The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the Oxord English Dictionary.

SHAPE

SHAPE is Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, the military headquarters of NATO, located in Casteau, near Mons, Belgium.  SHAPE's commander is titled Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), and is always a U.S. four-star general officer or flag officer who also serves as Commander, U.S. European Command.

Fonio

Fonio is a nutrient-rich ancient grain cultivated in West Africa.  Guinea annually produces the most fonio in the world, accounting for over 75% of the world's production in 2019.  The name is of Wolof origin.

United States' oldest national park

Yellowstone is the oldest national park in the U.S., established by Ulysses S. Grant in 1872.  It is located in Wyoming and encompasses 3,400 square miles.

Stewjon

Stewjon is a planet that is the home of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars franchise.  This name is a play on the name of John Stewart, but has become canon.

First Roger Moore James Bond

The first James Bond film to star Roger Moore is Live And Let Die, released in 1973.

John Coolidge Adams

John Coolidge Adams is a minimalist composer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his "On the Transmigration of Souls," which commemorates the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack. Also he has something to say about pop culture.

First American to summit Mount Everest

On May 1, 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to summit Mount Everest, reaching the top along with Nawang Gombu after running out of oxygen.

Cheddar Man

Cheddar Man lived around 10,000 years ago and is the oldest almost complete skeleton of our species, Homo sapiens, ever found in Britain. It was found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England.  He lived in the 9th century BCE, the Mesolithic period.

Mount Thor

Mount Thor, or Thor Peak, is a 5,495-foot-tall mountain located on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. It features Earth's greatest vertical drop of 4,100 feet, with the cliff overhanging at an average angle of 105 degrees.  Despite its remoteness, this feature makes the mountain a popular rock climbing site.

paper bricks

Paper bricks are made with recycled newspapers. To make the bricks, newspapers are turned into pulp and combined with wood glue, before being pressed into the right shape. The paper bricks are as sturdy as real bricks, with a marbled look. The texture is warm and soft like textile.

Trango Towers

The Trango Towers are a family of rock towers situated in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, in the northern part of Pakistan. The Towers have some of the world's largest cliffs and offer some of the most challenging big wall climbing opportunities.  The highest point within the group is the summit of Great Trango Tower at 20,623 feet, the east face of which features the world's greatest nearly vertical drop.

Seba Smith

Seba Smith was an American humorist and writer who used vernacular in print.  His series of satirical letters by "Major Jack Downing" lampooned both sides of American politics in the early 1800s.  He also wrote "A Corpse Going To a Ball" in 1843, a ballad in which a young woman freezes to death because she refuses put a blanket over her party dress.  Her name was Charlotte, and this inspired the FRozen Charlotte dolls' name.

Frozen Charlotte

A Frozen Charlotte is a specific form of china or bisque doll made in one solid piece without joints from 1850 to about 1920. They were typically inexpensive, and the name Penny doll is also used, in particular for smallest, most affordable versions. The dolls had substantial popularity during the Victorian era.  The name of the doll originates from the American folk ballad Fair Charlotte, which tells of a young girl called Charlotte who refused to wrap up warmly to go on a sleigh ride because she did not want to cover up her pretty dress and thus froze to death.

bulge bracket

"Bulge bracket" is a term that describes the company or companies in an underwriting syndicate that issued the largest number of securities on a new issue. The bulge bracket is usually the first group listed on the tombstone—a print advertisement of a new issue.

shawm

A shawm is a loud double-reed instrument which is the ancestor of the oboe.

Mary Pinchot Meyer

Mary Pinchot Meyer was a D.C. artist and socialite who became John Kennedy's mistress.  She was shot execution-style in broad daylight on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath in Washington, D.C., on October 12, 1964. A suspect, Ray Crump, Jr., was arrested and charged with her murder, but he was ultimately acquitted.

first woman in space

The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, blazed a trail for the many female space-goers who would follow. Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, was selected from more than 400 applicants to launch on the Vostok 6 mission on June 16, 1963.  She orbited the Earth 48 times, spent almost three days in space, is the only woman to have been on a solo space mission and is the last surviving Vostok program cosmonaut. Twenty-six years old at the time of her spaceflight, she remains the youngest woman to have flown in space under the international definition of 100 km altitude, and the youngest woman to fly in Earth orbit.

