China is the birthplace of the first seismograph. Built in 132 AD by a man named Cheng Heng, it consisted of eight metal dragons holding eight carved balls over eight frog figurines. If an earthquake made the ground vibrate, the dragon facing the quake's source would drop a ball into the mouth of its corresponding frog.

Andrew Jackson was the only US President to have the national debt paid in full.

In 2005, at least 2.5 million American drivers aged 85 or older had valid drivers licenses.

Scottish band The Bay City Rollers earned their name after sticking a pin in a map of America, which landed on the Michigan city.

The delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention spent much of their time getting drunk. One surviving document is a bill for a party on September 15, 1787, two days before the signing of the Constitution. Items on the bill were: 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, 8 bottles of whiskey, 8 bottles of cider, 12 bottles of beer, and 7 bowls of alcoholic punch, all for 55 people.

The first cigarettes were rolled by Egyptian soldiers in the 1800s. It wasn't as classy an operation as you might think, though- the men were just trying to salvage some discarded cigars.

The amazingly popular drink Guinness is not black, it is actually a very dark shade of ruby.

Comming soon:

Those doves released at weddings and other formal ceremonies are actually white homing pigeons. True ring-neck doves are bred to be kept as pets and rarely survive out of captivity.

As the name implies, a giant squid is a mollusk about the size of a school bus. But that's not the scary part. Besides being 2-ton, bus-size behemoths with beak-like mouths that can cut through steel cable, they also happen to be carnivorous.

Duct tape was invented in 1942 for use by the U.S. Army as a waterproof sealing tape for ammunition boxes.