Point Nemo

Point Nemo is a name for tthe oceanic pole of inaccessibility, the place in the ocean that is farthest from land. It lies in the South Pacific Ocean, 1,670 miles from the nearest lands: Ducie Island (part of the Pitcairn Islands) in the north, Motu Nui (part of the Easter Islands) in the northeast, and Maher Island in the south. The area is also known as a "spacecraft cemetery" because hundreds of decommissioned satellites, space stations, and other spacecraft have been deposited there upon re-entering the atmosphere.  The space station Mir fell there in 2001.

Juan Vucetich was an Argentinian police official who was a pioneer in the science of fingerprinting, making the first positive identification of a criminal based on a bloody fingerprint in 1892. (Interestingly, the murderer was a woman.)

Hannah Teter

Hannah Teter is an American snowboarder who has won the FIS World Cup several times and a gold medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Her discipline is the half-pipe and she is really incredibly hot.

Most southern Americans know the tortilla only as a corn or wheat flatbread, but in Spain the word "tortilla" usually refers to a kind of potato cake or omelet.

The Underwood Company's devil logo (for its deviled ham) was introduced in 1870 and is the oldest food trademark still in use in the United States. Although a jolly fellow in a jacket now, originally he was rather more demonic in appearance.

Mount Kenya, the highest mountain in Kenya and the second-highest in Africa, is known in the Gikuyu language as Kirinyaga, which means 'God's resting place.' It is a volcanic peak.

Pico de Orizaba is the highest peak in Mexico, at 18,490 feet tall. It is a volcanic mountain located on the border of the states of Puebla and Veracruz.

The musical 'Fiddler on the Roof' takes its title from the painting 'The Fiddler' by Marc Chagall, which shows a fiddler looming over a town, his right foot apparently on a small house's roof. The musical is about Tevye and his five daughters, who move away from their father's traditions.

Minamata disease is a neurological condition brought on by severe mercury poisoning. Ataxia, numbness, paralysis, loss of senses, and muscle weakness are all symptoms. It is named after a Japanese city where the Chisso company opened a chemical plant in 1908.

The Iskar River is the longest in Bulgaria, at 230 miles. A tributary of the Danube, it flows near eastern Sofia, the capital.

The $100,000 US note, the largest denomination ever issued, bore Woodrow Wilson's portrait.

Amati was a dynasty of violin makers from Cremona, Italy, flourishing 1550-1740. Nicolo Amati is said to have taught Antonio Stradivarius.

Sonic Hedgehog protein

Even though this sounds ridiculous, the gene that helps determine physical structures in people, including teeth and appendages, has been named Sonic Hedgehog (SHH). Yes, after the video game character. It is one of three hedgehog homologues in mammals.

An acre is a measurement of area equal to 4,840 square yards or 43,560 square feet. That is 4046.8 square meters. It was supposedly originally defined as the amount a man could plow with an ox in one day.

"Land der Berge, Land am Strome" (Land of Mountains, Land on the River") is the national anthem of Austria. The music is adapted from a work by Mozart, itself adapted from an earlier work by Johann Holzer. The lyrics were written in 1946 by Paula von Preradović.

A lepton is a fermion (a sub-atomic particle with 1/2 integer spin) that is opposed to a quark. An electron is a kind of lepton.

The Helga pictures are a series of nearly 250 studies by Andrew Wyeth of his neighbor Helga Testorf, mainly painted between 1971-85 (though the final Helga picture was made in 2002).

The clarinet is the only single reed woodwind usually found in orchestras. (The saxophone is the other single reed woodwind.)

Raccoon Lodge

The Raccoon Lodge was the fraternity Ralph and Ed belonged to on 'The Honeymooners" (Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, chapter).

Mary I of England, the daughter of Catharine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII, was known as 'Bloody Mary' Tudor for her persecution of Protestants.

St. Joseph, Missouri was the gateway to the wild west and was the beginning point for the Pony Express, which ran to Sacramento, CA from 1860 to 1861.

The Medes were an ancient Iranian people with an empire flourishing in 6th century BC. They were eventually supplanted by Cyrus and the Persian Empire.

Albert Einstein (born on this date, Pi Day, 1879), was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Century in 2000. Let's hear it for the egghead!

Bangladeshi national anthem

Rabindranath Tagore wrote the words to the national anthems of both Bangladesh ("Amar Shonar Bangla") and India ("Jana Gana Mana").

Fauvism

Fauvism was an early 20th-century art movement that emphasized strong color and brush strokes. The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and Andre Derain.

Hydrogen is the most abundant of the chemical elements, constituting roughly 75% of the universe's elemental mass, though estimates vary up to 90%.

In FIFA football, the goal is 24 feet wide and eight feet high (7.3 m by 2.44 m).

Patagonia is the name given to the southwestern section of the Andes mountains and their environs, located in Chile and Argentina. The origin of the name is unclear.

Swanson frozen dinners

The Swanson & Sons company was not the first to introduce the frozen TV (re-heatable, later microwaveable) dinner --- that was most likely William Maxson, in 1944, who created them for serving on airplanes --- but popularized them, and trademarked the name, in 1952. The first Swanson TV dinner consisted of turkey, stuffing, cornbread, and buttered peas. What? No dessert?!

Imhotep was an engineer, architect, and physician who lived in the 26th century BC. He is credited as the first doctor and architect we known by name. He designed the Pyramid of Djoser, the oldest pyramid in the world.

The oribi is a small antelope of sub-Sahran Africa. About 3-4 feet long and 2 feet high, it's known for the loud whistle it makes when alarmed.

Bonn, the capital of West Germany until 1990, is located on the Rhine river.