Read Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac Online

Authors: Ken Jennings

Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (3 page)

JANUARY 3

1496
L
EONARDO DA
V
INCI
tests a flying machine of his own invention, an “ornithopter” with flapping batlike wings, but the idea fails to get off the ground.

AVIA-TRICKS

1.
Which two U.S. states salute the Wright brothers on their license plates?

2.
What modern-day conglomerate built the Zero fighter planes used to bomb Pearl Harbor?

3.
In what city did Charles Lindbergh take his first piloting job, flying the mail?

4.
What event inspired Herbert Morrison’s famous quote “Oh, the humanity!”?

5.
What record-breaking pilot discovered the jet stream in his plane the
Winnie Mae
?

1863
P
OLITICAL CARTOONIST
Thomas Nast publishes his first illustration of Santa Claus in the pages of
Harper’s Weekly.
Our popular image of Santa today springs directly from Nast’s work.

HO HO HO

1.
What branch of the Armed Forces first popularized the phrase “gung ho”?

2.
HO scale is the world’s most popular size of what?

3.
What Devon town, named for a Charles Kingsley novel, is the only place in Britain that ends with an exclamation point?

4.
What song about a glass of wine is Don Ho’s signature tune?

5.
What do Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly have in common?

1988
M
ARGARET
T
HATCHER
becomes the longest-ruling British prime minister of the twentieth century, surpassing Herbert Asquith.

WOMAN ON TOP

What nation’s only female leader has been…

Easy

1.
Golda Meir

2.
Indira Gandhi

3.
Angela Merkel

4.
Isabel Perón

Harder

1.
Violeta Chamorro

2.
Tansu Çiller

3.
Kim Campbell

4.
Benazir Bhutto

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Michelle Bachelet

2.
Yulia Tymoshenko

3.
Chandrika Kumaratunga

4.
Portia Simpson-Miller

JANUARY 4

1903
C
ONEY
I
SLAND
has decided to execute a violent elephant named Topsy, so Thomas Edison volunteers to electrocute Topsy with 6,600 volts of alternating current—part of his ongoing campaign to discredit AC in favor of his own system, direct current. This incident is the source of Edison’s famous maxim “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-two percent perspiration, and seven percent execution of elephants.”

TRUNK CALLS

1.
Who called his elephant “Tantor”?

2.
Which chess piece was originally called “the elephant”?

3.
What late-breaking news story kicked Dumbo off the cover of
Time
magazine six weeks after the elephant cartoon’s release?

4.
Surus (“the Syrian”), who had a broken tusk, was the standout among whose elephants?

5.
Who is worshiped by Ganapatya Hindus as the supreme god?

6.
What’s the only land mammal taller than the elephant?

7.
What 1979 hit was the first song featuring a marching band ever to make the
Billboard
Top Ten?

8.
Who produced the movie
The Elephant Man,
casting his wife in a lead role and hiring director David Lynch, but insisted on going without screen credit to avoid confusing audiences?

9.
What White Stripes hit, off their album
Elephant,
is titled after singer Jack White’s childhood name for a well-known religious organization?

10.
Who married his own cousin Celeste in an elaborate 1931 ceremony?

11.
Of the three substances that make up your teeth—enamel, dentin, and pulp—which is elephant ivory made of?

12.
What word comes to us from the Greek for “thick-skinned”?

13.
Which SEC college football team uses an elephant as its mascot?

14.
What two Republicans are the only U.S. presidents ever to serve a full eight years as vice president as well?

15.
What country’s highest decoration is the Most Exalted Order of the White Elephant?

2004
T
HE
M
ARS ROVER
Spirit
lands on the red planet’s Gusev crater and begins taking the highest-resolution pictures ever taken on any planet but this one.

THAT’S THE SPIRIT!

In what movie do these actors play ghosts?

Easy

1.
Bruce Willis

2.
Alec Baldwin

3.
Nicole Kidman

4.
Cary Grant

5.
Ray Liotta

Harder

1.
Rex Harrison

2.
Alan Rickman

3.
Carol Kane