Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (189 page)

NOVEMBER 12

1955
W
ASHINGTON
S
TATE TAKES ON
San Jose State despite windy, freezing weather in Pullman, Washington. The football game produces perhaps the smallest paid attendance in sports history: one.

WEE THE PEOPLE

Just a few small questions.

1.
What TV show does HBO bill as “the story of a man with small parts”?

2.
What miniature items come in sizes from
mame
to
shito
to
shohin
?

3.
In Munchkinland, what’s the male counterpart of the “Lullaby League”?

4.
What’s the more familiar name for Mozart’s
Serenade for Strings in G Major
?

5.
What island is also, by area, America’s smallest county?

6.
What’s the only near-actual-size item used as a token in Monopoly?

7.
Which two moons of the solar system are actually larger than Mercury, the smallest planet?

8.
What was founded in 1939 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania?

9.
What single-celled creature, commonly seen under microscopes, takes its name from the Greek for “oblong”?

10.
Who removed the “Lil’” from his stage name when he released his album
Doggy Bag
?

1955
L
IGHTNING STRIKES
the Hill Valley clock tower at 10: 04
P.M.,
stopping the hands of the clock in that position for decades. (The same bolt of lightning also sends Marty McFly
Back to the Future.
)

TELLING TIME

1.
Why isn’t it correct to point out the time on London’s iconic Big Ben?

2.
What are the only two Major League Baseball teams that play their home games in Mountain Time?

3.
What famous event happened “on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”?

4.
What Dutchman invented the pendulum clock in 1656?

5.
At what time of night does daylight saving time begin and end?

1970
T
HE
O
REGON
H
IGHWAY
D
IVISION
tries to dispose of a stinky beached whale carcass with explosives, but it uses too much dynamite: blubber flies a quarter mile into the air and smashes cars in a distant parking lot.

ONCE MORE UNTO THE BEACH

1.
What volcanic peak rises above the eastern end of Waikiki Beach?

2.
What 1980s slang word for “awesome” was originally a surfer term for a wave with a rideable barrel?

3.
What two adjacent Rio de Janeiro beaches were immortalized in the names of pop songs, in 1964 and 1978, respectively?

4.
In what country is the beach from Alex Garland’s 1996 novel
The Beach
?

5.
What movie begins with Joel and Clementine taking the train to snowy Montauk Beach on Valentine’s Day, though they don’t know why?

6.
How many arms do most starfish have?

7.
Who wasn’t allowed to use his own first name in 1987’s
Back to the Beach,
because of copyright issues with the
Beach Party
movies?

8.
What breed is the black dog depantsing the Coppertone girl in the original ad?

9.
Who was the only original Beach Boy not related to the other four?

10.
On which of the five landing beaches was the bloodiest battle of D-day?

NOVEMBER 13

1797
D
URING A WALK
in the Quantock Hills, poet William Wordsworth tells his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge about a book he’s reading, about George Shelvocke’s voyages as a privateer. One episode, about the shooting of a black albatross, sparks in Coleridge the idea for the poem that will become his masterpiece,
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

LIGHTBULBS

Inspiration can strike in the oddest places.

1.
What fifty-five-year-old TV logo was based on hex symbols painted on Shaker barns to ward off evil spirits?

2.
What Coldplay song was inspired by the phone book sitting next to Chris Martin as he wrote its lyrics?

3.
What product was the result of Minnesota researcher Arthur Fry sitting in church, wishing he had a better way to mark the pages of his choir hymnal?

4.
What TV show was inspired by James L. Brooks reading an article called “Hip-Shifting for the Night Fleet” in
New York
magazine?

5.
According to legend, what did Galileo invent after watching a bronze chandelier being lit in a Pisan cathedral?

6.
Who devised the famous “Notre Dame shift” while watching an intricately choreographed chorus line at a dance hall?

7.
What did 11-year-old Frank Epperson invent in 1905 when he left a glass of homemade soda he was stirring out on his back porch overnight?

8.
What 1977 bestseller was inspired by the author’s stay in room 217 of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado?

9.
What song did John Lennon write after reading two newspaper stories—one about the death of Guinness heir Tara Browne and one about a pothole problem?

10.
What invention occurred to Swiss electrical engineer Georges de Mestral while he was pulling burrs off his wool hunting pants during a weekend hiking trip?

1942
T
HE FIRST CABLE
TV
PROGRAM
is telecast: from Tuckerman, Arkansas, the Tennessee and Mississippi football teams square off live.

CABLE GUYS

1.
What did the
H
in VH-1 originally stand for?

2.
Who’s the only original CNN Headline News anchor still with the network?

3.
In an unprecedented feat, the top seventeen cable broadcasts of 2006 were
all
episodes of what program?

4.
What rock star faced off against what serial killer in the very first
Celebrity Deathmatch
bout on MTV?

5.
What phrase did Fox News sue to remove from the subtitle of a 2003 Al Franken book?

6.
What audience is targeted by the cable networks Here! and Logo?

7.
What two HBO series removed shots of the World Trade Center from their credits following the 9/11 attacks?

8.
What cable channel’s French Canadian version is called MétéoMédia?

9.
Handball, volleyball, or softball—what sport’s “World Series” was the first sporting event ever aired on ESPN?

10.
What director sued in 2003 over the new on-screen name of the former Nashville Network?