Although 75% of volcanoes are found in the Ring of Fire — a tectonic belt stretching 25,000 miles from Asia up to Alaska and down South America — every continent on the planet is home to volcanoes, whether they were created through continental rifts (as in the Ring of Fire) or magma hot spots (like Hawaii’s volcanoes). However, no active volcanoes can currently be found on the mainland of the Land Down Under, although it is home to some extinct volcanic specimens. This is because the continent is missing tectonic plate boundaries. It’s at these boundaries — where two tectonic plates meet — that most volcanoes form. Instead, Australia rests squarely on the Australian Plate.

The word “volcano” was inspired by the name of a Roman god.

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In Roman mythology, Mount Etna, a volcano on the east coast of Italy, was the fiery furnace for the god of fire: Vulcan. “Vulcano,” in Italian, means “burning mountain,” and Mount Etna became the first place called by such a name.

Although Australians might feel like they’re missing out, the country technically has two active volcanoes in its outlying external territories, on Heard Island and McDonald Island, located some 2,485 miles southwest of Perth. But with both islands uninhabited — and a two-week boat ride being the only way to get there — few Australians (or anyone else for that matter) will ever lay eyes on the country’s remote volcanic exceptions. 

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Although we have virtually any color at our disposal when it comes to painting our homes, fans of offbeat hues like sarcoline or wenge might be disappointed to learn that passports come almost entirely in varieties of red, green, blue, and black. It’s not like there are any color-coded rules from the International Civil Aviation Organization, which otherwise offers guidelines for machine-readable travel documents, so what’s up with the universally restricted palette?

King Charles of the United Kingdom does not require a passport for traveling abroad.

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As was the case with his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles no longer needs the normally mandatory travel document, as the British passport is issued in the name of the monarch.

According to Passport Index co-founder Hrant Boghossian, there are a variety of cultural and symbolic influences behind a country’s choice of passport color. Islamic states use green, for example, given the color's strong ties to the prophet Muhammad. Elsewhere, members of the European Union display unity via passports in the off-red color of burgundy. There are also practical reasons in play, including the relatively limited color choices available for cardstock used to make the booklets. And passports issued in black or dark blue (like the U.S.’s) are less likely to show obvious signs of wear.

Despite the general uniformity in this department, administrative powers around the world have found avenues for personalized expression. Newer passports of the United States, Canada, Norway, and China all feature designs that glow under ultraviolet light. And those of Finland and Slovenia offer a dash of fun with flipbook-style animations. So remember, don’t judge a book by its cover, even when it comes to jet-setting documents.

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Given that the United States was born amid an anti-monarchical fervor, it’s fitting that the sole royal palace within its confines is located more than 4,700 miles from the nation’s capital. There, amid the high rises and palm trees of downtown Honolulu, stands Iolani Palace, the home of Hawaii’s 19th-century royal dynasty. 

King Kalākaua wrote Hawaii’s national anthem.

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A patron of the arts, the Merrie Monarch teamed with royal bandmaster Henry Berger in 1876 to compose “Hawai’i Pono’i,” a tribute to the kingdom’s founder, Kamehameha I.

After King David Kalākaua rose to power in 1874, he elected to tear down the deteriorating coral block building that housed his predecessors and erect an ostentatious new home in a style that reflected the grand palaces he had visited while touring Europe some years prior. The “Merrie Monarch” went through three architects to get the residence he craved, winding up with a concrete-facing brick structure marked by six towers and open-air verandas stretching around all sides. The interior featured the lavish Throne Room, State Dining Room, and Blue Room to entertain dignitaries, along with a massive koa wood staircase to the private chambers of the second floor. Additional luxuries like indoor plumbing and a telephone pushed the final bill into the neighborhood of $350,000 before the palace opened in 1879, and that was before electricity was installed in the late 1880s.

Unfortunately, this display of extravagance served Hawaii’s rulers for just over a decade. Kalākaua’s sister and successor, Lili’uokalani, was deposed in an 1893 coup orchestrated by American businessmen, and the palace became the offices of the provisional, territorial, and then state governments until 1969. Reopened to the public as a museum in 1978, Iolani Palace serves as a reminder of Hawaii’s days as a sovereign nation, as well as America’s complicated history with monarchies.

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If you’re one of the 54% of Americans who’d like to stop resetting the clock twice a year, it might be time to move to Arizona or Hawaii. The Grand Canyon and Aloha states don’t observe daylight saving time (except for the Navajo Nation in Arizona), meaning they don’t fall back in November or spring forward in March. Rather, they live in what’s surely a permanent state of bliss, never having to remember whether the latest clock change means they’re getting an hour less sleep the next night or an hour more; nor are they subject to drastic, overnight differences in what time the sun rises and sets.

Daylight saving time was implemented for farmers.

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This common misconception gets it completely wrong, as farmers and agricultural workers have largely been opposed to DST since its conception. The practice was originally implemented during World War I to save energy.

Though polls like the one cited above consistently show that Americans are tired of changing their clocks, making daylight saving time permanent is just as popular as ignoring it altogether — one poll showed 56% of respondents were in favor of the idea. The House passed a bill to do just that in July 2026, though the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, as it’s called, has yet to move forward in the Senate. Long after Benjamin Franklin half-seriously proposed a form of it in 1784, DST was formally adopted in America as a wartime measure via the Standard Time Act of 1918. It was abolished in 1919, with Congress overriding a veto from Woodrow Wilson, but then became the law of the land on a federal level when Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act on April 14, 1966. States retained the option of remaining on standard time — but only two were bold enough to do so.

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