Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (140 page)

AUGUST 23

1928
E
XPLORER
R
ICHARD
H
ALLIBURTON
completes his much-publicized swim through the Panama Canal. His 36-cent toll is still the lowest ever paid for a Panama Canal transit.

CANAL ZONE

1.
In what film is Bill Murray the author of the play
Return to Love Canal
?

2.
Which middle layer of a tooth contains the root canals?

3.
What nation is home to the ancient Grand Canal, still the longest artificial waterway in the world?

4.
The Italian Giovanni Schiaparelli is best known today for naming most of the canals where?

5.
What river was connected to Lake Erie by the Erie Canal?

6.
What canals in the human ear serve as the body’s balance organ?

7.
What two-time presidential hopeful was born in the Panama Canal Zone?

8.
Venice’s Grand Canal ends at what huge square, the city’s only piazza?

9.
The Suez Crisis of 1956 was precipitated by Egypt’s plans to build what?

10.
What is
Le Bureau,
a hit on France’s pay-TV channel Canal Plus?

1973
F
OUR BANK EMPLOYEES
are held hostage for almost a week in a botched attempt at robbing the Norrmalmstorg branch of Sweden’s Kreditbanken. After their release, all the hostages actually
defend
their captor to the police, and the term “Stockholm syndrome” is coined.

DAS KAPITAL

Other stuff named for world capitals.

1.
What movie kills off a racehorse named Khartoum?

2.
In 1977, Gerald Ford pardoned Iva Toguri D’Aquino, convicted of treason in 1949 under suspicion of being whom?

3.
What city’s music scene gave us R.E.M., Danger Mouse, and the B-52s?

4.
The strongest earthquake ever to hit the continental U.S. happened not along the San Andreas Fault but along what southeast Missouri fault line?

5.
What kind of dog is Pluto’s girlfriend, Fifi?

6.
What ornately woven fabric was originally known as “diaper” in the West, before it borrowed a new name from a Middle Eastern capital city?

7.
What James Joyce story collection begins with “The Sisters” and ends with “The Dead”?

8.
Who rode his horse Copenhagen at the Battle of Waterloo?

9.
What common office supply item is named for the Asian
abaca
fiber used to make them?

10.
Who founded Heiress Records in 2004?

AUGUST 24

79
A
UTHOR
P
LINY THE
E
LDER
heads to Mount Vesuvius, the scientist in him eager to investigate the ongoing volcanic eruption. He is killed in the attempt.

DOWN BY LAVA

1.
In one myth, what dance was first performed by Hi’iaka to appease the volcano goddess, Pele?

2.
The 83-year-old man killed by Mount St. Helens when he refused to evacuate his cabin shared his name with what U.S. president?

3.
The red Oslo sky in what 1893 painting has been explained as a result of the eruption of Krakatoa?

4.
What was created, almost seven thousand years ago, by the eruption of Mount Mazama?

5.
What volcano is the world’s tallest mountain, when measured base to summit?

1853
S
ARATOGA
S
PRINGS DINER
chef George Crum gets fed up with a customer who keeps sending his fried potatoes back, wanting them crispier and crispier. He stir-fries superthin potato slices into what he thinks will be an inedible concoction—only to find the customer enthusiastic about the innovation. The “Saratoga chip,” the first potato chip, is born.

CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK

1.
The easiest way to tell Chip ’n’ Dale apart is by their nose color. What colors are Chip ’n’ Dale’s noses?

2.
What microchip company is one of only two NASDAQ stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

3.
Chips worth $2.50 are used, typically, only in what casino game?

4.
Who beat out Clark Gable in
Gone With the Wind,
Jimmy Stewart in
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
and Laurence Olivier in
Wuthering Heights
when he won his only Oscar for playing Mr. Chips?

5.
What snack chip comes in Original, Harvest Cheddar, French Onion, and Garden Salsa flavors?

6.
Vince, Frank or Joe—what was “Ponch” ’s real first name on
CHiPs
?

7.
What ratings-based blocker has been built into all U.S. TVs sold since 2000?

8.
What Merrilee Rush hit was written by Chip Taylor, the brother of actor Jon Voight?

9.
What two Orlando Magic teammates made their screen debuts in
Blue Chips
?

10.
What actor, “Chip” on
My Three Sons,
has a name that suggests both the principals in a famous 1871 meeting?

1938
A
MILLION BAD PIANO DUETS
are made possible when Hoagy Carmichael copyrights “Heart and Soul.”

SOUL PROPRIETORS

1.
What was the name of the devil to whom Faust sold his soul?

2.
What two actresses with the same name have both starred in
Soul Food,
one in the 1997 film and the other in the subsequent Showtime TV series?

3.
What was the real first name of David Soul’s “Hutch” on
Starsky and Hutch
?

4.
Whose Atlantic recordings are collected in a set called
Queen of Soul
?

5.
What is the Buddhist equivalent of the Hindu
moksha
—liberating the soul from its endless cycle of birth and rebirth?