1. The castor bean is the most poisonous common plant in the world.
2. The nearly straight-line configuration of three celestial bodies (such as the sun, moon, and earth during a solar or lunar eclipse) is called SYZYGY.
3. The first woman to appear on a circulating U.S. coin was Susan B. Anthony - on the eponymous dollar coin. It was minted from 1979 - 1981 when production was suspended due to poor public acceptance. In 1997, Congress replaced the Susan B. Anthony dollar with the golden dollar coin. The golden color of this new coin, combined with a smoother edge and wider border, helped to differentiate it from a quarter. The Susan B. Anthony dollar was re-issued in 1999 for the final time.
4. Martin Van Buren is the only U.S. President whose first language was not English. He grew up speaking Dutch.
5. Robert Adler invented the first practical, wireless television remote control. It was introduced as the "Space Command," by Zenith in 1956.
6. There is a difference between lying in state and lying in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Only elected government officials may lie in state. Distinguished private citizens may lie in honor. The first woman to lie in state was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The fist woman to lie in honor was Rosa Parks.
7. Only two people have won both an Oscar (Academy Award) and the Nobel Prize. George Bernard Shaw won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925. He won an Oscar in 1939 for Writing/Best Screen Play - for his role in adopting his own play, Pygmalion, for the screen. This play was re-made into the enormously successful musical My Fair Lady. The other recipient of both an Oscar and the Nobel Prize is Bob Dylan. He won an Oscar for Best Original Song (Things Have Changed) in 2001. Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2016 for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."
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