The first sailor in Columbus’ crew to see land (on October 12, 1492) was named Rodrigo de Triana. It was a small island in the present-day Bahamas named San Salvador.
In ancient Egypt, the ability to store wine until maturity was considered alchemy and was the privilege of only the pharaohs.
Peanuts are not actually a nut and instead belong, along with beans, to the plant family called Leguminosae.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, a Chinese astronomer named Zhang Heng (A.D. 78-139) invented the world’s first earthquake detector. It could detect earthquakes more than 370 miles (600 km) away.
Minimum credit card payments are so low because it allows people to go into deeper debt.