"On Tuesday, Ms. [Mary] Barra, 51, completed a remarkable personal odyssey when she was named as the next chief executive of G.M.--and the first woman to ascend to the top job at a major auto company."

"A big reason America is falling behind other countries in science and math is that we have effectively written off a huge chunk of our population as uninterested in those fields or incapable of succeeding in them."

"Last month the N.B.A. issued 21 fines and suspensions — a punitive spree that amounted to about $602,882."

"The inspiration for the original “Anchorman” came one night more than a decade ago when Mr. Ferrell was watching a television documentary about Jessica Savitch, one of the first women news anchors."

"Cowbirds are parasites, meaning they lay their eggs in other bird nests, thus unloading the messy and demanding business of chick-rearing."

"Instead of striving to make work fun, managers should concentrate on creating the conditions in which a variety of personality types, from the excitable to the naturally downbeat, can flourish."

"In the first step to formally ending a dangerous staple of the game — and a response to the concussion crisis that has gripped other sports — Major League Baseball voted Wednesday to eliminate home-plate collisions."

1. In 1787, the British Government sent a fleet of convicts to colonize Australia.

America's treatment of the homeless is a disgrace.

In 1763, the Treaty of Paris divided France's North American Empire between Britain and Spain.

Poetry and politics just don't mix.

In 1852, the President of the United States, Franklin Pierce, was greedy to expand U.S. influence, and he formally offered to buy the island of Cuba.

On July 2, 1822, the brilliant ex-slave and rebel leader Denmark Vesey was captured by South Carolina authorities, who had discovered Vesey's planned rebellion and were determined to hunt him down.

Writer and researcher Rachel Carson will always be remembered as the mother of modern ecology.

Between 1945 and 1960, the number of cars in the United States increased by 133 percent.

Those opposed to government spending conveniently forget how much the GI Bill—a program that allotted billions of dollars to help veterans of World War Two—helped expand Americas postwar economy.

Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase doubled the territory of the United States, extending it to the Rocky Mountains.

His appetite for expansion whetted by the Louisiana Purchase, President James Polk encouraged Texas to make the Rio Grande river the border of Texas although Polk knew

full well that the U.S. had no right to invade Mexican territory.

In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted the chemical and physical properties of the element gallium, which he called eka-aluminum.

In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act denied the Chinese entry into the United States; it also denied citizenship to those Chinese already living in the United States. This was a clear case of legalized racism.

Plants are called autotrophic because they create their own food.

Victor Emmanuel II was the first king to rule over a united Italy; he was also a madman, who had his toenail clippings edged in gold and encrusted in diamonds. Then he would

give the clippings to palace favorites.

In 1943, the extraordinary Jacques Cousteau invented an improved diving suit that allowed divers to descend 500 feet below the surface of the ocean; nowadays, that suit is usually referred to as a scuba suit.

Richard Rodriguez writes movingly about his personal struggle to honor his Spanish- speaking parents and still excel at speaking English.

Frida Kahlo, the wife of famed painter Diego Rivera, was a much better painter than her husband.