Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (214 page)

DECEMBER 26

1865
I
NVENTOR
J
AMES
M
ASON
patents the coffee percolator.

AVERAGE JOE

1.
What Italian drink is made by dropping a dollop of foamed milk atop an espresso?

2.
What 2004 video game could be sexed up by the infamous “Hot Coffee” mod?

3.
After Stella Liebeck burned herself with hot coffee in 1992, a jury ruled that what company should pay her $2.9 million in damages?

4.
What’s the name of the coffee shop gathering place on TV’s
Friends
?

5.
In 1817, Reverend Samuel Ruggles planted the first coffee in what district of Hawaii’s Big Island?

6.
What TV show’s Double R Diner served a “damn fine cup of coffee”?

7.
What was the first species of coffee bean to be cultivated—in the Middle East, as its name suggests?

8.
According to the ad jingle, what’s “the best part of waking up”?

9.
What’s paired with coffee in the title of an Otis Redding song and a Jim Jarmusch movie?

10.
Starbucks Coffee was named for the first mate in what novel?

1928
J
OHNNY
W
EISSMULLER RETIRES
undefeated from amateur swimming, though he will go on to model swimwear as a BVD spokesman and a loincloth as the movies’ Tarzan.

CHEST THE FACTS

1.
Whose bare chest in 1934’s
It Happened One Night
has been described as an economic disaster for the undershirt industry?

2.
What 1987 children’s book is frequently challenged in libraries because of the picture of the topless woman at the upper right of the “On the Beach” pages?

3.
What two words were written on performance artist Michael Portnoy’s torso when he ripped off his shirt to join Bob Dylan onstage at the 1998 Grammys?

4.
The Descamisados, or “Shirtless Ones,” were supporters of what world leader, president of his nation from 1946 to 1955?

5.
Whose book title
It’s Not About the Bra
refers to her famous 1999 shirt removal?

1966
A
CTIVIST
R
ON
K
ARENGA
and his family and friends celebrate the first Kwanzaa, a seven-day holiday he has invented to remind American blacks of their African roots.

ROUTE OF AFRICA

1.
What organization was headed by Albert Lutuli, the first African ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize?

2.
What not-really-a-singer was the only Canadian member of USA for Africa?

3.
What two African countries each border nine other nations, including each other?

4.
What can be “Africanized” by the
Mellifera scutellata
species?

5.
What 1973 movie’s tagline was “The brother man in the motherland!”

6.
What second-highest mountain in Africa was Elizabeth II visiting in 1952 when she acceded to the throne?

7.
In what modern-day nation is the city of Timbuktu?

8.
What kind of African antelope was named for Scottish explorer Joseph Thomson?

9.
As Disney fans might know, what’s the Swahili word for “lion”?

10.
In what African nation does Alex Haley’s
Roots
begin?

DECEMBER 27

1900
C
ARRY
N
ATION SMASHES UP
the saloon in Wichita’s Carey Hotel, the first protest in her legendary campaign of “hatchetation.”

EVE OF DESTRUCTION

1.
Whose famous guitar-smashing habits began when he accidentally broke his guitar neck on the low ceiling of a London tavern in September 1964?

2.
What was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 b.c. and by the Romans in a.d. 70?

3.
American student Michael Fay was caned in 1994 for vandalizing cars in what country?

4.
What title object of a 1957 movie was built, and then blown up, by Colonel Nicholson?

5.
What iconic object from American history broke in two when Theophilus Cotton tried to move it from the waterfront to the town square in 1774?

1945
T
HE
W
ORLD
B
ANK
and the International Monetary Fund are created by the signing of the Bretton Woods Agreement.

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUN

What countries use these currencies?

Easy

1.
Yen

2.
Rand

3.
Pound sterling

4.
Yuan

5.
Shekel

Harder

1.
Quetzal

2.
Baht

3.
Real

4.
Rupiah

5.
Balboa

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Lek

2.
Bolívar

3.
Hryvnia

4.
Kwanza

5.
Ngultrum

2006
L
IECHTENSTEIN GETS A LITTLE BIGGER,
as a new survey reveals that the tiny Alpine nation is half a square kilometer bigger than previously thought. Liechtenstein is, along with Uzbekistan, one of the world’s only two doubly landlocked countries—landlocked countries that border only
other
landlocked countries.

NO-SEA-UMS

1.
What landlocked country has nevertheless won two America’s Cups?

2.
Which U.S. state capital is “landlocked” in that it’s not accessible by land—only by sea or air?

3.
The creations of two of the world’s newest countries—Eritrea and Montenegro—left two other nations landlocked. Name them.

4.
What two landlocked nations are the world’s least populated and least densely populated, respectively?

5.
Which of the original thirteen American colonies was the only landlocked one?