Archimedes Many people consider Archimedes to be one of the most influential mathematicians of all time, an amazing claim considering he was born around 287 B.C.! He discovered buoyancy (he’s said to have yelled “Eureka” in delight when he figured out why some things float and others do not), many weapons of war, several formulas for measuring capacity and pi. Charles Babbage Considered the “father of computing,” Babbage devoted most of his life to inventing mechanical calculating machines....

P-51s were the nemesis of the Luftwaffe, shooting down 4,950 enemy aircraft while achieving a kill ratio of 11:1. It’s said that when Hermann Goering learned that long-range P-51Ds were beginning to escort Eighth Air Force B-17s on bombing runs over Berlin in 1944, he told his staff, “The war is over.” Formidable and Full of Grace In addition to its heroic war record, the P-51’s graceful lines are a big part of its lasting appeal....

More from America’s Favorite Structures

FactMonster.com offers unbeatable resources, including an encyclopedia, dictionary, atlas, and the full Information Please® kids’ almanac. Kids - along with their parents and teachers - have easy access to just the right facts on topics ranging from science to sports to people in the news. In addition, FactMonster.com’s Homework Center lets kids find direction on common homework topics and submit questions to homework helpers. FactMonster.com also includes original features and fun games and quizzes on topics important to kids....

Heard Island and McDonald Islands:Fire and Ice Howland Island:Island of the Earhart Mystery Bouvet Island:The Most Remote Spot on Earth There are no truly solitary places on Earth’s large landmasses. Package tours with names like “Magical Mongolia” send throngs into the barren steppes, traffic jams clog Timbuktu, and the most desolate stretches of the Algerian Sahara now crawl with gun runners. The only hope for a small speck on Earth that’s all yours for a little while is an island—one that has been lost, abandoned, or forgotten by civilization....

Related Links Olympics Overview 2012Track & Field PreviewEncyclopedia: Track & Field Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias didn’t care. For the 5-foot-5 Beaumont, Texas native, athletics was her life. Name a sport and Babe was good at it. She was once asked if there was anything she didn’t play, and she quickly replied, “Yeah, dolls.” Baseball? Well her nickname was “Babe,” wasn’t it? She was supposedly given the name due to her Ruth-like, tape-measure home runs as a teenager....

title: “Monster S Poll” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-26” author: “Brandy Beasley” title: “Monster S Poll” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-18” author: “Carl Evans” title: “Monster S Poll” ShowToc: true date: “2023-02-03” author: “Michael Davis” title: “Monster S Poll” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-29” author: “Jimmie Wright” title: “Monster S Poll” ShowToc: true date: “2023-02-02” author: “Justin Cowell”

Inch: At first an inch was the width of a man’s thumb. In the 14th century, King Edward II of England ruled that 1 inch equalled 3 grains of barley placed end to end lengthwise. Hand: A hand was approximately 5 inches or 5 digits (fingers) across. Today, a hand is 4 inches and is used to measure horses (from the ground to the horse’s withers, or shoulder). Span: A span was the length of the hand stretched out, about 9 inches....

The Ten Plagues The Four Questions—Mah Nishtana Related Content Passover: Feast Without the YeastPassover QuizJewish Holidays, 2001–2020Judaism PrimerBranches of JudaismHolidays: Religious and Secular Passover is most closely associated with two observances: the seder, and eating matzoh instead of leavened foods. The Exodus The story of Passover is told in the first third of the Biblical book of Exodus. The Jews had come to Egypt because of a famine, while Joseph was Pharaohâs trusted advisor....

Eight Presidents were born British subjects: Washington, J. Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, J. Q. Adams, Jackson, and W. Harrison. Nine Presidents never attended college: Washington, Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A. Johnson, Cleveland, and Truman. The college that has the most presidents as alumni (seven in total) is Harvard: J. Adams, J. Q. Adams, T. Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt, Kennedy, G. W. Bush (business school), and Barack Obama (law school)....

The new species was named Anomocephalus africanus, which means “Lawless-headed one of Africa.” The name makes reference to the fact that characteristics common to the Anomodont group were not uniform throughout all its members. Before this discovery, it was thought that Anomodonts and other creatures associated with the group known as therapsids, or mammal-like reptiles, originated in Russia. The new find has reinforced the idea that the distant ancestors of mammals might actually have come from South Africa....

Giants are more common than Supergiants, and have diameters 10 to 100 times as large as the Sun. Red Giants have cooler temperatures than giants, and are thus less bright, but their size is still massive. Medium-size or dwarf stars are about as large as the sun. White dwarfs are small stars (smaller than the distance across Asia).

The Antarctic Circle lies three-quarters of the way between the equator and the South Pole. Three-quarters of the way between the equator and the North Pole lies the Arctic Circle. Above this line is the Arctic region, where nights last for 24 hours in the middle of winter. It is known as the Land of the Midnight Sun because in summer the sun never sets. The DEW (distant early warning) line is a 3,000-mile line of radar stations north of the Arctic Circle....

John Quincy Adams (the 6th president) was the son of John Adams (the 2nd president). Benjamin Harrison (the 23rd president) was the grandson of William Henry Harrison (the 9th president). James Madison (the 4th president) and Zachary Taylor (the 12th president) were second cousins. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (the 32nd president) was a fifth cousin of Theodore Roosevelt (the 26th president). Genealogists have determined that FDR was distantly related to a total of 11 U....