Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (15 page)

JANUARY 27

1606
THE TRIAL OF
G
UY
F
AWKES
and his Gunpowder Plot coconspirators begins. Four days later, they’ll be executed! Ah, London—the Texas of the seventeenth century.

SO GOOD YOU COULD PLOTS

1.
In 1944, who was the intended assassination victim of the July 20 Plot?

2.
What director’s last film was 1976’s
Family Plot
?

3.
What novel begins “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted…persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot”?

4.
What famous figure becomes an anti-Semitic U.S. president in Philip Roth’s alternate-history novel
The Plot Against America
?

5.
What French philosopher invented a namesake system of plotting points on two axes labeled
x
and
y
?

1888
T
HE
N
ATIONAL
G
EOGRAPHIC
S
OCIETY
is founded at the Cosmos Club on Washington, D.C.’s, Lafayette Square.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY

What’s the only nation that borders
both
of these countries?

Easy

1.
Andorra and Portugal

2.
Pakistan and Bangladesh

3.
Israel and Libya

4.
Uruguay and Venezuela

5.
Belgium and Spain

Harder

1.
Burma and Malaysia

2.
Costa Rica and Honduras

3.
Italy and Slovakia

4.
Ecuador and Bolivia

5.
Morocco and Tunisia

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Nigeria and Gabon

2.
Tajikistan and Russia

3.
Slovenia and Bosnia

4.
Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau

5.
Kazakhstan and Iran

1910
T
HE UNFORTUNATELY NAMED PLUMBER
Thomas Crapper, who helped popularize and improve the flush toilet, dies outside London.

FOUR FLUSHERS

1.
What NHL team is named for a W. C. Handy standard?

2.
W. C. Minor, a murderer and schizophrenic, spent the last decades of his life in a lunatic asylum writing hundreds of entries for what reference work?

3.
What was the hometown of W. C. Fields, which he joked he wanted to put on his tombstone?

4.
W. C. Heinz and Richard Hornberger used the pen name “Richard Hooker” to write what Korean War novel?

JANUARY 28

1820
T
HE
E
STONIAN-BORN
Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, exploring the south Pacific, sights ice fields and thus becomes, it is believed, the first European to discover Antarctica. In fact, if the current research is correct, he beat Britain’s Edward Bransfield, often credited with the discovery, by only two days.

PIONEER AT HAND

Match these geographical features to the European explorer who discovered them—or “discovered” them, to be more PC.

1956
R
ALPH
K
RAMDEN IS BOUNCED
from the quiz show
The $99,000 Answer
when he doesn’t know who wrote “Swanee River.” (Ralph’s answer: “Ed Norton?”)

INNER TUBE

What TV series are about these fictional shows-within-shows?

1.
The Alan Brady Show

2.
FYI

3.
Tool Time

4.
The Girlie Show

5.
When the Whistle Blows

1985
F
ORTY-FIVE RECORDING ARTISTS
gather at the A&M recording studios in Hollywood to sing “We Are the World.” (The producers have cannily selected the date of the American Music Awards to ensure a big turnout.)

COUNT IT OFF

Can you put these bands in order from one to ten, based on the number of members in their most famous lineup?

1.
Broken Social Scene

2.
The Dave Matthews Band

3.
Eurythmics

4.
Green Day

5.
Iron & Wine

6.
Led Zeppelin

7.
Madness

8.
Slipknot

9.
Toto

10.
UB40