1. Blizzards and winter storms are often used as interchangeable terms, although meteorologists state that a storm must last for three hours to truly be a blizzard.
2. In 2006, astronomers defined a new class of planetary bodies, known as dwarf planets, which include Pluto, Eris, and Ceres.
3. E-mail scammers have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, using fake websites, computer viruses, and password-stealing software in order to take money from unsuspecting victims.
4. William Shakespeare is considered the greatest English playwright, and the frequent production of his plays hundreds of years after his death demonstrates the truth of this evaluation.
5. Too much sodium can be bad for a person’s health, but severe illness and even death will result if a person does not get enough sodium in his diet.
6. People often say that they find out who their real friends are when they need help moving because they can usually count only on their closest friends to help them lift and carry their heaviest pieces of furniture.
7. Bridal showers provide a great opportunity for the bride-to-be and her friends and family to get together, allowing them all to have a good time sharing stories and exchanging gifts just prior to the wedding.
8. Furniture shoppers who know what they are looking for can often find good deals on antique chairs, tables, and other pieces at garage sales as long as they get to these sales early in the morning and snap up the best items before they are sold out.
9. When the children who grew up in the 1980s reached adulthood in the late 1990s and early 2000s, their nostalgia prompted many toy manufacturers to develop movies, video games, and other media properties based on the toys these adults enjoyed when they were young.
10. Regular investing in the stock market, though it can be somewhat risky, has proven to be the best way to beat inflation as long as the invested funds can be left in the market for ten years or longer.
11. Even though many nations can serve on the United Nations Security Council on a rotating basis, there are five permanent members of this important international body: China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United States.
12. On July 21, 1969, U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong became the first human being to ever set foot on the moon, proclaiming confidently that his small step on the lunar surface was a giant leap for all mankind.
13 Thus far in the history of the United States, only two father-son pairs have enjoyed the distinction of having both father and son hold the office of president: John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
14. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not only the sole First Lady of the United States to have gone onto a career as senator, she is also the only first lady to run for president and be appointed secretary of state after her husband left office.
15. Even though the solar calendar is the standard way of marking time in the Western world, adherents of the religions of Judaism and Islam follow a lunar calendar in order to determine when they should hold the festivals and feasts of their religious years.
16. People who do not want the hassle of mowing the yard or performing routine maintenance will often elect to live in an apartment, enjoying the benefits of having the apartment managers do these jobs for them.
17. Tropical storms and hurricanes pose a far greater threat to coastal areas than they do to those communities that are located further inland, requiring these coastal areas to have evacuation plans and other preparations in place should one of these storms make landfall.
18. The ancient Hebrew language did not originally have any written vowels, and Jewish scribes developed a system of vowel points to aid readers and translators of the Hebrew Bible hundreds of years later.