In English-speaking countries, the most common surname is what you expect: Smith. But the most common surname in the world is Chang, with a total of more than 80 million! And the most common first name in the world? Mohammed!

True north is the direction along the earth’s surface towards the geographic North Pole. True north usually differs from magnetic north (the direction of the magnetic north pole) and grid north (the direction northwards along the grid lines of a map projection). The direction of true north is marked in the skies by the north celestial pole. For most practical …

The phrase kemo sabe is often heard in the American radio and TV serial Lone Ranger. Its hero, a Texas Ranger, and his assistant, an American Indian called Tonto, keep calling each other Kemo Sabe. In an early episode, these characters run into each other for the first time. When they recognise each other as childhood friends, they utter the …

The correct phrase in English is ‘It went down like a lead balloon’. It means it dropped straight to the floor, or was a disaster. The phrase ‘Go over like a lead balloon’ means to fail completely or to go over badly and be considered a flop. It is the US version of the original phrase.

The Maginot Line was built between 1930 and 1940, and named after French minister of defence Andre Maginot. It was built to prevent attacks from Germany, after learning a hard lesson from World War I. The Maginot Line was a line of concrete fortification, consisting of tank obstacles, artillery casemates, machine gun posts and other defence establishments, like a complex …

The littoral zone is that part of the river or sea which is closest to the shore. It extends from the shoreline to 600 feet (183 metres) out into the water and is divided into three zones called supralittoral, intertidal and sublittoral. The zone is a tricky area when it comes to predicting water conditions because so many factors affect …

Can you imagine a lizard 10 feet long and weighing 300 pounds? There is a monster lizard of this size called the Komodo Dragon. It is easy to see how it came to be called a dragon. Its long neck supports a large head with cruel-looking jaws and its powerful, thick tail accounts for half its length. Short legs with …

The largest land mammal living today is the African Elephant. A fully grown male measures 11 feet high at the shoulders and may weigh over 6 tons. It eats 700 pounds of vegetations and drinks over 50 gallons of water in a day, its trunk having a capacity of 1.5 gallons. It can walk at 4 miles an hour, which …

Kit-Cat Club was London’s political and literary club, active between 1700 and 1720. The four dozen members included leading Whig politicians and London’s best young writers. Among them were Charles Seymour, the sixth duke of Somerset; Sir Robert Walpole; Thomas Pelham-Holles, the duke of Newcastle; William Congreve; Joseph Addison; Sir Richard Steele; and Sir Godfrey Kneller, who did portraits of …

The king crab, or horseshoe crab, is not really a crab at all. In fact it is not even a crustacean but a very primitive arthropod which belongs to a group of its own. From fossil evidence we know that king crabs were abundant in seas about 175 millions years ago. The few species that survive today are virtually unchanged …