Strange But True: Bat Peek-a-boo

• In 2014, there was a school in Turin, Italy, that had just one teacher and one student. Though the latter admitted to being lonely, officials decided to keep the school open as long as at least one pupil was enrolled.

• Altocalciphilia is the medical term for a shoe addiction.

• Embryonic bats go through a stage called “peek-a-boo,” when their wings grow to cover their eyes.

• Muhammad Ali's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is the only star that is not on the sidewalk, but on the wall of the Kodak Theatre, to honor the boxing champ's request that he "did not want to be walked on."

• Pennies are used to adjust the time in London's famous Big Ben clock tower. A single cent can change the pendulum's center of mass and alter the time by 0.4 seconds per day.

• Michael Bay filmed Megan Fox washing his Ferrari as her audition for "Transformers."

• Halley's Comet has two correct pronunciations. It can rhyme with "daily" or "valley" since its discoverer, Edmond Halley, spelled his name six different ways during his lifetime.

• The 2003 invasion of Iraq was originally dubbed "Operation Iraqi Liberation" but quickly changed due to the fact its acronym spelled out "oil."

• After learning that her husband had been killed in World War II, Mariya Oktyabrskaya sold everything she owned to donate a tank to the Soviet Red Army, with the condition that she be allowed to drive it. When the tank was hit by gunfire, she would not only risk her own life to jump out and repair it, but ended up becoming the first female tanker to receive the Hero of the Soviet Union award.

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Thought for the Day: "Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are." -- Malcolm Forbes

(c) 2023 King Features Synd., Inc.