Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (169 page)

OCTOBER 8

1600
T
HE TINY NATION
of San Marino adopts the world’s first written constitution.

CONSTITUTION HALL

1.
What was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution?

2.
Which word in the Preamble to the Constitution was originally handwritten with the British spelling but is most often transcribed with the more modern American spelling?

3.
What two kinds of judicial punishment are prohibited by the Eighth Amendment?

4.
What Pennsylvanian refused to sign the Declaration of Independence but
did
sign the Constitution?

5.
How many articles are there in the unamended Constitution?

6.
Which constitutional clause requires states to enforce one another’s judicial rulings?

7.
What was accomplished by the only constitutional amendment ratified by a series of state conventions?

8.
According to Article 2, what’s the minimum age for a U.S. president?

9.
The “establishment” clause refers to what establishment?

10.
Which of the thirteen colonies didn’t attend the Constitutional Convention and was the last to ratify?

1935
B
ANDLEADER
O
ZZIE
N
ELSON
marries his singer, Harriet Hilliard. The long-running sitcom based on Ozzie and Harriet’s family life will begin airing in 1944, though their sons, David and Ricky, will be played by actors, not the real boys, until 1949.

PRICKLY PAIRS

Name the real-life married couple in the casts of these TV shows.

Easy

1.
Ink

2.
Mission: Impossible

3.
L.A. Law

4.
One Tree Hill

5.
Roseanne

Harder

1.
24

2.
Webster

3.
Deep Space Nine

4.
St. Elsewhere

5.
Melrose Place

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
He & She

2.
Watch Over Me

3.
Bridget Loves Bernie

4.
Ben Casey

5.
JAG

1999
M
UHAMMAD
A
LI’S DAUGHTER
Laila makes her boxing debut, knocking out April Fowler in the first round.

FORT KNOCKS

1.
Who first appeared in Walter Lantz’s 1940 cartoon “Knock Knock”?

2.
What cable network does Katherine Heigl work for in the film
Knocked Up
?

3.
Jay-Z’s ghetto anthem “Hard-Knock Life” samples a song from what Broadway hit?

4.
What Stephen King novel is named for a children’s rhyme about strange creatures who come “knocking at the door” every night?

5.
What abdominal nerve cluster paralyzes the diaphragm when someone has the wind knocked out of him?

OCTOBER 9

1910
W
ITH
T
Y
C
OBB
and Nap Lajoie in a tight race for the American League batting title and Lajoie’s Indians playing St. Louis in a doubleheader, the Browns decide to lie down and let Lajoie hit safely in every at-bat, so the hated Cobb will lose the batting title.

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

What ballplayer is associated with these legendary numbers?

Easy

1.
755

2.
56

3.
61*

4.
2,632

Harder

1.
1.12

2.
511

3.
4,256

4.
5,714

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
.424

2.
1,406

3.
262

4.
2,297

1974
O
SKAR
S
CHINDLER DIES
in Frankfurt and is buried in Jerusalem’s Mount Zion cemetery.

I HAVE A LITTLE LIST

1.
What car-racing aficionado, who has also
portrayed
a race car on-screen, is the only household name on Nixon’s original “enemies list”?

2.
“Things that almost rhyme with ‘peas,’” on September 18, 1985, was the very first what?

3.
Who calls her reality show
Life on the D-List
?

4.
Joseph McCarthy rocketed to fame by announcing he had a list of fifty-seven Communists currently employed where?

5.
At a 1900 Paris conference, mathematician David Hilbert produced his famous list of twenty-three what?

1992
R
IDLEY
S
COTT’S
C
OLUMBUS
biopic hits screens. It was originally titled
Christopher Columbus,
but another company had already registered that title—and four variants—for its competing Columbus project (starring Tom Selleck as King Ferdinand!). Scott is forced to rename his film
1492: Conquest of Paradise.

TITLE INSURANCE

Can you match up these otherwise unrelated movies and give the title they shared?