Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (168 page)

OCTOBER 6

1807
S
IR
H
UMPHRY
D
AVY
discovers potassium, the first element to be isolated by electrolysis. Davy has coined the name from “potash,” but a couple years from now a couple Germans will think the name “kalium” more dignified, which is why potassium’s periodic table symbol is a
K.

K MART

1.
What anesthetic has been given the street name “Special K”?

2.
Who was the only U.S. president to have
K
as a middle initial?

3.
In the CMYK model used in color printing, what color does
K
represent?

4.
Who called his debut solo album
AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted
?

5.
Who are Koby, Kory, Kacy, and Kody?

6.
Whose works are indexed with “K numbers,” beginning with K 1a, which he wrote at age 5?

7.
Who wrote
The Castle,
about a man called K., and
The Trial,
about Joseph K.?

8.
What word did George Eastman coin because, he said, he found the letter
K
to be “a strong, incisive sort of letter”?

9.
The world’s second highest mountain, K2, was originally named for what Englishman who first surveyed it?

10.
What movie featured the line “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K”?

1966
LSD
IS BANNED
in the United States.

ACID TEST

1.
What’s the common household name of acetylsalicylic acid?

2.
What two acids did alchemists mix to make the gold-dissolving reagent called
aqua regia
?

3.
What acid, when taken by prospective mothers, can prevent spina bifida in their babies?

4.
What color will acid turn litmus paper?

5.
Onions cause crying because of what acid forming on the surface of the eye?

2000
S
YLVESTER
S
TALLONE’S REMAKE
of
Get Carter
hits theaters. An online poll will later name it the worst remake in movie history.

TAKE TWO

What movies were remade as…

Easy

1.
The Birdcage

2.
The Preacher’s Wife

3.
An Affair to Remember

4.
Flubber

5.
The Departed

Harder

1.
The Point of No Return

2.
The Truth About Charlie

3.
Heaven Can Wait

4.
Sommersby

5.
Meet Joe Black

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
The Last House on the Left

2.
Ali—Fear Eats the Soul

3.
A Pocketful of Miracles

4.
Down and Out in Beverly Hills

5.
Walk, Don’t Run

OCTOBER 7

1916
I
N THE MOST LOPSIDED
U.S. college football score ever, Georgia Tech beats the Cumberland Bulldogs 222–0. Tech scores only 42 in the fourth quarter—way to ease up there, coach. In fact, the victorious Engineer coach is none other than John Heisman, later of Trophy fame.

CUP WITH PEOPLE

Whom are these sports trophies named after?

1.
Baseball’s “Commissioner’s Award” for good character and charitable service

2.
The Super Bowl trophy

3.
The NHL trophy for best regular-season defenseman

4.
Major League Baseball’s Outstanding Designated Hitter

5.
ATP Humanitarian of the Year

6.
The Daytona 500 winner

7.
National Thoroughbred Racing Association awards

8.
PGA Tour Player of the Year

9.
Best offensive player in Division I-AA football

10.
The U.S. Basketball Writers Association college Player of the Year

2003
A
RNOLD
S
CHWARZENEGGER,
whose previous political experience amounted to rescuing Alyssa Milano from a South American dictator in
Commando,
is elected governor of California.

PUMPED UP

Here’s some “muscular” trivia, in honor of the Governator.

1.
What activity do you perform with the body’s “strongest” muscle—the one that can generate the most force?

2.
Whose father was named “Poopdeck Pappy”?

3.
Muscles come in three varieties: skeletal, smooth, and a third specialized type found only in what body part?

4.
The name for what medical condition may have originated with Baseball Hall of Famer Charles Radbourn?

5.
What bizarre film cycle by media artist (and Björk boyfriend) Matthew Barney takes its name from the muscle that raises and lowers the testicles?

6.
Though he was never called the “Muscles from Brussels,” Brussels Observatory founder Adolphe Quételet is the inventor of what, also called the Quételet Index?

7.
The “Monkeemobile,” from the Monkees’ TV show, was a modified version of what classic muscle car?

8.
What chemical (and yogurt ingredient) was recently discovered to be an important muscle fuel and not the cause of fatigue it was long believed to be?

9.
What shoulder muscle gets its name from its triangular shape?

10.
Who owned a boa constrictor named Muscles?