This week!

The first recorded sighting of the Northern

Lights occurred in 1719 in New England. While one of nature’s most spectacular visual phenomena inspire awe in those who see them today, the lights initially caused witnesses to panic—they feared that the lights signaled the beginning of Judgment Day!

Finnish video game company Rovio launched a mobile gaming app called

Angry Birds in 2009. The app has since been downloaded more than three billion times and inspired clothing, movies, toys and even amusement parks in Finland and China! Dame Judi Dench was born in North Yorkshire, England, in 1934. The Academy Award winner began acting at the age of five, when she played a snail in a school play. Hollywood bookmakers predict she’ll be an Oscar contender again for her two recent films, Victoria and Abdul and Murder on the Orient Express!

John Adams was elected the second president of the United States in 1796. The first president to live in the White House boasts several other firsts: He was our first vice president, creator of America’s first marching band and the first president to have a son also elected president, John Quincy Adams!

Based on the novel by C.S. Lewis, Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe hit theaters in 2005. Trees that fight, fabled languages and daring rescues by flying creatures—the plot shares many similarities to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. That’s because the two were friends!