Guru Granth Sahib

The Guru Granth Sahib is the central holy religious scripture of Sikhism, regarded by Sikhs as the final, sovereign and eternal Guru following the lineage of the ten human gurus of the religion.  The text consists of 1,430 angs (pages) and 5,894 shabads (line compositions), which are poetically rendered and set to a rhythmic ancient north Indian classical form of music. The bulk of the scripture is divided into 31 main rāgas, with each Granth rāga subdivided according to length and author.

Patriots' Day

Patriots' Day is a civic holiday (traditionally April 19, celebrated the third Monday of April) observed in Massachusetts to commemorate the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The Boston Marathon is held every year on Patriots' Day.

Maurice Garin

Maurice Garin, a chimney sweep, won the first Tour de France in 1903.

Josef Hoop

Franz Josef Hoop was a diplomat and political figure from Liechtenstein who served as Prime Minister of Liechtenstein from 1928 to 1945. Hoop is best known for his efforts to retain Liechtenstein's neutrality and independence during World War II. Serving for seventeen years, he is the longest-serving prime minister in the country's history.

lavvu

A lavvu, also called a kavvas, is a temporary dwelling used by the Sami people of northern extremes of Northern Europe. It has a design similar to a Native American tipi but is less vertical and more stable in high winds.

bauta mask

A bauta mask is a Venetian carnival mask that covers about 3/4 or more of the face, with a strong line down the middle, and no mouth.

fermata

A fermata (also known as a hold, pause, colloquially a birdseye or cyclops eye, or as a grand pause when placed on a note or a rest) is a symbol of musical notation indicating that the note should be prolonged beyond the normal duration its note value would indicate.

Hurkle-durkle

To hurkle-durkle is a Scots phrase dating from the 1800s meaning "to lie in bed or lounge about when one should be up and about."  Update: It took over social media!

Fugue For Tinhorns

"Fugue For Tinhorns" is the name of the song that goes "I got the horse right here" from Guys and Dolls.  It was written in 1950 by Frank Loesser.  Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Dean Martin recorded the song in 1963.

Ohi Day

Ohi Day or Ochi Day is celebrated throughout Greece, Cyprus and the Greek communities around the world on 28 October each year. Ohi Day commemorates the rejection by the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas of the ultimatum made by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on 28 October 1940. It also commemorates the subsequent Hellenic counterattack against the invading Italian forces at the mountains of Pindus during the Greco-Italian War and Greek resistance during the Axis occupation.  Ohi (Οχι) means "no" in Greek.

Treaty of Cordoba

The Treaty of Córdoba established Mexican independence from Spain at the conclusion of the Mexican War of Independence. It was signed on August 24, 1821 in Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexico.

First PG-13 rated movie

The first film released with the rating PG-13 was the 1984 war fantasy Red Dawn.  Technically, the first film to be rated PG-13 was The Flamingo Kid, but Red Dawn came out first.

Snell's window

Snell's window is a phenomenon by which an underwater viewer sees everything above the surface through a cone of light of width of about 96 degrees.

Yamato

On April 7, 1945, the Japanese battleship Yamato, one of the greatest battleships of its time, was sunk south of Kushu by American torpedoes in Japan’s first major counteroffensive in the struggle for Okinawa.

Antoinette Perry

Antoinette Perry was an American actress, producer, director and administrator, known for her work in theater, and is the namesake of the Tony Awards, presented by that organization for excellence in Broadway theater.

First presidential veto

George Washington exercised the first presidential veto of a Congressional bill on April 5, 1792. The bill introduced a new plan for dividing seats in the House of Representatives that would have increased the amount of seats for northern states. After consulting with his politically divided and contentious cabinet, Washington, who came from the southern state of Virginia, ultimately decided that the plan was unconstitutional because, in providing for additional representatives for some states, it would have introduced a number of representatives higher than that prescribed by the Constitution.

