The Grant Building, a skyscraper built in 1929, has a large aerial beacon at its summit that continuously flashes the name of its home city, Pittsburgh, in Morse Code.

The Soldiers and Sailors monument, on Main Street in Newtown at the top of Hanover Road, was designed by Franklin L. Naylor of Arlington, N.J

The original blueprints and even the original mailing tube that Franklin Naylor kept his designs in for Newtown’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument are in the permanent collection of Newtown Historical Society. The monument was erected in 1931, and the papers were forwarded by Mr Naylor’s descendants in 2000.

The building located on West Street just west of the Chase Block, currently occupied by Florist on the Green, is probably the oldest commercial structure in Newtown. It is believed to have been constructed some time before 1800, but the building originally stood facing Main Street, where Flagpole Realtors presently is.

Leonardo da Vinci carried the Mona Lisa with him for years. He took it to Milan, Rome and France, impressing other painters with his mastery of style and techniques never seen before.

In the 1530s “Mona Lisa” was acquired by Francis I, King of France, for approximately $105,000. Viewing was reserved for the upper class at the Fontainebleau, a 16th Century chateau.

In 1939 when France entered World War II The Louvre evacuated most works of art, loading them into freight trains taking them to more than 72 storerooms away from Paris. La Joconde a le sourire, or “the ‘Mona Lisa’ is still smiling,” served as a coded message during the war to indicate the works of art in storage were safe.

Elite racing bicyclists turn their pedals at an average rate of 90 to 100 times per minute.

Elite bicycle racers are some of the world’s fittest athletes. Resting pulse rates of 28 beats per minute and lung capacities of eight liters have been recorded in champion cyclists.

Racing bicycles weight about 17 pounds and are made of various combinations of aluminum, carbon fiber, steel and aluminum. They gave 18-20 speeds and cost about $4,000.

Each year, the Moon steals some of Earth’s rotational energy, and uses it to propel itself about 3.8 centimeters higher in its orbit. Researchers say that when it formed, the Moon was about 14,000 miles from Earth. It’s now more than 280,000 miles away.

Apollo astronauts used seismometers during their visits to the Moon and discovered that the gray orb isn’t a totally dead place, geologically speaking. Small moonquakes, originating several miles below the surface, are thought to be caused by the gravitational pull of Earth. Sometimes tiny fractures appear at the surface, and gas escapes.

Plymouth Rock today is about one-twentieth its original size, having been chipped away for so many years by souvenir hunters, rockhounds and even town officials.

In 1774 townspeople of Plymouth, Mass., home of Plymouth Rock, decided to relocate their landmark, engaging 30 yoke of oxen for the job. The screws they installed to help move it instead served as wedges, and the rock split in half as soon as the oxen began pulling.

In the 1920s, the Antiquarian Society of Plymouth sold pieces of Plymouth Rock as paperweights. Other uses of parts of the originally four-ton piece of Dedham granite have included tie tacks, cuff links, pendants, a 400-pound doorstop, aggregate for a concrete floor, and a weight for a barrel of corned beef.

Elvis Presley has 81 gold records (his albums continue to sell, more than two decades after his death) to his credit, more than anyone else in music history.

Of the 102 men, women and children aboard the Mayflower in 1602, only 50 were so-called Pilgrims, or Separitists. The non-Pilgrim voyagers were men still faithful to the Church of England but had signed on for the passage in the hope of owning property in the New World.

During the American Revolution, patriot farmers and Colonial townspeople practiced drills with their muskets so that they would be ready, when needed, to fight the British at a minute’s notice, which is where the nickname “Minutemen” came from.

Samuel Adams, a Revolutionary War figure who played a large part in the famous Boston Tea Party and for whom a popular beer is named today, squandered the inheritance left to him by his father. The younger Adams actually ruined his father’s brewery business.

George Washington’s teeth were not made of wood, but were instead constructed from hippo tusks and other materials. They were very uncomfortable.

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.

Don Larsen was the first pitcher to throw a perfect baseball game  during a World Series. The game was New York vs Brooklyn, on October 8, 1956.

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.

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.

Before 1750, very few kid-specific toys existed. Families played group games together, like Blind Man’s Bluff and Tag. Commercially available toys became widely available after 1850.

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.

Under optimal conditions, a ballpoint pen will produce more than 28,000 linear feet of writing – more than five miles – before running out of ink.

John Lee Hooker and Carroll O’Connor both passed away on June 21, 2001. Coincidentally, their stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame are next to each other.

In 1999, British marketers tried advertising to dogs by using dog’s-eye-level, faux-dog-urine-scented posters put on lampposts. The posters were for the TV station Animal Planet.

Due to snow-related issues, it’s legal to save your parking place in Chicago, be it with an orange road cone, a piece of furniture, or whatever you happen to have.

People who have extreme unhappiness with their appearance have a psychological condition known as body dysmorphia.

When the space shuttle Discovery returned to earth from the international space station in August 2001, it brought back 3,700 pounds of garbage.

The South Korean manufacturer Hyuk-ho Kwon of Kolon has developed a $400 self-perfuming suit made of special scratch-and-sniff fabric. The peppermint-scented attire can be repeatedly dry cleaned without losing its special feature.

Pittsburgh was one to the nation’s first television station. WQED, founded in 1954, was home to the long-running children’s program Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood.

Research from the Quilted Northern toilet paper company reveals that 92 percent of Americans regularly read in the bathroom. The survey also shows that 48 percent of users spend potty time talking on the phone.

Bounty mutineer Fletcher Christian named one of his sons Friday October after the day and month on which he was born. Friday later learned his father miscalculated the date and changed his name to Thursday.