Tyrian purple was a highly prized dye among the Phoenicians (an ancient civilization located in present-day Lebanon). The Phoenicians were famous for using this natural dye to color their clothes a distinctive purple. ______blank the name “Phoenicia” itself, some historians claim, may have originally meant “land of purple.”

The number of dark spots that appear on the Sun, known as sunspots, can vary greatly. For example, there were about 180 sunspots in November 2001. ______blank there were only about 2 sunspots in December 2008.

The Alaska Native Language Archive (ANLA) is known for its impressive audio collection. ______blank the ANLA has more than 5,000 audio recordings of Native Alaskan languages dating as far back as 1943.

Ballet dancer Misty Copeland has accomplished a lot. She has appeared on Broadway, toured with Prince, and even served on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition. ______blank according to Copeland, nothing in her career matches the honor of being the first African American woman named principal dancer at the prestigious American Ballet Theatre.

With darkness falling, a mother elephant loses sight of her calf and wants to make sure it is safe. ______blank she releases an infrasonic call for the calf to hear. Infrasonic sound is below the range of human hearing, but many animals can hear these sounds from several miles away.

In June, female loggerhead sea turtles will swim back to the sandy beaches where they were born to lay eggs of their own. First, the turtle will dig her nest in the sand. ______blank she will lay up to 100 eggs in the nest. Finally, she will cover it all with sand, before returning to the ocean.

Researchers believe that pieces of hull found off Oregon’s coast are from a Spanish cargo ship that was lost in 1697. Stories passed down among the area’s Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians support this belief. ______blank Siletz stories describe how blocks of beeswax, an item the ship had been carrying, began washing ashore after the ship was lost.