Craftsman houses

A Craftsman house is a popular American home style that emerged from the American Craftsman movement of the turn of the 20th century, often including a central fireplace, a wide porch with columns, a low-pitched roof, wood siding, and large bay windows.

Steak Diane

Steak Diane is a dish of pan-fried beefsteak with a sauce made from the seasoned pan juices. It was originally cooked tableside and sometimes flambéed. It was most likely invented in London in the 1930s. The name most likely comes from Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt.

White-shoe law firm

In the United States, "white-shoe firm" is a term used to describe prestigious professional services firms that have been traditionally associated with the upper-class elite who graduated from Ivy League colleges. (The term comes from white buckskin derby shoes (bucks), once the style among the men from the upper-class.)   The Oxford English Dictionary cites the phrase "white-shoe college boys" in the J.D. Salinger novel Franny and Zooey (1957) as the first use of the term: "Phooey, I say, on all white-shoe college boys who edit their campus literary magazines. Give me an honest con man any day."

Left-Handed Whopper

On April 1, 1998, Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.). However, the left-handed whopper had "all condiments rotated 180 degrees, thereby redistributing the weight of the sandwich so that the bulk of the condiments will skew to the left, thereby reducing the amount of lettuce and other toppings from spilling out the right side of the burger."

Agio

Agio is a term used in commerce for exchange rate, discount or premium.  In the context of currency exchange, "agio" refers to the premium or fee that is charged when converting one currency into another.  For example, if a bond with a face value of $1,000 is sold for $1,050, the $50 difference is considered the "agios."

Stile

A stile is the vertical component on the outside of the door – on both sides. It's where you will find the lock, latches, and whatever hinges your project requires. Rails are the horizontal sections of the door panel at the top and bottom of the door.

Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint was a Swedish artist and mystic whose paintings are considered among the first abstract works known in Western art history.  A considerable body of her work predates the first purely abstract compositions by Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian.  She belonged to a group called "The Five," comprising a circle of women inspired by Theosophy, who shared a belief in the importance of trying to contact the so-called "High Masters"—often by way of séances.

Bembe people

The Bembe people are an ethnic group based in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and western Katavi Region of Tanzania.  In 1991, the Bembe population of the DRC was estimated to number 252,000 and around 1.5 million in 2005.

First Best Actress Oscar

The first Academy Award for Best Actress was won by Janet Gaynor in 1929. She was honored for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven, Street Angel, and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The first Oscars ceremony was unique in that it allowed for multiple performances in different films to be recognized with a single award.

Every baseball used in MLB games is made by hand in Costa Rica. All baseballs used in major league games are made by the official producer of baseballs, Rawlings.

SpeedDating was invented in the 1990s by a Los Angeles rabbi named Yaacov Deyo.

A melisma is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession.

Siderodromophobia is the fear of trains. The word comes from Greek roots meaning "iron" and "running" (as in dromedary).

Myristicin is an organic compound present in nutmeg that gives it psychoactive properties when ingested in large quantities.

The shamisen, or samisen, also called samsen, is the three-stringed instrument used by geishas.

James Lawrence

James Lawrence was a commander of the USS Chesapeake in the 1812 war famous for his dying command, "Don't give up the ship," during an action against HMS Shannon. This was used in Oliver Hazard Perry's battle flag.

The word "school" derives from the Greek word for "discussion," originally "leisure, spare time." Seems reasonable, as only those with leisure time on their hands would think to fill their days with otiose dialectics and disputations.

Newspapers and other cheap papers turn yellow over time because the lignin, a dark substance found in cardboard, in them gradually reacts to oxygen to reflect a darker color.

Five pillars of Islam

The Five Pillars of Islam are: creed, prayers, fasting, giving alms, and the Hajj. Buddhism has an Eightfold Path.

