The Southeast

There’s a mystery tree on Edisto Island. It isn’t actually a tree, but a strange, ever-evolving mish-mash of items hanging from a log. Everything from flip-flops, bottles and chairs are hung on it. The real mystery is who put it there...

There is a tree in Athens, Georgia, that owns itself and an 8 foot radius of land. Professor William Jackson deeded the tree and the land to the tree in the early 19th century. That tree blew down in the '40s and was replaced with a new tree from the original’s acorn.

The Manchineel tree is one of the few trees humans have to worry about. The sap is poisonous and very acidic, so even a quick touch can cause blisters. If you get the sap in your eyes, you might even turn blind. And whatever you do, don’t eat its fruit, which looks like a small green apple. Consumption of the fruit can be fatal. The trees can be found in the Everglades as well as the Caribbean, and they not so easy to get rid of either because if you burn them, even the smoke can cause blindness.

Alabamians helped put us on the moon. The Saturn V rocket was built in Huntsville, where former Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun set up accomadations to design spacecraft for NASA in the 1950s. It was the Saturn V that propelled the Apollo 11 mission.

Because of the state’s low elevation, the dead are often laid to rest above ground instead of being buried. Mausoleums replace crypts and markers in cemeteries in New Orleans and other cities. Actor Nicolas Cage has already purchased his mausoleum in New Orleans. It's shaped like a pyramid.

Coca-Cola was invented in Atlanta in 1866, but it was only sold as a fountain drink for nearly 30 years. Joseph Biedenharn decided to bottle the drink for the first time in 1894 at a plant in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

In Fayetteville, it’s illegal to kill any living creature. Hopefully that doesn’t go for mosquitoes.