

Not only did women not compete in the ancient Olympics, they weren't even allowed to attend. Women found there were put to death.

The first human flight occured in a hot-air balloon in 1783.

Every ten minutes, two people die in America and 370 are injured by some type of accident.

Because of its original secondary use as secondary landing strips, one mile out of every seven in an interstate highway must be straight.

The original definition of a "third-world country" meant any country not aligned with either the "first-world" United States or the "second world" Soviet Union.

A thousand years ago the world's population was 275 million. A hundred years ago, 1.6 billion.

Since the time zones all converge at the South Pole, researchers living there use Greenwich Mean Time.

Nevada is the driest state, averaging only 7.5 inches of rain a year.

Nagasaki was the second city A-bombed only because the primary target was cloud-covered.

T-shirts were originally developed for use in the U.S. Navy.

Before World War I there were nearly 2000 car makers in the U.S. In 1976 there were eleven.

The first working nuclear power station was a small pressurized water reactor at Obninsk, USSR. It opened in 1954.