In the height of the punk era, Bob Geldof wrote the song 'I Don't Like Mondays' after reading about a young woman named Brenda who shot her children because, she claimed, 'I Don't Like Mondays'.

In 1991 the US House of Representatives Science Committee wrote that 'the chances of Earth being struck by a large asteroid are extremely small, but because the consequences of such a collision are extremely large, the Committee believe it is only prudent to assess the nature of the threat and prepare to deal with it.'

The Volkswagon Beetle was introduced into the United States in 1949. In that first year a grand total of 3 were sold.

The rare Hawaiian monk seal has been known to dive to about 1,650 feet (500m). The animal doesn't 'bark' like sea lions, but has a number of different vocalizations that it produces, including a deep, guttural call that sounds much like a belch.

Two of the greatest writers who ever lived, William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes (who wrote Don Quixote), both died on 23rd April 1616.

It was by the molecular clock method that the branching point between chimpanzee and man was shown to be as recent as 5-8 million years ago, rather than 14-16 million years, as had been previously generally accepted.

The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the amount of time it takes for exactly one-half of the parent atoms to decay to daughter atoms.

infra read lasers are now being used to heat up and vaporise layers of dirt on ancient buildings and sculptures.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and by far the largest. Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined (318 times Earth).