BEER

--The Sumerians, an ancient civilization credited with developing the written language, are also believed to be the inventors of beer, possibly as far back as 9,000 years ago. The Sumerians lived between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia, a region encompassing modern-day Iraq and parts of Iran, Syria and Turkey.

--In the early 1630s, the Dutch West India Company opened America's first public brewery in what is today the lower part of Manhattan in New York City.

--Beer was first sold in tin cans in the U.S. starting in the mid-1930s.

--The Czech Republic is home to the world's biggest beer drinkers. As a nation, Czechs knock back more beer per person than anyplace else on the planet.

STEEL

--In the 1850s, English engineer Henry Bessemer ushered in the modern steelmaking age when he patented the first low-cost mass-production process.

--The world's first skyscraper was built in Chicago in 1885 and had a 10-story steel frame.

--In 1901, J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Schwab and Elbert Gary merged a collection of steel companies to form United States Steel. At the time, Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel had a capitalization of over $1 billion, making it the world's largest business.

-- Steel is the planet's most recycled material, with some 70 million tons recycled in the U.S. in 2006.

POWER TOOLS

--The first documented power tool, a lathe for carving wood, was run by muscle and invented by the Egyptians around 300 B.C.

--The Black & Decker Corporation was established as a small machine shop in Baltimore, Maryland, by S. Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker in 1910. In 1950, the company produced its one-millionth ¼" Home Utility drill. In 1979, the company's U.S. power tools business hit $1 billion in annual sales for the first time.

--In 1929, Swiss-born engineer Andreas Stihl invented the first gas-powered chainsaw, dubbed a "tree-felling machine." It was a two-man saw with six horsepower output, weighing over 100 pounds. Today, Stihl, Inc., founded in 1926, is a leading maker of chain saws and outdoor power equipment.

--The Jaws of Life, a system of hydraulic tools used by some 35,000 rescue teams around the globe to extract people trapped in car accidents, was originally developed in 1972 to remove race-car drivers from their vehicles following a crash.

SNEAKERS

--The first recognizable sneaker was developed in the late 1800s and known as a plimsoll because it had a dark band around the edge that looked like a Plimsoll line on a ship, which marks the proper water line on the hull.

--Keds, the first mass-produced, mass-marketed sneakers, were developed in 1916 by the U.S. Rubber Company. Advertising executive Malcolm Mckenney is widely credited with coining the term sneakers in 1917. He reportedly said the soles of Keds were so quiet that you could use them to sneak around.

--In 1964, University of Oregon track coach Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, one of his former team members, each invested $500 to found Blue Ribbon Sports, an athletic shoe company that officially changed its name to Nike, Inc. in 1978. Today, Nike employs over 30,000 people worldwide and in 2007 had revenues of more $16 billion.

--The black-and-red Air Jordan basketball shoe, which debuted in stores in 1985 and was named for superstar Michael Jordan, was initially banned by the NBA because it violated the league's color rules for uniforms. Jordan continued to wear the shoes and was fined by the league, which helped generate more publicity and turn Air Jordans into best-sellers.

GUNS N' AMMO

--Smith & Wesson, the biggest handgun maker in America, was founded in 1852 by Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. The Smith & Wesson Model 10 firearm, which fires .38 Special ammunition, is the planet's only handgun that has been in continuous production since its debut in 1899, with some six million units manufactured.

--The National Rifle Association, a non-profit group that lobbies for the right to own and bear arms, was established in 1871 in New York.

--The Uzi submachine gun was invented by Israeli army captain Uziel Gal, with the first prototype debuting in 1950. In 1981, after President Ronald Reagan was shot, news photographs showed one of his Secret Service bodyguards pulling out an Uzi.

--The Walther PPK, a semi-automatic pistol first developed in the 1930s by German manufacturer Carl Walther Sportwaffen, was one of James Bond's signature weapons, as well as the gun Adolf Hitler reportedly used to commit suicide in 1945.

