I did not know that yesterday!

The American icon Uncle Sam was in fact based on a real man, albeit a rather short, pudgy, beardless one.

A businessman from Troy, New York, Samuel Wilson provided the army with beef in barrels during the War of 1812. The barrels were prominently labelled "U.S." for the United States, but it was joking said that the letters stood for "Uncle Sam." Soon, Uncle Sam was used as shorthand for the federal government.

The man himself looked nothing like the gaunt, steely-eyed patrician of popular lore. The Abe Lincoln look, along with that fantastic star-spangled outfit, was a product of political cartoonists like Thomas Nast.

Uncle Sam became a useful icon in cartoons, much like the John Bull character who represented the United Kingdom. John Bull and Uncle Sam have squared off in hundreds of political cartoons throughout the years.

The Uncle Sam Image Gallery features the famous World War I recruiting image that depicted a stern Sam pointing his finger and declaring "I want you" created by James Montgomery Flagg in 1916.

Source: ask.yahoo.com

Some fish drink the water they swim in, while others absorb it through osmosis. It just depends on whether the fish lives in freshwater or saltwater.

The MadSci Network explains that fish need to keep a certain concentration of salt in their bodies. Marine fish need to worry about preventing water loss, because they already get plenty of salt. They drink sea water, and their gills process the water but remove the salt. In fact, some saltwater fish lack properly functioning kidneys, in order to help avoid losing too much water.

Freshwater fish have the opposite problem: They need more salt. They absorb water through their skin and have effective ways of excreting excess liquid to maintain the salt they need.

Some fish have developed the ability to exist comfortably in both freshwater and saltwater -- the salmon and bull shark are notable examples. Bull sharks have been found far up the Mississippi and Amazon rivers, much to the surprise of people who believe sharks are found only in the salty, salty sea.

Source: Ask.yahoo.com

Searching Yahoo! using the keyword "Velcro," we found the Velcro Industries' home page. There we anxiously devoured The Story of Hook and Loop, which discusses the invention of the sticky stuff.

After a walk in the woods, Swiss inventor George de Mestral noted the difficulty of removing burrs from his wool pants. This prompted him to examine them under a microscope, where he discovered that each burr was made up of tiny hooks that attached themselves to the loops of thread in the fabric.

From there, de Mestral inferred that a manmade version of these "hooks and loops" would provide a simple, foolproof fastener. He eventually devised a way to manufacture the product, patented the process, and called the concoction Velcro, from the words velvet and crochet (the French term for "hook").

To find out more, we took the name "George de Mestral" and poured it back into the Yahoo! search box. A few clicks later we were rewarded with the interestingly titled Useless Information: Zippers and Velcro. The page not only offers information on de Mestral's "locking tape," but also includes the story of the two inventors who came together to create the zipper.

Source: ask.yahoo.com

Sudoku is a numbers-based game. The rules are simple -- players attempt to fill in a nine-by-nine grid before going completely insane. Not surprisingly, these brainteasers owe their existence to a mathematician.

Leonhard Euler is widely acknolwedged as the father of Sudoku. In 1793, Euler invented "Latin Squares," the precursor to today's modern Sudoku puzzles. As far as mathematicians go, Euler was pretty famous in his day. According to about.com, the "Swiss genius dominated 18th-century mathematics."

The name Sudoku didn't come until much later (1984, to be exact). According to the London Observer, a Japanese publisher made a few logistical improvements to the game and then dubbed it "Sudoku." In Japanese, "Su means a number and doku roughly translates as singular or unique," says the Observer.

These days, you can find Sudoku games all over the Web. If you're really up for a challenge, take a look at this article from USA Today. It details the "world's hardest Sudoku puzzle." Clearly, wimps need not apply.

Source: Ask.yahoo.com

Pirates are still around today. However, unlike the charming and lovable Jack Sparrow from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, they're not the types of guys you'd want to meet in a dark alley, er, fjord.

Modern-day pirate attacks are shockingly violent. The BBC reports that today's pirates attack gas tankers and disaster-relief ships with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. Their objective -- to kidnap, steal, attack, rape, and murder. Says House of Commons member Gwyneth Dunwoody, "There is nothing remotely romantic about the perpetrators of these appalling crimes."

Still, there is good news for landlubbers. According to International Herald Tribune, the number of global pirate attacks fell in 2006 to their lowest level in eight years. This is thanks to increased patrols by law enforcement and precautionary measures taken by ship crews. With 50 reported attacks in 2006, Indonesia remains the world's "piracy hot spot." Bangladesh isn't far behind with 47.

So, pirates do exist today. But they're dangerous people and nothing like the Hollywood version. Oh, and we doubt any of 'em look like Johnny Depp.

Source: ask.yahoo.com

In a Christmas-day cover story last year, "New York Magazine" cited one of the "Reasons to Love New York" as "Because We Wouldn't Trade a Patch of Grass for $528,783,552,000 ."

That's the estimated worth of all the land in Central Park. (Here are some numbers used in the estimate.) In case the sight of that figure fried your numerical recognition, that's nearly 529 billion dollars. That prices out to about $627 million an acre, or 26% more than the entire 2006 U.S. defense budget, or 7 million times the price of Boardwalk and Park Place together. Considering that New York "paid more than $5 million for undeveloped land from 59th Street to 106th Street" between 1853 and 1856, that's pretty good appreciation.

But even if the city needed the money, it might not want to sell off its giant patch-of-green-amidst-the-concrete. Real estate pundit Jonathan Miller writes "the net value of all of Manhattan would be less after Central Park was developed." And this article from the electronic journal "Planning & Markets" states: "...the city council keeps Manhattan's Central Park unbuilt not because Greens rule the Big Apple, but because property values overall are higher with the park than with luxury condos on the site."

Source: ask.yahoo.com

Lather up, dear readers! It's time to shave off unsightly ignorance and replace it with silky-smooth wisdom.

The Straight Dope answered a similar question several years back with help from an article entitled "Caucasian Female Body Hair and American Culture" by Christine Hope. According to Hope's research, businesses began "encouraging" American women to shave their underarms around 1915, when sleeveless fashions became popular. Harper's Bazaar featured an ad stating: "Summer Dress and Modern Dancing combine to make necessary the removal of objectionable hair." Yet another revenue stream made possible by human insecurity.

The war against nature's leg warmers came a bit later, as changes in clothing allowed women to display more than just an ankle. According to Hope, convincing women to shave their legs was more challenging, so advertisers pulled out all the stops. "Some advertisers as well as an increasing number of fashion and beauty writers harped on the idea that female leg hair was a curse."

The Straight Dope offers another theory for the surge in leg shaving in the 1940s -- Betty Grable. The pin-up's epic legs may have started a trend. Flaunting one's gams was suddenly "in." Since short shorts and woolly limbs don't mix, it was goodbye to hairy legs and hello to something equally pleasant -- razor burn.

Source: ask.yahoo.com