Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (193 page)

NOVEMBER 19

1863
A
FTER
E
DWARD
E
VERETT,
the main speaker, delivers a two-hour oration, Abraham Lincoln reads ten sentences, dedicating a soldiers’ cemetery at Gettysburg. Lincoln’s prophecy that “the world will little note nor long remember what we say here” turns out to be true only of Everett’s speech.

BULLY PULPITS

What U.S. presidents gave these famous speeches?

Easy

1.
“Ich Bin ein Berliner”

2.
“A House Divided”

3.
“A Place Called Hope”

Harder

1.
“The Silent Majority”

2.
“The Evil Empire”

3.
“National Malaise”

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
“Atoms for Peace”

2.
“The Great Arsenal of Democracy”

3.
“The Man with the Muck Rake”

1954
S
AMMY
D
AVIS
, J
R.,
loses his left eye in a San Bernardino car accident, when a 72-year-old woman backs her car out of a driveway into his path. Humphrey Bogart persuades him to get a glass eye, and he’s back performing just two months later.

I CAN SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU

Raise a glass to these ten questions
about
glass.

1.
What city’s famous glass is made principally on the island of Murano?

2.
What novel’s sequel took place inside a “great glass elevator”?

3.
The tallest variety of champagne glass shares its name with what musical instrument?

4.
What dark volcanic glass is used today to make scalpel blades for cardiac surgery?

5.
Who designed the glass pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre?

6.
What movie’s villain gives the famous command
“Schiess dem Fenster!”
meaning “Shoot the glass”?

7.
What toy works because the aluminum dust and plastic beads inside it stick to a sheet of glass?

8.
Where was the glass bridge called the Skywalk opened in 2007?

9.
Who gave nicknames like “In Your Face Disgrace,” “Dunk You Very Much,” and “Rim Wrecker” to his trademark backboard-shattering slam dunks?

10.
Which crystal animal breaks at the end of Tennessee Williams’s
The Glass Menagerie
?

1990
M
ILLI
V
ANILLI IS STRIPPED
of its Best New Artist Grammy when it’s revealed that the duo lip-synched all its hits.

LIP SINK

1.
Former
Playboy
model Lorelei Shark owns the iconic lips on the poster of what 1975 movie?

2.
In the Flaming Lips song “She Don’t Use Jelly,” what
does
she put on toast?

3.
What outspoken Dodgers manager with ninety-five career ejections was called “the Lip”?

4.
According to a World War II propaganda campaign, what do loose lips do?

5.
Scarlet, crimson, or vermilion—which shade of red is also the medical term for the red tissue of the lips?

NOVEMBER 20

1831
H
ANSON
G
REGORY IS BORN
in Rockport, Maine. In 1847, as a young sailor in the lime trade, Gregory will tire of the soggy fried cakes served aboard ship and use the ship’s tin pepper box to stamp out the middle of the frying dough, thus accidentally inventing the modern doughnut.

THE ACCIDENTAL TORUS

1.
Which nation can boast the most doughnut shops per capita?

2.
Who said, “Doughnuts…is there anything they can’t do?” when they helped him stop a runaway monorail?

3.
What word from a 1900 children’s book does Dunkin’ Donuts use to name its doughnut holes?

4.
Louisiana and Massachusetts are the only states with official state doughnuts. What are the two pastries in question?

5.
What doughnut maker blamed its 2004 stock plunge on the low-carb diet craze?

1965
S
PORTSCASTER
C
HICK
H
EARN
calls a college football game in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This becomes notable only the next day, when bad weather strands him in Arkansas and he misses the Lakers game he was scheduled to call. After that missed game, Hearn will broadcast 3, 338 consecutive games for the Lakers, a streak that won’t end until 2001.

THE PLAY-BY-PLAY’S THE THING

Can you match these famous calls to the sportscasters who made them, as well as the subject of the call?

1974
P
ERFORMANCE ARTIST
V
INCENT
T
RASOV
loses his bid for mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia, in which he ran dressed as Mr. Peanut, doing a dapper tap dance whenever cameras were on.

BREAK A LEGUME

1.
In 1916, who wrote
How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing It for Human Consumption
?

2.
Which
Peanuts
character’s last name was Reichardt?

3.
The dark blue Peanut the elephant was the rarest and most valuable regular-edition what?

4.
What Disney fixture pitched Skippy peanut butter on TV ads during the 1980s?

5.
What word do we get from the Bantu word “
nguba,
” meaning “peanut”?