Himalayan salt, rock salt mined primarily in Pakistan, is noted for its pink color. Large crystals of Himalayan salt are sometimes used as lamps.

Stonewall Jackson's arm

Stonewall Jackson's amputated left arm is buried (probably) at Ellwood, his brother's house, near Chancellorsville, Virginia. His body is buried at a memorial cemetery in Lexington, Virginia.

Mrs. Butterworth, the advertising icon who originated in 1961 and is owned by the syrup brand of the same name, almost never goes by her first name: Joy.

Alabama state constitution

The constitution of the state of Alabama is 340,136 words (including 827 amendments) and is the longest still-operating constitution in the world. This current constitution, adopted in 1901, is the state's sixth.

Vostok 1

Vostok 1 was the first human space flight, in 1961; Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth once during the two-hour mission.

The island of Bermuda has fast food outlets, but chain restaurants are banned by law.

Sailor Jack and Bingo

The logo for the Cracker Jack snack, featuring a boy and his dog, was introduced around 1918. The boy's name is Sailor Jack and his dog is named Bingo.

An iconic sign just south of the Strip in Las Vegas calls the city "fabulous." It is fabulous to be under video surveillance 24 hours a day for the privilege of playing games of chance heavily weighted toward the house!

Amen break

The "Amen break" is a drum break that has been widely sampled in popular music. It comes from the 1969 track "Amen, Brother" by the American soul group the Winstons.  It has been used in thousands of tracks of various genres, making it one of the most sampled recordings in music history. Salt-N-Pepa's 1986 single "I Desire" has one of the earliest uses of the Amen break. A number of releases in 1988 took it into the mainstream, including "Straight Outta Compton" by N.W.A and "Keep It Going Now" by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock.

Janet Guthrie

Janet Guthrie is an American race-car driver who in 1977 became the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500.  In 1978 she finished ninth, the best placing by a woman until 2005.  She also got a pilot's license at the age of 17.

First African-American MLB manager

Frank Robinson was the first black manager of a major league baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, 1975-77. He played with the Reds, the Orioles, the California Angels, the LA Dodgers and the Indians before becoming manager. He was also the first player to win MVP awards in both leagues and was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame in 1982.

Gershom

Moses named his firstborn son Gershom, which means traveler in an alien land, because Moses himself had been "a stranger in a strange land" (KJV translation).

Neuschwanstein Castle, in Bavaria, Germany, was the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland.

The three countries of South America that are located entirely within the northern hemisphere are Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela.

By a 1964 Act of Congress, bourbon is known as "America's native spirit." Or, you know, possibly not.

Ian Fleming, an amateur bird watcher, named James Bond after an American ornithologist.

Nephrite is a mineral, also called jade, which was once thought to cure kidney stones (the name comes from the Greek "nephros," or kidney).

In 2008, Lousiana's House of Representatives designated the sazerac --- a mix of rye whiskey, absinthe, and bitters --- as New Orleans' official cocktail.

The word "yoga" is taken from the cognate Sankrit word originally meaning a yoke, from a root meaning to join or attach. It is thus typically translated as "union."

The Hawaiian island of Lanai was once known as "Pineapple Island" because it was owned by the Dole corporation, governed by James Dole, and was the world's foremost exporter of pineapples. Yep, just sittin' on the porch, eatin' pineapples.

Brazil nuts contain trace amounts of radium, up to 1,000 times the amounts found in other foods, possibly due to the extensive root systems of the nut tree.

The modern day trampoline was invented by an American gymnast called George Nissen who purportedly got the idea after seeing trapeze artists fall into safety nets. He named it after the Spanish word for diving board.

Aquavit

Aquavit is a spirit principally produced in Scandinavia, flavored by caraway seeds or dill.

Sacagawea was honored with a 2000 U.S. dollar coin, bearing the face of a Shoshone-Bannock woman. In 2001 she was given the rank of Honorary Sergeant by Bill Clinton.

