Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (147 page)

6.
Thursday (
The Man Who Was Thursday
)

7.
Archibald Cox

8.
Chris Tucker

9.
Marie Antoinette

10.
714

GRAZE ANATOMY

Easy

1.
Collarbone

2.
Eardrum

3.
Belly button or navel

4.
Skin

Harder

1.
Armpit

2.
Shoulder blade

3.
Adam’s apple

4.
Buttocks

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Nostril

2.
Knuckles

3.
Big toe

4.
Cuticle

AUGUST 28

HOMETOWN BUFFET

Easy

1.
Cairo

2.
Munich

3.
Los Angeles

4.
Madrid

5.
Naples

Harder

1.
Warsaw

2.
Moscow

3.
Jerusaleum

4.
Cape Town

5.
Newcastle(-upon-Tyne)

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Halifax

2.
Buenos Aires

3.
Mexico City

4.
Manchester

5.
Rio de Janeiro

DREAM ACADEMY

1.
“Yesterday”

2.
Benzene

3.
“Kubla Khan”

4.
St. Patrick

5.
The Terminator

6.
Acetylcholine

7.
The American flag

8.
Frankenstein

9.
Richard Wagner

10.
The sewing machine

COMFORTABLY NUMB

1.
The Velvet Underground

2.
Eric Clapton

3.
Faith No More

4.
Everclear

5.
Brad Paisley

AUGUST 29

START SEEING MOTORCYCLES

1.
HOG

2.
Two

3.
“Evel” Knievel

4.
Larry Wilcox

5.
Phil Jackson

6.
Kawasaki

7.
“Bat Out of Hell” (Meat Loaf)

8.
Captain America

9.
Che Guevara

10.
Lawrence of Arabia

GHOST STORIES

Easy

1.
Jane Austen

2.
J. R. R. Tolkien

3.
Anne Frank

4.
Johann Wilhelm von Goethe

5.
Ian Fleming

Harder

1.
John Kennedy Toole

2.
Charles Dickens

3.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

4.
Niccolò Machiavelli

5.
Isaac Asimov

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Mikhail Bulgakov

2.
Samuel Butler

3.
Philip K. Dick

4.
Gustave Flaubert

5.
Louisa May Alcott

SKY NET

1.
Rocket Boys

2.
The Thing (from Another World)

3.
Penélope Cruz

4.
Adam Horovitz (the Beastie Boys)

5.
Laurence Olivier

AUGUST 30

“
JR.” SAMPLES

1.
Jaromir Jagr (“Jaromir” is an anagram of “Mario, Jr.”)

2.
Robert Downey, Jr. (
Chaplin
)

3.
Morehouse

4.
Ed Wood, Jr.

5.
Harry Connick, Jr.

6.
Jodie Foster

7.
Wade Boggs and Cal Ripken, Jr.

8.
I Know What You Did Last Summer

9.
“Ghostbusters”

10.
Randall

THE INN CROWD

1.
Las Vegas

2.
Rafer Johnson and Rosey Grier

3.
“Hotel Yorba”

4.
César Ritz

5.
Hoyt Axton’s

6.
A bear

7.
Just one: Best Picture

8.
The Toll House Inn

9.
The Montecito

10.
Keys

AUGUST 31

THESE BOOTS AREN’T MADE FOR WALKING

1.
Denver

2.
A German U-boat

3.
The trunk

4.
Control-Alt-Delete

5.
The Gulf of Taranto

PARTY OF FIVE

Easy

1.
C

2.
H

3.
I

4.
P

5.
S

Harder

1.
L

2.
A

3.
T

4.
E

5.
R

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
M

2.
A

3.
U

4.
D

5.
E

THEMED SONGS

1.
The title isn’t sung until the last line

2.
Name-check baseball players (Sadaharu Oh, Juan Pierre, Rod Carew, Joe DiMaggio)

3.
Based on classical compositions

4.
Mention Elvis

5.
B-sides that became hits

6.
Spoofed by “Weird Al” Yankovic

7.
Controversial
Saturday Night Live
performances

8.
Beatles guest on each (George, John, Ringo, and Paul, respectively)

9.
Backward-masked vocals

10.
About listening to other songs (“Coming On Strong,” “Runaway,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “Only the Lonely”)

SEPTEMBER 1

1271
T
HE ELECTION OF
Gregory X ends the longest interregnum, or pope-free gap, in Catholic history. The intrigue-filled three-year vacancy ends only when the mayor of Viterbo locks the College of Cardinals in a palace with a bare minimum of food, saying they can’t come out until they elect a pope. And clean their rooms.

HELP WANTED

1.
What position was filled using this 1860 want ad? “Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows. Not over 18. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”

2.
What movie begins with front man Dewey Finn being kicked out of his band, leaving a vacancy in No Vacancy?

3.
What president oversaw the longest vice presidential vacancy in America’s history?

4.
Why did a September 8, 1967,

Variety
ad seek “4 insane boys, ages 17-21”?

5.
Who, following his 1951 firing, was replaced by Matthew B. Ridgway?

1903
M
ASSACHUSETTS ISSUES
the country’s first license plates. A car enthusiast named Frederick Tudor gets the coveted plate number 1.

BETTER PLATE THAN NEVER

What state’s plates have used these slogans?

Easy

1.
10,000 Lakes

2.
America’s Dairyland

3.
Famous Potatoes

4.
The First State

5.
Big Sky Country

Harder

1.
You’ve Got a Friend in

2.
400th Anniversary

3.
Amber Waves of Grain

4.
Sportsman’s Paradise

5.
Live Free or Die

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Wild, Wonderful

2.
Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places

3.
Vacationland

4.
The Hospitality State

5.
Discover the Spirit

1977
R
ENEE
R
ICHARDS LOSES
in straight sets in her women’s singles debut to Virginia Wade at the U.S. Open. The match makes history because Renee is the former Dr. Richard Raskind,
men’s
singles player in the 1960 U.S. Open.

NET GAIN

Tennis trivia, anyone?

1.
Who was the first living person to appear on a Swiss postage stamp?

2.
What Elton John hit was a tribute to Billie Jean King?

3.
What number one–ranked tennis player of the 1990s was named for a number one–ranked player of the 1980s?

4.
The U.S. Open’s main tennis court is named for whom?

5.
Whose $20-million-plus annual income makes her the highest-paid female athlete of all time?

6.
Who’s the only player ever to win tennis’s singles Grand Slam twice?

7.
What tennis player called her occasional lapses of concentration “going walkabout”?

8.
What’s the term for a tennis serve that touches the net on its way into the service box?

9.
What tennis champ of the 1920s was jailed twice, later in life, for picking up teenage boys?

10.
What city is home to the Australian Open?