The avocado, or alligator pear, Persea americana, is a common evergreen tree indigenous to Mexico, Central and South America. The Mexican variety is grown in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the Guatemalan in Southern California, and the West Indian in Florida. The yellow flesh consists of 20% to 30% oil.
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Balloon
96 4 $3DD9DD7F Balloon in flight
The first public balloon flight was made by brothers Joseph and Etienne Montfolfier who piloted their linen and paper hot-air balloon to a height of 5,906 ft (1,800m) and a distance of 1 mile (1.6km) from its starting point in Annonay, France on June 5, 1783.
Hydrogen replaced hot-air for a time since it had inherent buoyancy instead of having to be heated. Unfortunately hydrogen proved too dangerous due to its highly flammable nature and was replaced by the inert gas helium.
Since the 1960's interest in hot-air ballooning has revived since burners could now be carried in the balloon rather than left on the ground. The first transatlantic crossing in a hot-air balloon was made in 1987.
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Bike2
18 2 $1F7983A1 Yellow motorcycle
Gottlieb Daimler is generally credited with building in 1885 the forerunner of today's motorcycle, using an engine based on the concepts developed by Nikolaus A. Otto.
This first motorcycle was powered by an air-cooled single-cylinder engine which produced around one-half horsepower.
The first commercially practical motorcycle was built by the brothers Hildebrand of Munich. It had a 1,488-cc four-stroke, two-cylinder water-cooled engine but was only able to achieve around 25 mph (40 km/h)
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Dock
117 4 $C6EC6EBB Dingle Docks
Dingle Bay, along with Kenmare River and Bantry Bay, in southwest Ireland are some of the finest examples of long inlet ria harbors in the World.
Inlets formed by the geological process of coastal submergence take their generic name--ria--from the typical examples in northwest Spain, such as that on which the small port of Corcubion is located. The ports of Boston and San Francisco, in the United States, Southampton and Falmouth, in England, and Cork in Ireland, are all located in ria harbors.
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Moon
25 3 $61A286EA The Moon
The surface of the moon has been measured at 130C (266F) in the lunar tropics rapidly falling to -173C (-280F) between midnight and dawn. However, at distances of a meter or more below the surface the temperature is a fairly steady -30C (-22F).
The Apollo moon mission dates the moon at around 4.5 billion years, or about the same age as the solar system. Most of the disfiguring impact craters are thought to have occurred within the first half-billion years of the moon's existance. The energy involved in the formation of the craters was massive - turning the surface into molten lava which flooded the basins.
Even today, there is no universal agreement among scientists as to how the moon formed. There are three popular theories, however. First that a piece of the rapidly-spinning molten Earth was flung into space, second that the moon formed independently as a planet from the primordial cloud and finally that it originated elsewhere and was captured by the Earth's gravitation as it passed by.
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Rose
48 2 $C4DFAE23 Morden Ruby
A shrub rose called Morden Ruby.
Garden roses were cultivated by Egyptians as early as 4000 BC. The genus Rosa, comprising 150 species as well as numerous hybrids and cultivars, belongs to the family Rosaceae and is related to the apple, the strawberry, the cherry, and the almond.
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Sails
216 2 $F71F1B0F Windsurfing
Triangle racing at Old Fort Henry in Kingston.
The invention of the windsurfer, or sailboard, is hotly claimed by many inventors in as many countries but is generally credited to Californian Hoyle Schweitzer, who patented the first board design in 1969 and started the popularization of the sport.
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Santa
12 4 $D724B707 Sshh! Santa's here.
Santa Claus is the American adaptation of the traditional European Saint Nicholas and introduced by Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam. Santa Claus is a contraction of the Dutch "Sint Nikolaas".
Many of the central themes, such as climbing down the chimney are of Dutch origin but the reindeer and North Pole associations are Scandinavian.
The red and white tunic originated from the bishop's attire worn by Saint Nicholas but was only widely standardized after it was used as a central theme in an advertising campaign by a leading cola manufacturer.
Santa Claus is also known as Father Christmas in England, Kris Kringle in Germany, Befana in Italy and the female Babouschka in Russia.
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Snowman
24 4 $1AE860F4 A Friendly Snowman
The Abominable snowman, or Yeti, is a giant creature believed to inhabit the Himalayan mountains. The legend of the Yeti arose in 1921 when English explorers discovered several tracks of large human-like footprints in the snow. After numerous scientific expeditions failed to find any other hard evidence of the Yeti's existence other possibilities have been suggested, the most plausible being that the tracks are those of foxes or dogs, melted together by the heat of the Sun.
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Tokyo
88 5 $3A9E987D Tokyo
Street shoppers in the Ginza district of Tokyo.
Tokyo, meaning "Eastern Capital", is one of the great industrial and financial cities of the world. It is also one of the most densely populated areas, it had around 12 million inhabitants in 1990, nearly 10% of the entire Japanese population.
It formally became the capital of Japan in 1868 when the emperor made it his residence.
