Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (133 page)

AUGUST 10

1967
C
HRIS
G
AINES
, G
ARTH
B
ROOKS’S
fictional rock alter ego, is born in Brisbane, Australia, to an Olympic swimmer and her coach husband.

EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL THING

Match these fictional bands to their big hits.

1988
T
HE LAST SHOT OF THE
last episode of TV’s
St. Elsewhere
seems to reveal that the whole series took place in the imagination of an autistic boy with a snow globe. Fans note that, through a complicated web of spin-offs and crossovers, a huge percentage of recent American TV has apparently taken place inside the magical snow globe.

SPIN CITY

From what “parent” TV show did each of these series spin off?

Easy

1.
Trapper John, M.D.

2.
Lou Grant

3.
Private Practice

4.
A Different World

5.
Frasier

Harder

1.
Mork and Mindy

2.
The Facts of Life

3.
Melrose Place

4.
Family Matters

5.
The Andy Griffith Show

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Diagnosis Murder

2.
Empty Nest

3.
Young Americans

4.
Top of the Heap

5.
The Law and Harry McGraw

2004
T
HE
C
INCINNATI
R
EDS’
Adam Dunn hits baseball’s longest home run in years when he clears the upper deck at Great American Ball Park and lands his ball in the Ohio River. It’s been called the first major-league home run ever to cross a state line in flight.

HEAVY HITTERS

1.
Who was nicknamed “Mr. November” after hitting Major League Baseball’s first ever November homer?

2.
What two Hall of Famers had the given names “Henry Louis”?

3.
What slugger wrote the 1994
Sports Illustrated
article “Time in a Bottle”?

4.
How many home runs did Sammy Sosa hit the year of Mark McGwire’s record-breaking 70?

5.
What Murderer’s Row second baseman was the first person in baseball history ever to hit two grand slams in the same game?

AUGUST 11

1779
T
HE
A
MERICAN NAVY
loses all forty-three of its warships in the disastrous Penobscot Expedition, the worst naval defeat in U.S. history until Pearl Harbor. The campaign went so badly that even Paul Revere was court-martialed for his part in it.

NAVAL-GAZING

1.
Nine of the last twelve U.S. aircraft carriers commissioned have been named for what?

2.
What naval hobbyist produced the landmark book
All the World’s Fighting Ships
in 1898?

3.
What Danish peninsula lent its name to the largest naval battle of World War I?

4.
Which U.S. state is home to the world’s largest naval base?

5.
What writer was called
el manco de Lepanto,
the cripple of Lepanto, for his injury from that 1571 battle?

6.
What famous three-word order did Winston Churchill give following the loss of the British battlecruiser
Hood
?

7.
What does “PT” stand for in the names of Navy PT boats?

8.
John Paul Jones’s frigate was named
Bonhomme Richard,
after whose pen name?

9.
What London square is, appropriately, home to Nelson’s Column?

10.
What rank is the U.S. Navy equivalent of the army’s five-star general?

1953
T
ERRENCE
B
OLLEA IS BORN
in Georgia—but not until 1979 will he adopt the name we know him by today, Hulk Hogan.

THE SQUARED CIRCLE

1.
The family on
Married…with Children
was named in honor of what wrestler?

2.
What Edward Elgar composition did Gorgeous George use as his theme, making him the first wrestler ever to use entrance music?

3.
What pro wrestler grew up next door to playwright Samuel Beckett?

4.
Miami, Nebraska, or Alabama—Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson won an NCAA championship playing football for what school?

5.
The WWF changed its acronym after a 2000 lawsuit from what conservationist NGO?

1958
T
HE FIRST
M
R
. C
LEAN
commercials make their TV debut. Procter & Gamble says that Mr. Clean is a sailor. Wow! For a sailor, his bald, muscular, earring-wearing look predates the Village People’s “In the Navy” by twenty years!

“CLEAN” LIVING

1.
In what Olympic sport is the “clean and jerk” event held?

2.
Who was the only clean-shaven U.S. president in the fifty years between Grant and Taft?

3.
Who washes his hands in Matthew 27:24?

4.
What TV veteran originated the role of neat freak Felix Unger in
The Odd Couple
on Broadway?

5.
What bathroom cleaner was originally advertised by the Scrubbing Bubbles?