Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (45 page)

MARCH 16

1867
J
OSEPH
L
ISTER PUBLISHES
“Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery,” outlining his groundbreaking theory that doctors should actually
disinfect their hands and instruments
! As a result, Lister is made a baron and gets a mouthwash named after him.

LIKE A SURGEON

1.
Why was Jacques Marescaux’s 2001 removal of a 68-year-old woman’s gallbladder called “the Lindbergh operation”?

2.
What surgeon on
ER
shares his name with a “Warlord of Mars” created by Edgar Rice Burroughs?

3.
In 1994, Christian Spurling confessed that the so-called Surgeon’s Photo of 1934 was a fake. What was pictured in the Surgeon’s Photo?

4.
Who chose her new name in 1953 to honor a Danish surgeon named Christian Hamburger?

5.
What operation, consisting of a laparotomy and a hysterotomy, is the most commonly performed procedure in U.S. hospitals?

1955
“T
HE
B
ALLAD OF
D
AVY
C
ROCKETT”
hits number one, making it the first and last pop hit in which a three-year-old murders an animal.

SECRET BALLAD

Who’s responsible for “The Ballad of…”

Easy

1.
John and Yoko

2.
The Green Berets

3.
Reading Gaol

4.
Jed Clampett

Harder

1.
Cable Hogue

2.
A Well-Known Gun

3.
Billy the Kid

4.
Thunder Road

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Bilbo Baggins

2.
The Sad Café

3.
A Thin Man

4.
Peter Pumpkinhead

1977
E
VER
Q
UEST
AND ITS FICTIONAL WORLD
of Norrath go online, bringing the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) into the mainstream. Millions of pasty-faced young people need never go outside again.

A TRIBE CALLED QUEST

1.
In Arthurian myth, what son of Lancelot led the quest that achieved the Holy Grail?

2.
What
Animal House
actor made his show-biz debut as the voice of TV’s
Jonny Quest
?

3.
The afro-sporting ?uestlove is the drummer for what hip-hop group?

4.
What mythologist helped give birth to
Star Wars
when he published his 1949 study of quest literature,
The Hero of a Thousand Faces
?

5.
What quested-for treasure of Greek myth was the skin of the winged ram Chrysomallos?

MARCH 17

469
A
CCORDING TO TRADITION,
Saint Patrick dies and is buried beside Saint Brigid and Saint Columba in the crypt below Ireland’s Down Cathedral. Yup, a great holy man is dead, and you celebrate by getting smashed on cheap green beer down at Tipsy O’Shamrock’s.

GREEN PIECE

Celebrate St. Paddy’s Day with these green questions.

1.
What actor died nine days after completing his final movie,
Soylent Green
?

2.
What state’s National Guard still calls itself “the Green Mountain Boys”?

3.
What Green Day hit spent a record sixteen weeks atop the
Billboard
Modern Rock chart?

4.
What NFL team did Vince Lombardi coach after leaving the Green Bay Packers?

5.
What author wore a trademark dyed-green carnation in his lapel in 1890s London?

6.
What’s the name of the Jolly Green Giant’s diminutive sidekick?

7.
According to Norse sagas, who gave Greenland its misleading name in order to attract settlers?

8.
What other TV show, besides
Green Acres,
is set in the town of Hooterville?

9.
When is the optical phenomenon called a “green flash” or “green ray” visible?

10.
What drink is sometimes called
la fée verte,
“the green fairy”?

1845
S
TEPHEN
P
ERRY PATENTS
the rubber band.

BETTER LATEX THAN NEVER

1.
What college football team, named for a type of rubber overshoes, plays its home games in the Rubber Bowl?

2.
What chemical element is added to rubber to “vulcanize” it?

3.
Tires, condoms, or erasers—the word “bungee” originally referred to what
other
common rubber object?

4.
What rubber Wham-O toy inspired the name of one of the world’s largest sporting events?

5.
What Beatles character from a
Rubber Soul
song is given the name Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D., in
Yellow Submarine
?

1948
P
ORTLAND,
O
REGON, DEDICATES
Mill Ends Park, an unused traffic median that a local newspaper columnist has decreed “the only leprechaun colony west of Ireland.” Mill Ends Park, two feet in diameter, is still officially the world’s smallest park.

PARKLIFE

In what world cities would you find these iconic parks?

Easy

1.
Golden Gate Park

2.
Battery Park

3.
Hyde Park

4.
Griffith Park

5.
Gorky Park

Harder

1.
Centennial Olympic Park

2.
Tivoli Gardens

3.
Grant Park

4.
Champ de Mars

5.
Charles River Esplanade

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Stanley Park

2.
Tiergarten

3.
Balboa Park

4.
Rock Creek Park

5.
Boboli Gardens