FACTS OF THE MONTH:

Igloos are temporary shelters Eskimos use while traveling. Most Eskimos have never even seen one.

The average human heart beats over forty million times a year.

Winston Churchill was only half-British. His mother was from Brooklyn.

Dinosaurs were a species of animal who walked on land and suddenly died out 67 million years ago. Only the ones that walked on land. The ones that flew during that era were not dinosaurs, but pterosaurs. Likewise, the ones that lived in the water were plesiosaurs.

Back before the days of television, when radio was in its heyday, world leaders would often use voice doubles to make their radio speeches for them, so that the leader himself wouldn't have to take time away from running the country. On December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the world heard a radio double of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, not FDR, give the well-recognized "A date which will live in infamy" speech. That double's voice was none other than The Honeymooners' Art Carney.

Earth's population is currently doubling every 35 years. At this rate, in less than 300 years the population will be one trillion! By the 36th Century, the mass of people would equal the mass of the planet itself!

At its widest point, the distance across Texas is greater than the distance from Chicago to New York City.

Cimarron County, the westernmost county in the Oklahoma panhandle, is the only county in the U.S. that borders four different states: Texas to the south, New Mexico to the west, Colorado for most of the north, and Kansas for the rest.

When L. Frank Baum was looking for a name for his character of the Wizard from the Emerald City, he glanced at his file cabinet. The drawers were labeled "A-N", and "O-Z". Thus the Wizard of Oz was born.

Bats' legbones are so thin they cannot walk.

The movie Paris, Texas was banned in the city of Paris, Texas shortly after its original release.

The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

A half-gallon milk carton holds about fifty dollars in pennies.

The only capital letter in the Roman alphabet with exactly one endpoint is P.

The 80's rock group Level 42 got their name from a sci-fi novel. In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (originally a radio series and later a television series), we learn that the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is forty-two. This leads our heroes on a quest to find out what the actual Question is.

The Dutch town of Leeuwarden can be spelled 225 different ways.

The words sacrilegious and religious do not share the same etymological root.

The state of Maryland has no natural lakes.

The only way to stop the sting of the flathead fish is by rubbing the slime of the belly of the same fish that stung you upon the wound it inflicted.

The worst airline disaster in terms of human life, a 1977 collision between two jumbo jets that killed 582, occured on the ground, not in the air.

The Great Horned Owl is the only creature that will eat a skunk.

"Xmas" does not begin with the Roman letter X. It begins with the similar-looking Greek letter chi, which was used in medieval manuscripts as an abbreviation for the word "Christ."

Researchers say that condoms exposed to smog & ozone are less effective.

The military considers "without" to be two words. That way they can differentiate AWOL (Absent WithOut Leave) from AWL (Absent With Leave).

Starfish have no brains.

Most bears are left-pawed.

Eighty-five percent of all life on Earth is plankton.

When the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers play football at home, the stadium becomes the state's third largest city.