GARBAGE

--Benjamin Franklin organized America's first municipal street cleaning service, in 1757 in Philadelphia, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

--America's first waste incinerator was erected on Governor's Island in New York City in 1885. "By the 1960's, the city was burning almost a third of its trash in its 22 municipal incinerators and 2,500 incinerators in apartment buildings," according to the New York Times. However, by the 1990s, environmental concerns and high operating costs led the city to shut down its last remaining incinerators.

--In operation from 1948 to 2001, the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island, New York, was one of the world's largest landfills. At one point, barges delivered some14,000 tons of trash to the 2,200-acre landfill on a daily basis.

--American homes and businesses generated over 251 million tons of trashor about 4.6 pounds of garbage per person every dayin 2006.

MOTORCYCLES

--In 1885, German engineer Gottlieb Daimler patented what is generally credited as the world's first motorcycle, a wooden-framed bicycle with an internal combustion engine.

--In 1903, William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson of Milwaukee made their first Harley-Davidson motorcycle. The Harley-Davidson Motor Company incorporated in 1907 and the following year sold its first motorcycle for police duty to the Detroit police department.

--Motorcycles are typically twice as fuel efficient as cars; however, they create approximately 10 times more pollution per mile than a car, light truck or SUV, according a Los Angeles Times report.

--American Chris Carr set the record for the world's fastest motorcycle in September 2006 at Bonneville Flats, Utah, when he rode a BUB Enterprises Streamliner at a speed of 350.884 mph.

TATTOOS

--In ancient Polynesia, many people had tattoos to indicate social status or mark a rite of passage. The word tattoo is thought to come from the Tahitian tatau, meaning "to mark." It's possible that the tradition of sailors and tattoos has its origins in the 18th century European explorers who visited Polynesia and after observing native customs, got inked themselves.

--Inventor Thomas Edison had a tattoofive dots on his forearm that looked like the dots on the face of dice; however, it's unknown when the man dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" got the tattoo or what it meant.

--In 2006, 24 percent of all Americans, nearly one in four, between the ages of 18 and 50 had a tattoo, according to a study by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

--The person with the most tattoos on the planet, according to Guinness World Records 2008, is Lucky Diamond Rich of Australia, who has undergone over 1,000 hours of tattooing, including his eyelids, between his toes and in his ears and gums. Multiple layers of tattoos mean that Rich's "total covering is in excess of 200 percent," reports Guinness.

SKYDIVING

--The origins of skydiving date back to 12th century China, when people jumped off hills for fun using umbrella-like devices.

--Frenchman Andre Jacques Garnerin is credited with making the first parachute drop from a hot-air balloon in 1797. The word "parachute" comes from the French para, meaning shield or guard against, and chute, meaning fall.

--Not long after the Wright brothers made their inaugural powered flight in 1903, the first people credited with using parachutes to jump out of airplanes were Grant Morton, who jumped over Venice, California, in 1911, and U.S. Army Captain Albert Berry, who jumped over Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, in 1912. A year later, Tiny Broadwick became the first woman to jump from a plane.

--Following World War II, parachuting began to take off as a hobby. The first world parachuting championship was held in Yugoslavia in 1951, the term "skydiving" was coined in 1955 and the first commercial skydiving centers in the U.S. opened in the late 1950s.

ROBOTS

--Writer Karel Capek coined the word robot from the Czech word robota ("forced labor") and used it in his play "R.U.R." (Rossums Universal Robots), which opened in 1921.

-- In 1956, George Devol and Joseph Engelberger formed the world's first robot company, Unimation. In 1961, the company introduced the first industrial arm robot, Unimate, which worked on a General Motors assembly line in New Jersey.

--In 1997, the Sojourner rover, a six-wheeled robot that was part of NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission, explored the Martian surface, collecting data and moving independently.

--In 2002, Honda's intelligent humanoid robot ASIMO rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. ASIMO was capable of walking independently, interpreting and responding to human gestures and recognizing people's faces and addressing them by name.