Strange But True: Rasputin's Chef
By Lucie Winborne
Africa is the only continent with land in all four of Earth's hemispheres.
Programmer Terry Davis, who suffered with schizophrenia, spent a decade working on an operating system to "talk to God."
The highest golf course in the world is the Tuctu Golf Club in Morococha, Peru, sitting 14,335 feet above sea level at its lowest point.
Vladimir Putin's grandfather worked as a chef for Rasputin, Lenin, and Stalin.
Bluetooth technology was named after 10th-century King Harald Bluetooth, who united Denmark and Norway, just like technology united computers and cellphones.
Colonel Sanders got fired from a dozen jobs, was a lawyer who once assaulted his own client in court, started a restaurant that went out of business, and found himself broke at the age of 65. That's when he started KFC.
The Mayans drilled holes in their teeth to insert semiprecious stones.
North Korea's 105-story Ryugyong Hotel, nicknamed "The Hotel of Doom," is one of the world's tallest unoccupied building.
Iceland has an official book-buying season that runs from September through December. More than half of all the books sold in the country are purchased during the month before Christmas.
Australian compass termites construct their mounds on a north-south axis.
According to a study of 79,777 patients, violent criminals had a much lower level of cholesterol than nonviolent individuals.
Linonophobia is a fear of string.
Hasbro has a "Monopoly Speed Die" and an official rulebook for "extreme" Monopoly variants.
Composer Richard Wagner used to preserve his own nose hair clippings for posterity.
Thought for the Day: "If you always have something in your life that you're trying to improve upon, then every day you have a reason to get out of bed, and you have a reason to achieve something and feel good." -- Nick Offerman
(c) 2025 King Features Synd., Inc.