When did the U.S. federal government take over printing paper currency?

Before 1861, when the federal government took over the job of printing paper currency, banks issued it themselves and the designs of the notes varied widely. Take the Santa Claus banknotes that banks from Maine to Wisconsin issued around Christmastime in the first half of the 19th century. Along with the official language that marked them as currency, they bore illustrations of Saint Nick, sometimes adapted from Currier and Ives engravings. They’re no longer legal tender, but they’ve been known to fetch a fine price among collectors.

Trivia question: Since 1976, who has been pictured on the front of the U.S. $2bill?

A) Aaron Burr

B) John C. Calhoun

C) Thomas Jefferson

D) MarthaWashington

Every year since 1900, the Audubon Society has conducted a Christmas Bird Count with birders and “citizen scientists” making a tally in their local areas of the species they spot and how many of each they see. It’s the longest-running wildlife census on earth. The first Christmas Bird Count was done by 27 volunteers across North Amer- ica, spotting 89 species and a total of nearly 18,500 individual birds. In 2015, nearly 60,000 volunteers in the United States alone counted 646 species and more than 54.5 million individual birds.

Of all the nuts in the world, pecans are the one tree nut that’s native to North America, growing wild throughout the United States. The nearly 400,000 acres of American pecan orchards, planted and tended by growers, produce nearly 300 million pounds of pecans a year. Americans eat about a half-pound per person per year, mostly in fall and winter, which is pecan harvest time.

“The Icebergs” by American artist Frederic Edwin Church is a highlight in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art. An arctic landscape measuring 112.5 inches across and 64.5 inches high, the painting was sold at auction in 1979 for what was then the highest price recorded for an American painting. When it was donated to the museum, shippers marked its crate “household items” hoping to make it less attractive to thieves and vandals. That scheme had the unintended consequence of making the crate look like a low-priority shipment. Thus its arrival in Dallas was delayed because it was bumped for another crate that looked more important.

Kids in Iceland don’t complain when they’re given clothing for Christmas. New clothes — whether an entire outfit or simply a pair of socks — protect them from the evil Yule Cat who, according to legend, prowls around and eats children who don’t wear new clothes for Christmas. The peculiar legend might have come from a heartfelt intention: encouraging people to donate clothing to the poor so that everyone has something new to wear at Christmas.

The legend of Robin Hood says that he died at a religious retreat called Kirklees Priory, where he’d gone to be healed but ended up being bled to death by the evil prioress. Before he died, he shot an arrow through the priory window and told his faithful friend Little John to bury him where the arrow landed. At Kirklees Park in West Yorkshire, England, there’s a place called Robin Hood’s grave, but recent radar scans have revealed there’s no one buried in it.

Trivia answer: Since 1976, Thomas Jefferson has been pictured on the front of the U.S. $2bill.