Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (177 page)

OCTOBER 24

1831
A
RCHAEOLOGISTS UNCOVER THE
celebrated “Alexander mosaic” in a Pompeii palace buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Made of one and a half million tiles, the huge floor mosaic shows Alexander the Great’s victory over Darius III of Persia.

THE ELEMENTS OF TILE

1.
What’s the more common name for the “Word of Life” mosaic on the Hesburgh Library in South Bend, Indiana?

2.
What Istanbul landmark was stripped of its famous golden mosaics in the 1204 Sack of Constantinople?

3.
The first virus ever discovered, in 1930, was a “mosaic virus” infecting what cash crop?

4.
What once-dominant software company began life in 1994 as the Mosaic Communications Corporation?

5.
In what city would you find the famed
Moderniste
mosaics at Park Güell?

1901
A
NNIE
E
DSON
T
AYLOR,
a 63-year-old widow in need of money, goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel of her own invention as a publicity gimmick, becoming the first person ever to try the stunt.

CASK ME ANOTHER

1.
What’s the name for the stopper used to seal a barrel?

2.
What ascetic Greek philosopher lived in a barrel?

3.
What Wisconsin senator invented the “Golden Fleece Award” for wasteful pork-barrel projects?

4.
What’s the correct name of the song whose chorus begins “Roll out the barrel”?

5.
How big was the barrel of Dirty Harry’s trademark gun?

2006
H
IP-HOP STAR
S
NOOP
D
OGG
releases his first novel,
Love Don’t Live Here No More.
Oddly, novelist Don DeLillo’s rap debut,
White Noize,
hits the very same day (though DeLillo had guested the previous summer on Philip Roth’s “All About the Zuckermans”).

POP QUIZZLE

Give these answers
not
coined by Snoop.

1.
What’s the name of the aft mast on a ketch or yawl?

2.
What last name is shared by Dustin Hoffman’s character in
Midnight Cowboy
and Stockard Channing’s character in
Grease
?

3.
Who would have been known as the “Vancouver Mounties,” had the Canadian government not complained?

4.
What music term is the opposite of “arco,” since it refers to plucking an instrument’s strings rather than bowing them?

5.
What cross-dressing comedian was born in Yemen in 1962?

6.
What does the National Weather Service call raindrops that are less than half a millimeter in diameter?

7.
What nickname did football star and future Supreme Court Justice Byron White receive in 1936 after the University of Colorado student paper rejected “Straight-A White,” “Lord Byron,” and “The Duke of Wellington”?

8.
What’s the appropriate first name of the 1923 Model T character in the animated film
Cars
?

9.
According to slogans, what candy “Makes Mouths Happy” and is “Fun You Can Eat”?

10.
What did Jay Sindler patent in 1934, after fishing an olive out of his martini glass one evening at the bar at Boston’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel?

OCTOBER 25

1870
T
HE FIRST
U.S.
TRADEMARK
is registered, to the Averill Chemical Paint Company.

I. P. FREELY

What company owns (or owned) these genericized trademarks?

Easy

1.
Band-Aid

2.
Touch-Tone

3.
ZIP code

4.
Aspirin

5.
Bake-Off

Harder

1.
Hula Hoop

2.
Craisins

3.
JumboTron

4.
Ouija board

5.
Jet-Ski

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Laundromat

2.
Crock-Pot

3.
Styrofoam

4.
Onesie

5.
Super Hero

1975
T
HE
M
ARY
T
YLER
M
OORE
S
HOW’S
seldom-seen clown Chuckles is laid to rest in “Chuckles Bites the Dust,” which
TV Guide
will later vote the best single TV episode of all time.

CHEERS, NOT JEERS

What series produced these entries on
TV Guide’s
list?

Easy

1.
“Richie Fights Back”

2.
“Turkeys Away”

3.
“Krusty Gets Kancelled”

4.
“The One with the Prom Video”

5.
“Latka the Playboy”

Harder

1.
“The Germans”

2.
“Getting Davy Jones”

3.
“Love’s Labor Lost”

4.
“Password”

5.
“Abyssinia Henry”

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
“It May Look Like a Walnut”

2.
“Tet ’68”

3.
“The Great Vegetable Invasion”

4.
“The Puppy Episode”

5.
“Man from the South”

2001
T
HE
R
EPUBLIC OF
R
WANDA
adopts its new flag, with three stripes and a golden sun. Until today, Rwanda had the world’s only national flag to sport its own initial: a big black letter
R
in the middle, yellow stripe.

PENNANT RACE

What’s the only national flag…