Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (208 page)

DECEMBER 14

1721
A
LEXANDER
S
ELKIRK
, once the marooned model for Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe,
is buried at sea off West Africa after a yellow fever epidemic sweeps his navy ship.

PASSING AWEIGH

Name these other bodies buried at sea.

1.
The annual National Spelling Bee is still named for what founder of UPI?

2.
What Polish soldier, killed at the Battle of Savannah, was called “the father of American cavalry”?

3.
Who was sent to sleep with the fishes in
The Sopranos’
season-two finale?

4.
Whom did Spanish sailors call “el Dragón,” playing on his name?

5.
What late drummer hosted Charles Manson’s “Family” at his Pacific Palisades house for much of 1968?

1836
T
HE
“T
OLEDO
W
AR,”
a boundary dispute between Ohio and Michigan, ends when a convention in Ann Arbor agrees to cede “the Toledo Strip” to Ohio, receiving in return the entire Upper Peninsula. Tensions between Ohio and Michigan are today played out on Big Ten football fields, not by state militias.

BAD BLOOD

Feuds for thought.

1.
The Hatfields and the McCoys lived across what Appalachian state line from each other?

2.
The twenty top-TV-rated U.S. sports events of all time are all Super Bowls, except for one. What 1994 showdown was the third-most-watched sports event ever?

3.
Pepsi lost the cola wars to Coke but is winning the water war. What Pepsi water brand outsells Coke’s Dasani?

4.
In what city did Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali’s third and final fight take place?

5.
What high-definition disk technology is Sony’s rival to HD DVD?

6.
What famous rivalry ended in Weehawken, New Jersey, in 1804?

7.
What industrial-sounding name is given to the annual Auburn-Alabama football game?

8.
Who defended his book
A Man in Full
by feuding with critics John Updike, Norman Mailer, and John Irving, whom he called “My Three Stooges”?

9.
What famous pair of rivals are surnamed Cooper and Lodge, respectively?

10.
What island has since 1983 been racked by civil war between the government and the rebel Tamil Tigers?

1966
L
ESTER
F
LATT AND
E
ARL
S
CRUGGS
guest on
The Beverly Hillbillies,
recording a jingle for the “Foggy Mountain Soap” commercial in which Jed and Granny are starring.

CONSUME MASS QUANTITIES!

What TV shows created these fictional products?

Easy

1.
Vitameatavegamin

2.
Krusty-O cereal

3.
Happy Fun Ball

Harder

1.
Talky Tina

2.
Blue Moon shampoo

3.
Alamo beer

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
The Cornballer

2.
Miracle Salve

3.
Ori-dent electric toothbrush

DECEMBER 15

1964
T
HE
C
ANADIAN
H
OUSE OF
C
OMMONS
votes to adopt the new maple leaf flag, replacing the Union Jack.

IF YOU LEAF ME NOW

What type of leaf…

1.
Was given to winners at the ancient Olympics

2.
Makes up the entire diet of koalas

3.
Did the gang paint on the Point Place water tower on
That ’70s Show

4.
Did Adam and Eve use to make aprons

5.
Is stuffed to make yaprak dolmades

6.
Indicates multiple decorations on U.S. military award

7.
Was O. Henry’s “The Last Leaf”

8.
Is read by tasseomancers

9.
Is the preferred food of giraffes

10.
Appears on the cover of Bing Crosby’s album
Merry Christmas

1966
C
HAIN SMOKER
W
ALT
D
ISNEY
dies of lung cancer—and is cremated and buried at Forest Lawn, despite what you’ve heard.

ICY DEAD PEOPLE—ALL THE TIME!

1.
Whose is the most famous frozen head awaiting thawing at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona?

2.
What counterculture icon had long planned to freeze his corpse but ended up having his ashes shot into space in the same rocket with Gene Roddenberry’s?

3.
What movie predicts that the future will hold Intoxication orbs and Orgasmatron booths?

4.
What TV show’s pilot takes place on December 31, 1999, and December 31, 2999?

5.
What’s the name of Dr. Evil’s cat, frozen with him in 1967?

1979
O
VER A BORING
S
CRABBLE GAME,
two Montreal journalists try to come up with their own get-rich-quick idea for a board game, and the billion-dollar phenomenon Trivial Pursuit is born.

BOARD SILLY

1.
Who is called “Dr. Black” in England and “Mr. Boddy” in North America?

2.
What game, cocreated by former Microsoft employee of the year Richard Tait, first launched in Starbucks outlets, not toy stores?

3.
Which of the railroads in Monopoly isn’t named after an actual railroad?

4.
It’s neither Chinese nor checkers. In what country was “Chinese checkers”
really
born—India, Germany, or the U.S.?

5.
The word “one” is worth three points in Scrabble, if you add up the face value of the three tiles. What’s the only number that’s worth its own number of points?

6.
Which of the four Hungry Hungry Hippos shares his name with one of the Seven Dwarfs?

7.
Elasund is the “first city” of what fictional island?

8.
What’s the only chess piece that changes the color of its square every time it moves?

9.
Presumably because he’s a bad role model for today’s children, what character was replaced by “Mama Ginger Tree” in the latest version of Candy Land?

10.
Who started out as a lithographer, made a fortune on a print of a young, clean-shaven Abe Lincoln, but saw his sales collapse after Lincoln grew a beard?