strange BUT TRUE

* It was English Victorian author Samuel Butler who made the following sage observation: “Words are like money; there is nothing so useless, unless when in actual use.”

* Martha Jane Canary — better known as Calamity Jane — was a noted frontierswoman in the late 19th century. She defied expectations of women by refusing to wear dresses, becoming a scout and fighting against Indians in the West. As one contemporary commenter observed, “She swore, she drank, she wore men’s clothing.

She was 50 years ahead of her time.”

* Those who study such things say that two-thirds of a shark’s brain is dedicated to detecting and sorting out odors. * In his 1510 book “The Adventures of Esplandian,” Spanish author Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo wrote of an island peopled entirely by Amazon-like women, and he called it California. When Spaniard Francisco de Ulloa was exploring the west coast of North America, his initial surveys of the Baja Peninsula led him to believe the land was an island, so the region was given the name of the mythical place: California.

* In Mongolia, it’s common to put salt in one’s tea before drinking it.

* If you’re a fan of nature documentaries, you’ve doubtless seen footage of Africa’s Serengeti, site of the world’s largest terrestrial mammal migration. If you’ve see images of the place, you won’t be surprised to learn that in Maasai, the word “Serengeti” means “the place where the land runs on forever.”

* You’ve probably heard of John Steinbeck’s celebrated novel “Of Mice and Men,” but you probably didn’t know that it was almost titled “Something That Happened.”

Thought for the Day:

“Do you wish the world were happy? / Then remember day by day, / Just to scatter seeds of kindness / As you pass along the way.” — Ella Wheeler Wilcox