A typical hurricane releases some 600 trillion watts of heat energy, equivalent to 200 times the world’s total electrical generating capacity.

4) Some things never change: Edison’s early film loops included one showing “cooch” dancers; another reenacted the decapitation of Mary, Queen of Scots—the first porn and horror flicks.

New York has a forgotten one, Texas has a $2 billion wasted one, and Switzerland’s building the longest.

11) In a study last year, researchers found more cocaine residue on U.S. bills than on any other currency. Also found on money: staphylococcus bacteria and fecal matter. 17) The world’s first ATM accepted only checks laced with identifying traces of radioactive carbon-14. The inventor claimed users “would have to eat 136,000 checks” for the radioactivity to have any dangerous effects.

3) Daylight Saving Time began as a joke by Benjamin Franklin, who proposed waking people earlier on bright summer mornings so they might work more during the day and thus save candles. 19) Time has not been around forever. Most scientists believe it was created along with the rest of the universe in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

What did the world’s first TV look like? How big is the largest plasma TV in the world? Which mission did NASA lose the video recordings of?

Body fat can kill you, keep you warm, or power your boat.

5) On election night in 1952, TV viewers saw Walter Cron­kite sitting beside UNIVAC 1, which famously called the race for Eisenhower after only 7 percent of the vote had been tallied. 6) But it was a lie: Cronkite sat beside a cardboard panel with blinking Christmas lights. The real computer was projecting returns in Pennsylvania.