The Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, N.Y., opened in 1948, is the world’s largest landfill. It covers 3,000 acres and receives up to 14,000 tons of garbage a day.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the total value of goods and services produced annually within a country. Gross National Product also includes income from overseas.

The first Coca-Cola was served at Jacob’s Pharmacy, a drugstore in Atlanta, Ga., on May 8, 1886, the creation of pharmacist Dr John Styth Pemberton.

The carriage road (now The Auto Road) to the summit of Mt Washington in New Hampshire was opened on August 8, 1861. Construction of the road took eight years.

In the 1700s, most children were taught at home by their mothers or older siblings. By the 1800s, more children were learning their lessons in schools and Sunday schools.

The movies Ben Hur (1959) and Titanic (1997) hold the record for the highest number of Oscars won by a single film: 11. Ben Hur was nominated for 12 awards; Titanic, 14.

The same movie has received three Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress only once — Diane Cilento, Dame Edith Evans and Joyce Redman for Tom Jones.

The Golden Globe Awards are presented annual by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of US journalists who report on the entertainment industry.

In the period 1908 to 1942, the actress Mary Pickford made at least 238 movies. In 1915, Pickford became one of the first actors to be identified as a box office draw.

 By 1980, there were an estimated 7,687,000 homes with VCRs; by 1996 the global figure was put at 400,976,000 — a more than 50-fold increase.

There are 9,200 voting members of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the group responsible for selecting Grammy Award winners.

Originally there were four flavors of Jell-O (strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon); today there are 22. Strawberry wins as the all-time favorite flavor.

A professor once hooked up Jell-O to an electroencephalogram machine. Its readout was virtually identical to the brain waves of healthy humans.

Captain Matthew Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel, was killed July 24, 1883, while attempting to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls.

Bill Haley and His Comets became the first American group to have a #1 hit in the United Kingdom, on November 25, 1955. The song was “Rock Around the Clock.”