Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (42 page)

MARCH 10

1876
A
LEXANDER
G
RAHAM
B
ELL
uses his newest invention to tell his assistant, in the next room, “Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you.” Laziest…inventor…
ever.

SECOND BANANA-RAMA

Sherlock Holmes, Alexander Graham Bell, and Frances Crick all had sidekicks named Watson. But whose sidekick was…

Easy

1.
Mini-Me

2.
Sancho Panza

3.
Barney Fife

4.
Art Garfunkel

5.
Paul Shaffer

Harder

1.
Baba Looey

2.
Passepartout

3.
James Boswell

4.
Pedro Sanchez

5.
Garth Algar

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Archie Goodwin

2.
George Fenneman

3.
Sodoff Baldrick

4.
Willie Garvin

5.
Woozy Winks

1926
S
YLVIA
T
OWNSEND
W
ARNER’S
Lolly Willowes, or The Loving Huntsman
is published, the very first selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

BOOKS OF THE MONTH

What months complete these book titles?

Easy

1.
Tom Clancy’s
The Hunt for Red ____

2.
Ralph Ellison’s _____
teenth

3.
Richard Matheson’s
What Dreams ____ Come

4.
Ron Kovic’s
Born on the Fourth of ____

Harder

1.
Irene Hunt’s
Across Five
_____s

2.
William Faulkner’s
Light in _____

3.
Barbara Tuchman’s
The Guns of ____

4.
Saul Bellow’s
The Adventures of Augie _____

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Dean Koontz’s
The Door to ____

2.
Ayn Rand’s
The Night of _____16th

3.
Nadine Gordimer’s_____
’s People

4.
Geraldine Brooks’s _____

2003
THE DIXIE CHICKS
kiss country music airplay good-bye when lead singer Natalie Maines tells a London concert audience, “We’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.”

NATIONAL SHAME

1.
What’s the only country to have hosted a Summer Olympics at which it didn’t win a single gold medal?

2.
What’s the only former Soviet republic that still calls its secret police the KGB?

3.
What European nation still pledges its allegiance to a foreign monarch (the king of Spain) in its national anthem?

4.
What was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, in 1888?

5.
Until 2007, what was the only country in the world not to have registered its own Internet domain suffix, “.kp”?

MARCH 11

1869
F
RENCH MISSIONARY
A
RMAND
D
AVID
first describes the giant panda to the West, having received a panda skin from a generous hunter. No one knows where the word “panda” comes from—it’s sure not Chinese. It may come from
ponya,
a Nepali word for the ball of the foot, which would make it the only English loanword from Nepali.

YOU’LL NEVER WOK (A LOAN)

From what language did English borrow these sets of loanwords?

Easy

1.
Ombudsman, smorgasbord, tungsten

2.
Chutzpah, glitch, schmaltz

3.
Honcho, soy, tsunami

4.
Canyon, guitar, rodeo

5.
Hula, luau, ukulele

Harder

1.
Bangle, dungarees, pundit

2.
Intelligentsia, mammoth, steppe

3.
Alcohol, safari, zero

4.
Dollar, muffin, stroll

5.
Amok, ketchup, orangutan

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Kumquat, typhoon, wok

2.
Caboose, cookie, yacht

3.
Lollipop, posh, pal

4.
Catamaran, cheroot, pariah

5.
Aardvark, commando, trek

1942
D
OUGLAS
M
AC
A
RTHUR ABANDONS
the Philippines but vows to return.

MACARTHUR 2: THE RETURN!

What movie’s first sequel featured these subtitles?

Easy

1.
Cruise Control

2.
The Edge of Reason

3.
State of the Union

4.
When Nature Calls

5.
The Road Warrior

Harder

1.
The Quickening

2.
The Sequel

3.
On the Move

4.
On the Rocks

5.
The Other Side

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Lost in San Francisco

2.
Farewell to the Flesh

3.
The Colombian Connection

4.
The Adventure Home

5.
The Spawning

2003
T
HE
U.S. H
OUSE OF
R
EPRESENTATIVES,
in a stirring show of patriotism, officially renames the French fries in its snack bars “freedom fries.” As the anti-French fervor spreads, even the actor French Stewart begins squinting uncomfortably at passersby. Oh no, my mistake. He always looks like that.

THE UNMITIGATED GAUL

Enjoy this French quiz (or “freedom quiz,” depending on your political convictions).

1.
What uses the “AZERTY” layout in the French-speaking world?

2.
What two African countries have capital cities whose names are synonyms—one in French, the other in English?

3.
In 1853, what author founded a successful daily journal called
Le Mousquetaire
?

4.
What French company is represented by a mascot named “Bibendum”?

5.
What’s usually the liqueur served on crêpes suzette?

6.
Since one sits astride it, what invention takes its name from the French word for “pony”?

7.
Whose remains were thrown into the Seine River on May 30, 1431?

8.
In nineteenth-century France, what were commonly called Herschel and Leverrier?

9.
The Arc de Triomphe was originally built to commemorate France’s
triomphe
in what 1805 battle?

10.
Who introduced her most famous formula on the appropriate date of May 5, 1921?