Sapphire is a gemstone of the mineral corundum, an aluminum oxide colored other than red or pink. It is a 9.0 on the Mohs Hardness Scale, as is ruby, the red variant of corundum.

Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist, is credited with first proposing the emoticon on a Carnegie Mellon message board in 1982. He proposed :-) as a a "joke marker," because it warned reader that an email was not intended to be taken seriously.

Nathaniel Wyeth, who invented the recyclable PET plastic soda bottle, was the brother of painter Andrew Wyeth.

Pan-pan is a radiotelegraph call sign indicating a state of urgency with no immediate danger to life, which is one degree less urgent than a call of Mayday.

Montgomery Ward, later known as Ward's, was the first mail order business, and the first major business to use the slogan "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back," in 1872.

Lohengrin

"Lohengrin" is an 1850 opera by Richard Wager. It is based on the Germanic folk hero, son of Percival, who memorably rides in a boat pulled by swans. The most famous part of the opera is the Bridal Chorus, popularly known as "Here Comes the Bride" (in a boat pulled by swans!).

A Cobb salad is made from greens, tomato, bacon, chicken, eggs, avocado, and Roquefort cheese. Its origin is unknown, but typically its birth is associated with the Brown Derby Diner in Los Angeles.

A lava lamp works because the colored wax inside liquid rises and falls as its density is changed by its light bulb's heat.

Criosphinx

In Egyptian mythology, a criosphinx is a sphinx with the head of a ram instead of a human. This comes from the Greek word krios for ram.

Under Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney was appointed White House Chief of Staff in 1975, making him the youngest to hold the post at 34. He is also an evil lying bastard who hates the poor and likes to shoot people in the face.

Vitamin D is classified as a hormone because it is produced by the body (under the ultraviolet light of the sun), as well as being synthesized when taken in.

The Moro are an indigenous Muslim population in the Philippines, compromising about 5-10% of the total population. There is an organization called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which demands autonomy for the Moro peoples.

The Mayflower was originally meant to land at the mouth of the Hudson River, near present-day New York City (part of what was then called the Virginia Colony), but was blown off course and dropped anchor in the hook of Cape Cod Bay. There they named Plymouth rock and the settlement, current-day Plymouth, Massachusetts. (The Mayflower Compact was drawn up because they did not actually have the right to settle there, not being where they had intended.)

Bayer developed heroin, presumably named for how "heroic" it made testers feel, from morpheine and codeine. Bayer marketed it as a cough suppressant from 1898 to 1910. It was claimed that heroin was ten times more effective against tubercular cough than codeine.

Benihana is named after the coffee shop that the founder's parents owned in Tokyo. "Benihana" means "red safflower." Many of the restaurants have plates that feature a stylized image of this flower.

Since 2003, Ronald McDonald has been designated McDonald's "Chief Happiness Officer."

Cyber Monday

The term Cyber Monday was coined by Ellen Davis of the National Retail Federation and Scott Silverman, and made its debut on November 28, 2005, in a Shop.org press release entitled "Cyber Monday Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year."  Cyber Monday takes place the Monday after Thanksgiving

United States Social Security cards have a blue border. The three parts of a Social Security Number are the area, group, and serial number.

Edo

Edo is the former name of Tokyo, becoming the stronghold of power of Japan in 1603.  On September 3, 1868, the name was changed to Tokyo.

Calvin Coolidge's pets

Calvin Coolidge kept a menagerie of exotic animals during his tenure at the White House, including a pygmy hippopotamus named Billy, a wallaby, lion cubs, and a raccoon. He also had several cats and dogs.

Snowflake

The town of Snowflake, Arizona, was named not for any precipitation, but for Mormon pioneers Erastus Snow (who also founded Snow College in Utah) and William J. Flake. Odd, isn't it?

Andradite is a mineral type in the garnet group, and includes melanite, which is black garnet.

"I Dreamed a Dream" is a song from Les Miserables. It is sung by the character of Fantine. brought to modern prominence by Susan Boyle's 2009 performance on "Britain's Got Talent."

