Facts of the Day

Tour de France
The Tour de France, the most prestigious road bicycle race in the world, takes place for three weeks in July. The Tour de France was established in 1903 by Henri Desgrange and covers some 2,235 miles, usually in 20 stages of one day each.

Edible Flowers
Which flowers are edible? Among the most common edible flowers are peonies, pansies, carnations, chamomile, chrysanthemums, dandelions, daylilies, gardenias, geraniums, gladioli, lavender, lilies, nasturtiums, primroses, roses, squash blossoms, sweet violets, pot marigolds, and yucca blossoms.

Scrabble
Scrabble, originally called Criss Cross, was developed by Alfred M. Butts, an out-of-work architect, in 1931. It was redesigned, renamed as Scrabble, and marketed by James Brunot in 1948. A Macy's executive saw the game being played at a resort in 1952 and the store (the world's largest at that time) began carrying it. Manufacturing of the game was turned over to Selchow & Righter. Scrabble has 225 squares on a board and 100 letter tiles, each imprinted with a point value for different letters, approximately corresponding to the frequency of occurrence of the letter in English words. More than 100 million sets have been sold, in 24 languages. It is considered the world's most popular word game.

Khaki and Chino
Khaki (from Hindi 'dust-colored') is light brown fabric used primarily for military uniforms. Khaki uniforms were introduced in 1848 for British colonial troops in India. Chino (from American Spanish 'toasted') is a cotton twill fabric, usually khaki in color.

American Dictionary
The first dictionary of American English was published in April 1828. The two-volume dictionary was written solely by the American lexicographer Noah Webster. He began work on it in 1807 and finished in 1824-1825. It contained 12,000 words and 30,000-40,000 definitions that had not appeared in any earlier dictionary. The rights to the dictionary were sold in 1843 by the Webster estate to George and Charles Merriam.