Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (212 page)

DECEMBER 22

1872
P
HILEAS
F
OGG ARRIVES
at London’s Reform Club in time to win his £20,000 wager with the surprised gentlemen of the club—he has traveled
Around the World in Eighty Days.

IN DA CLUB

What clubs had these members on their rolls?

1.
Tyler Durden, Robert Paulson, Angel Face

2.
Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Dorothy Dandridge

3.
June Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, Ying-Ying St. Clair

4.
Darlene Gillespie, Doreen Tracy, Cubby O’Brien, Bobby Burgess

5.
Boy George, Mikey Craig, Roy Hay, Jon Moss

6.
Pat Robertson, Terry Meeuwsen, Lee Webb

7.
Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Pío Leyva, Rubén González

8.
Kristy Thomas, Claudia Kishi, Mary Anne Spier, Stacey McGill

9.
Eddie Murray, Harmon Killebrew, Willie Mays, Mel Ott

10.
Claire Standish, Brian Johnson, John Bender, Andrew Clark, Allison Reynolds

1941
A
RCHIE
A
NDREWS AND PALS
make their first appearance in Bob Montana’s
Pep Comics
No. 22.

SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER(DALE)?

Who played these title characters of TV comedies?

1.
Archie Bunker

2.
Reggie Potter

3.
Betty Suarez

4.
Veronica Chase

1998
O
WNER
B
UD
A
DAMS
announces that, since his team’s name no longer makes sense, the Tennessee Oilers will become the Tennessee Titans. If only the Utah Jazz and L.A. Lakers owners were so sensible.

GRIDIRONY

Gregg Easterbrook’s “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” column is well known for the unusual nicknames he gives NFL teams. Which team does he call…

Easy

1.
The Marine Mammals

2.
Jersey/A and Jersey/B

3.
Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons

4.
Squared Sevens

5.
The Nevermores

Harder

1.
Blue Men Group

2.
The Flaming Thumbtacks

3.
Les Mouflons

4.
The Boy Scouts

5.
The Moo Cows

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
The Hyperboreans

2.
The Lucky Charms

3.
caution: may contain football-like substance

4.
The Flying Elvii

5.
The Hypocycloids

DECEMBER 23

1823
“A V
ISIT FROM
S
T.
N
ICHOLAS
,” aka “The Night Before Christmas,” debuts anonymously in the Troy, New York,
Sentinel.
It will be twenty years before the author, Bible professor Clement Moore, steps forward.

SANTA BABY

What does the poem compare each of these parts of Santa to?

1.
His cheeks

2.
His nose

3.
His mouth

4.
His beard

5.
His pipe smoke

6.
His belly

1888
V
INCENT VAN
G
OGH
cuts off his left earlobe with a razor, wraps it in newspaper, and delivers it to a teenage prostitute of his acquaintance, with instructions to “keep this object carefully.”

BEARD
=
WEIRD

Van Gogh isn’t the only bewhiskered oddball in history.

1.
What onetime
Sports Illustrated
cover boy, now living in exile in Iceland, sat next to Barbra Streisand in his high school Spanish class?

2.
In what state was Ted Kaczynski’s “Unabomber” cabin located?

3.
What Russian was the most famous member of the Khlysty sect, which tried to overcome sin via self-flagellation and wild orgies?

4.
What Rock Hudson movie did a reclusive Howard Hughes watch repeatedly?

5.
In the trailer for what Mel Gibson–directed film does the outrageously bearded director make a one-frame subliminal cameo, grinning maniacally at the camera?

6.
What nutty Bavarian “swan king” once banned both sneezing and coughing?

7.
What author of absurdist plays like
Ubu Roi
practiced eccentric habits like eating all his meals backward, from dessert to appetizer?

8.
Which ambidextrous U.S. president could write simultaneously in Greek with one hand and Latin with the other?

9.
What French composer of the
Gymnopédies
liked to sprinkle his music with goofy performance directions such as “Light as an egg” or “Like a nightingale with a toothache”?

10.
What unusual title did San Francisco’s Joshua Norton grant himself in 1859?

1975
C
ONGRESS PASSES THE
Metric Conversion Act. Its well-meaning attempt at “metrication” won’t last, but hey, it’s not as if we’re the
only
country still using drams and gills and furlongs. There’s also Liberia. And, um, Burma.

A GAME OF INCHES

Metric? What is this, Russia? Convert these metric measurements back to good old-fashioned
American
units!

1.
4.8 Kilometer Island

2.
22.9 Centimeter Nails

3.
233
°
C

4.
“3.52 Dekaliters and 8.8 Liters”

5.
37.8-liter hat

6.
The whole 8.2 meters

7.
Four Hundred and Four Point Seven Hectares

8.
Just 4.18 Kilojoules!

9.
“Fourteen and a Half Tonnes”

10.
111,191 Kilometers Under the Sea