Ostriches can't fly, but they can run at speeds of 45 miles per hour for up to 30 minutes.
The ostrich's eyes are about the size of billiard balls.
An ostrich's brain is smaller than either of its eyeballs. This may explain why it tends to run in circles.
Ostriches kick forward, not backward. Because that's the direction in which their knees bend.
A typical lightning bolt is hotter than the surface of the sun.
Water is supposed to freeze at 32° F or 0° C but scientists have found liquid water as cold as 40° F in clouds and even cooled water down to -42° in the lab.
One snowflake can contain as many as one hundred ice crystals.
In 1988, two identical snowflakes collected from a Wisconsin storm were confirmed to be twins at an atmospheric Research Center in Colorado.
While it seems counterintuitive, Earth is actually closer to the Sun during Winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
When you hear thunder in the snowstorm, it's called thunder snow.
Snow lightning is harder to see in the winter and the snow sometimes dampens the thunderous sound.
Second shortest war is the Spanish-American war, which lasted from April 25th to August 12th in 1898.
Third is the Nazi-Polish war from September 1st to October 6th 1939, between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union versus Poland.
Ancient Egypt lasted from around 3100 BC to 30 BC, when it was conquered by the Romans.
The names of important people were written inside an oval called a "cartouche".
Some of Egypt's greatest rulers and heroes were women.
Pharaohs wore a cobra symbol on their crowns which was believed to spit fire at the pharaoh's enemies.
Both men and women wore makeup in Ancient Egypt. Eyeliner was drawn on with coal, a black powder.
Shaving away all body hair, most notably the eyebrows, was part of an elaborate daily purification ritual that was practiced by the Pharaoh and his priests.
The ancient egyptians believed that health, good crops, victory, and prosperity depended on keeping their gods happy.
Egyptian religion revolved around dozens of gods, often part animal.
Shaving the eyebrows was also a sign of mourning, even among commoners. The Greek Historian Herodotus, who traveled and wrote in the fifth century BC said that everyone in an Ancient Egyptian household would shave his or her eyebrows following the natural death of a pet cat or dogs. Herodotus reported that the household members would shave their heads and all of their body hairs as well.
Ancient Egyptian women enjoy equal privileges with men on many fronts, including the right to buy, sell, and inherit property, to marry and divorce, and to practice an occupation outside the home, legal rights and social privileges varied by social class rather than by gender. In other words, women and men in the same social class enjoyed fairly equal rights.
Egyptian Pharaohs often married their siblings because it was believed that Pharaohs were gods on Earth and thus could only marry other gods.
Tutankhamun became Pharaoh in 1336 BC at the age of nine. He ruled until 1327 BC when he died suddenly at the age of 18.
In 332 BC, Alexander The Great of Greece conquered Egypt.
Cleopatra the 7th was the last Pharaoh. She and Mark Anthony killed themselves.
According to one origin story, Italian monks invented soft pretzels in AD 610 to motivate catechism.
In Germany, there are stories that pretzels were the invention of desperate bakers held hostage by local dignitaries.
In Austria, they have their own coat of arms with two lions holding a pretzel. It was granted in 1510 after monks baking pretzels in a basement heard invaders digging tunnels under Vienna's city walls and helped defeat the invasion.
In 2015, archeologists found a 250 year old pretzel in Bavaria. Perhaps the oldest ever.
This food is also a symbol of eternal love. They've been included in wedding ceremonies. The possible origin of the phrase "tying the knot".
The first golf balls were made of wood.
