King George the III was king during the American Revolution.

A supernova is formed when a star explodes; a nova is simply when a star flares up, then dims to its ordinary brightness.

The brightest star in the sky is Sirius.

There are three main types of galaxies: spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies, and irregular galaxies.

The earth's magnetic field (the magnetosphere) is created by electric currents in the earth's outer core.

Roger William's Rhode Island colony had the first complete religious freedom in America.

The aurora borealis is caused when particles from solar winds are caught in the earth's magnetosphere, funneled to the North Pole, and collide with molecules of air in the atmosphere.

Early English colonists to America named both the James River and the Jamestown colony after King James the I.

When a stalagmite reaches a stalactite or the top of a cave, the resulting formation is called a column.

Most caves are formed when water creeps through cracks into limestone and eats away at it with natural acids, forming an open space inside the ground.

Petroleum is a mixture of thousands of tiny substances called hydrocarbons.

The Navajo are the largest current tribe of Indians in the United States.

Emerald is created when traces of chromium are found in beryl.

Rubies and sapphires are both formed when traces of a certain metal (for rubies, chromium, for sapphires, iron or titanium) are found in the mineral corundum.

Marble is created when limestone is put under extreme heat and pressure.

Pumice is formed from gas-filled lava, leaving hollow spaces full of air in the pumice that makes it light enough to float on water.

Mt. St. Helens is what is known as a composite volcano, which is formed by alternating layers of lava and tephra.

Mount St. Helen's eruption was 500 times more powerful than an atom bomb; the eruption of Krakatoa was 20 times stronger than that.