Alleyne FitzHerbert was a 19th century British diplomat, the First Baron St. Helens. The mountain in Washington was named after him by explorer George Vancouver.

Pearl Harbor is located on the island of Oahu. It is named for the oysters once harvested there and is now a WWII monument. Oh! Ah! Ooh! We're being ambushed!

Alfred Wegener

Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German climatologist, geologist, geophysicist, meteorologist, and polar researcher.  He is most remembered as the originator of continental drift hypothesis by suggesting in 1912 that the continents are slowly drifting around the Earth, having once formed a supercontinent called Pangaea.  This theory was reviled and denied until decades after his death, at the age of 50 on a poorly-planned expedition in Greenland.

The Passat, which is German for trade wind, is a make of car by Volkswagen.

Cooler

A "cooler," in gambling, is a person whose luck is consistently bad and can bring down a whole table by his or her very presence.

The "Smoking Gun tape" is one of the Watergate tapes, in which Nixon enters a criminal conspiracy by telling his administration to ask the CIA to get the Watergate investigation stopped.

Asado is a term for barbecue and its techniques in Argentina and other South American countries, including Brazil.

Korotkoff sounds, named for a Russian physician who described them in1905, are what doctors listen for when measuring blood pressure.

Elwood Edwards was a voice-over actor most famous for voicing AOL notifications, including the most famous "You've got mail!"

Moon's diameter

The moon is approximately 283,000 miles, or thirty Earth diameters, away from Earth. If the Earth were a basketball, the Moon would be a tennis ball, a little less than a quarter the diameter.

The iconic movie phrase "Go ahead, make my day" was first uttered by Clint Eastwood's rogue cop Harry Callahan in Sudden Impact. It is number 6 on the AFI's list of top 100 movie quotes. Suddenly, he was making an impact on film wonks with his famous lines!

The Blorenge, which rhymes with orange, is an 1,840-foot hill in Wales.

Walt Whitman worked as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. His experiences led to the poetry collection "Drum Taps."

Firefox

The red panda is also known as the firefox in English.

In 2010, the reverse of the U.S. one penny coin was changed from the Lincoln Memorial to a Union Shield with a scroll reading "one cent" superimposed on it.

George Burns

George Burns was buried with three cigars and $1,008 in his pocket so he could play bridge. Now that is news you can use.

The hibiscus is the the flower most commonly associated with Hawaii. The official state flower is the yellow Hibiscus brackenridgei, known in Hawaiian as ma'o hau hele. The white hibiscus was the official flower of the Hawaiian territory; it is known as pua aloalo.

"These Green Mountains" has been the state song of Vermont since 2000. It refers to the Green Mountains, a 250-mile range in the state.

The joke-like lines, "Knock, knock, knock! Who's there.." appear in Shakespeare's "Macbeth," spoken by the porter in Act II.

Delmarva

The Delmarva Peninsula is a peninsula on the U.S. east coast, made up by most of Delaware plus portions of Maryland and Virginia.

Wall Drug is a kitschy tourist attraction in the town of Wall, South Dakota, off I-90.

John Paul Stevens

U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens was known for his bow ties. He was the third-longest-serving justice.

The term "bok choy" (Chinese cabbage) comes from the mandarin baicai, or "white vegetable."

Cumulus humilis is a low, puffy cloud commonly associated with fair weather. However, their appearance in the morning may presage a thunderstorm.

Ducati is an Italian motorcycle company founded in 1926 by three brothers.

Kellogg's mascots

The mascots for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes were originally Tony the Tiger, Katy the Kangaroo, Elmo the Elephant, and Newt the Gnu. Only Tony and Katy appeared on boxes of cereal, and Katy was soon phased out, leaving Tony the sole mascot.

Rimmel is a cosmetics brand founded by Eugene Rimmel in London in 1834. In French, "le Rimmel" refers to mascara.

The Hells Angels, before the Motorcycle Club, was the name of the 303d Bombardment Group, a B-17 Bomber group in WWII.