Interesting Thing of the Day

Shakespeare's famous Globe Theatre, originally built in 1599, bares little resemblance to what most people think of as a theater today. A replica, made as historically accurate as possible, was built in London in 1996.

Shocking but true: even in the 21st century, it's still possible to get lost in the woods. If you ever need to figure out which direction is north, you can use any of numerous methods, ranging from high-tech to low-tech to no-tech.

Take tender, young tea leaves and dry them quickly without letting them oxidize for a tea with a delicate flavor and, reputedly, numerous health benefits.

Thomas Jefferson was many things: a president, a slave owner, a philosopher, a linguist, and an inventor, for starts. Unfortunately, the list of things he invented has been overstated, and yours truly was one of the culprits.

A former coal-mining village in Taiwan was on the verge of dying out, but then hundreds of stray cats saved the day.

America's favorite fruit comes from an herb, not a tree. The life cycle of this plant, and the working conditions of the people who harvest its fruit, are among the little-known facts about bananas.

A 22-story office building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, may not look like much at first glance. But a closer inspection shows it to be a tribute to Dante's masterpiece The Divine Comedy.

Whatever your opinions of the Catholic church, there's no getting around the fact that 11th-century Pope Benedict IX set such a high bar for corruption that politicians are still trying to match him to this day.

They write upside-down, underwater, on grease, in zero gravity, and in a vacuum. But did Space Pens really cost NASA $1 million to develop?

Trick question: what exactly is a nut, anyway? Whatever your answer is, it's probably wrong (at least according to someone).

You might think that a dead fish left out in the sun too long would start to rot, and you'd generally be right. But if the stories are true, the Baikal oilfish essentially melts into a puddle of slime.

Don't touch it, eat its fruit, or even breathe near it. Better yet, don't even look at the world's deadliest tree.

In the great tradition of Swiss cheeses that require special serving rituals, raclette is a cheese prepared by melting it on a special grill and scraping it onto potatoes.

Figs are full of fiber, nutrients, and…wasps? Only sort of. But the story of how figs reproduce is quite odd.

You can find fortune cookies at any Chinese restaurant in North America, but they're considered an odd American food in China. They were actually invented in San Francisco, based on a Japanese treat.