That dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago is pretty common knowledge. Not as well known, but just as fascinating, is the fact that Earth was on the other side of the galaxy when most of them were alive. It takes the sun (and thus the rest of the solar system) around 250 million years to orbit the center of the Milky Way. The first dinosaurs actually appeared at the dawn of the Triassic around 250 million years ago, but for most of their very long reign — namely the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods — our humble planet was in a completely different neighborhood of the galaxy. That means, of course, that the stars the dinosaurs saw in the sky would have looked different from the view we have today.

All dinosaurs were green or gray.

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Despite the muted colors we’re used to seeing them rendered in, a number of dinosaurs were bright and vibrant. Some had iridescent feathers, others had spots or stripes, and one is even thought to have had a bandit mask à la raccoons.

Though not new information, this knowledge made something of a splash a few years ago when NASA astronomer Dr. Jessie Christiansen created an animation showing which part of the Milky Way our prehistoric predecessors resided in. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the video is its ending, which asks what our planet might be like the next time we complete a trip through the Milky Way. Fortunately, our solar system stays far, far away from the inhospitable galactic center (and its supermassive black hole) as it moves through space. If it didn’t, there’d be no life on Earth whatsoever — human, dinosaur, or otherwise.

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Although her aviation career lasted just 17 years, Amelia Earhart remains one of the most famous people ever to take to the sky. In addition to being renowned for her many firsts — including being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first person to fly alone from Hawaii to the mainland U.S. — she’s known for her 1937 disappearance and the many theories it spawned. Less well-known but considerably more fun to imagine is the time she took Eleanor Roosevelt on a nighttime joyride from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore on April 20, 1933. The brief flight took place with both of them in their evening wear following a White House dinner party.

Some people believe that Amelia Earhart was a spy.

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According to this fanciful theory, Earhart didn’t disappear at all — she started a new assignment for President Franklin Roosevelt, a close personal friend of hers, that entailed keeping a watchful eye on Japanese activities. Some even believe she was later captured by Japan.

“I’d love to do it myself. I make no bones about it,” the First Lady told the Baltimore Sun after the flight. “It does mark an epoch, doesn't it, when a girl in an evening dress and slippers can pilot a plane at night.” In fact, Roosevelt herself had recently received a student pilot license and briefly took over the controls of the twin-engine Curtiss Condor, borrowed from Eastern Air Transport at nearby Hoover Field. Eleanor's brother Hall also ditched the dinner party in favor of the flight that night, as did Thomas Wardwell Doe, the president of Eastern Air Transport, and Eugene Luther Vidal (head of the Bureau of Air Commerce) and his wife Nina Gore, parents of author Gore Vidal. When the plane returned after the short journey, the Secret Service guided everyone back to the White House table for dessert. Needless to say, they all had quite the story to tell at their next dinner party. Roosevelt and Earhart remained friends for the rest of Earhart’s life, sharing an interest in women’s causes, world peace, and of course, flying.

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In the spring of 1847, American newspapers printed horrifying reports about an ill-fated group of pioneers who had become trapped in the Sierra Nevada over the winter. With few provisions and facing unbearable cold, nearly half of the group’s 81 members perished before rescue parties could find them, four to five months later. Eventually, the Donner Party’s tragic tale became embedded in American history, but it could have had a much greater impact had a young Illinois lawyer chosen to join the group.

Wagon wheel tracks from the Oregon Trail are still visible.

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Before the Transcontinental Railroad, wagons were the only way for emigrants to journey west over land. From 1840 to 1880, hundreds of thousands traced their way across the prairies, and the evidence remains. Today, ruts from wagon traffic are still visible from Missouri to Oregon.

In the 1840s, emigrants were itching to go west in search of gold, new beginnings, and a glimpse of the West Coast’s famed beauty. So it wasn’t strange that Abraham Lincoln, then working as a lawyer, helped at least one traveler settle his affairs before beginning the journey. An Irish entrepreneur named James Reed had known Lincoln from their days serving together in the Black Hawk War in 1832. According to the historian Michael Wallis, Reed — a founder of the Donner Party — extended an invitation to the 37-year-old lawyer and his family to join the voyage. Lincoln was likely tempted: He reportedly had a lifelong interest in visiting California. But his wife, Mary Todd, was adamant they should remain in Illinois considering the difficulty of 2,000 miles of wagon travel with a young son and a baby on the way. The Donner Party departed Springfield, Illinois, without the Lincolns on April 15, 1846. Mary Todd was present as the wagons pulled away, waving farewell to an expedition that would go on to face extreme peril. Abraham Lincoln, however, traded his dream of westward travel for political ambitions that took him much further in history when he became the 16th President 15 years later.

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The very first pencils arrived around the dawn of the 17th century, after graphite (the real name for the mineral that forms a pencil’s “lead”) was discovered in England's Lake District. But the eraser didn’t show up until the 1770s, at the tail end of the Enlightenment. So what filled the roughly 170-year-long gap? Look no further than the bread on your table. Back in the day, artists, scientists, government officials, and anyone else prone to making mistakes would wad up a small piece of bread and moisten it ever so slightly. The resulting ball of dough erased pencil marks on paper almost as well as those pink creations found on the end of No. 2 pencils today. 

The writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau invented a popular American pencil.

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Known best for literary works such as “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau and his family owned a pencil company where Thoreau mixed clay with graphite to make a variety of pencils, including the first No. 2.

But in 1770, English chemist Joseph Priestly (best known for discovering oxygen) wrote about “a substance excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the marks of a black lead pencil.” This substance, then known as caoutchouc, was so perfect for “rubbing” out pencil marks that it soon became known simply as “rubber.” Even today, people in the U.K. still refer to erasers as “rubbers.” (The name “lead-eater” never quite caught on.) 

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