OffBeat Tuesday

The Economics Nobel Prize is sort of a quasi-Nobel. The endowment for the prize money was created much later than the original grant money from Alfred Nobel for the other "real" prizes.

The world's oldest active parliamentary body is the Icelandic Althing which met first before the year 1000.

There are 556 officially recognized native American tribes.

The last time American Green cards were actually green was 1964.

The pelican was adopted as a Christian symbol early on because mother pelicans would pierce their own breasts to feed their brood with blood -- seen as a sacrifice not dissimilar to that of Jesus' by the Church leaders.

The targets in both skeet and trap shooting, commonly called clay pigeons, are actually made from tar and pitch.

Delaware is the only state with part of its border defined by the arc of a compass. (Except that other state next to Delaware with the same border.)

The oldest weapon still in use in the American military arsenal is the Mameluke hilt sword carried by officers in the U.S. Marine Corps. The sword dates back to the Barbary Pirate Wars of 1801-1807. The sword was given to Lt. Presly O'Banen by the ruler of Tripoli for the aid rendered by the Marines in the Mediteranian Fleet.

The second is defined as being 9,192,631,770 times the time it takes for a cesium-133 atom to swap hyperfine levels in its ground state.

The Vatican (Papal States) was the only political entity to grant recognition to the Confederate States of America during the Civil War (1861-1865).

The Greek national anthem has 158 verses.

There are 2,598,960 possible hands in a five-card poker game.