Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (190 page)

NOVEMBER 14

1922
F
UTURE
U.N.
SECRETARY-GENERAL
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the grandson of former Egyptian prime minister Boutros Ghali, is born in Cairo.

NAME DISE
N
T
A
NGLE
ME
NT

In each correct answer, the subject’s last name will contain the letters, in order, of his or her first name (though not necessarily consecutively).

1.
Because her father is a friend of the Dalai Lama’s and a leading American scholar of Buddhism, what actress is named for an Indian goddess?

2.
What newsman did George Clooney play in 2005’s
Good Night and Good Luck
?

3.
What sportscaster was “traded” from Disney to NBC in 2006 in exchange for the rights to 1920s cartoon character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit?

4.
What writer said, during her public feud with Lillian Hellman, “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’”?

5.
What secretary of commerce was killed in a 1996 plane crash over Croatia?

6.
What actor’s speech from
Brassed Off
is sampled at the beginning of the Chumbawumba hit “Tubthumping”?

7.
The “Dandelion” crater on the moon is named in honor of what author?

8.
Who wrote the Janis Joplin hit “Me and Bobby McGee”?

9.
What title character’s story demonstrates that “every happy family is unhappy in its own way”?

10.
Who plays Angel Eyes, the “Bad” in
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
?

1972
T
HE
D
OW
J
ONES
closes above 1, 000 for the first time.

POWERS OF TEN

1.
In 1980, who was fired from the set of
One Day at a Time
for drug problems?

2.
What two Jewish holidays are spanned by the Ten Days of Repentance?

3.
Who briefly returned to power in the 1815 campaign called the Hundred Days?

4.
What historical figure is the subject of
Anne of the Thousand Days
?

5.
Someone who is ten thousand days old is what age, also the age at which Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain all died?

2005
L
EEUWARDEN, IN THE
N
ETHERLANDS,
is preparing for its annual Domino Day, in which millions of domino bricks are toppled, when a sparrow flies into the event building and knocks over 23,000 dominoes. The distraught organizers call in a hunter to shoot the sparrow, leading to an international animal rights controversy.

DOMINO EFFECT

1.
Domino’s ads urged viewers to avoid what red-suited, pizza-ruining villain?

2.
What stage name did Ernest Evans adopt in tribute to Fats Domino?

3.
Dwight Eisenhower’s famous 1954 “domino theory” news conference referenced what part of the world?

4.
What’s the maximum number of pips on a domino from a standard set?

5.
What British actor was the father of the bounty hunter Domino, played on-screen by Keira Knightley?

NOVEMBER 15

1505
B
LOWN OFF COURSE
by a storm, Portuguese missionary Lourenço de Almeida arrives in Sri Lanka, founding the first European settlement there and naming the island Ceylon.

THE MYSTERIOUS ISLANDS

Can you I.D. these islands from their outlines?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.