Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (211 page)

DECEMBER 20

1932
T
HE
AP
REPORTS
that the alumni of Chicago’s Norton College finally decided to smoke a cigar given to the school’s founder by Ulysses S. Grant more than fifty years ago. Horace Norton’s grandson Winstead ceremonially lights the cigar…only to have it explode on the second puff. That Ulysses Grant—quite the prankster.

GIVE THAT MAN A CIGAR

1.
In what famous American painting can you see an ad for Phillies cigars?

2.
Hey, kids, smoking is cool! What comedian chews on a cigar in the very first episode of PBS’s children’s show
The Electric Company
?

3.
When Cigar won sixteen races in a row in 1996, he tied the record of what 1948 Triple Crown winner?

4.
A teenage Samuel Beckett’s cigar smoking during an interview led to the 1922 asthma and pneumonia attack that killed off what French author?

5.
What popular Cuban cigar is named in honor of the Alexandre Dumas novels supposedly beloved of its rollers?

1971
R
ADIO HOST
L
ARRY
K
ING
is arrested for grand larceny, after getting entangled with indicted financier Louis Wolfson. King does no jail time but is off the air for three years.

A FACE FOR RADIO

1.
New York DJ “Murray the K” was the first person ever to receive what nickname, later applied to people like Derek Taylor and George Martin?

2.
What radio star was the first man ever to top Mr. Blackwell’s “Worst Dressed” list?

3.
What are “all the children” in Lake Wobegon, according to Garrison Keillor?

4.
In what state did the Martians land in Orson Welles’s famous
War of the Worlds
broadcast?

5.
Don Imus was fired in 2007 for insulting what school’s basketball team?

6.
In what movie did Wolfman Jack make his film debut?

7.
What quarterback famously knocked down Jim Rome for comparing him to a similarly named female tennis player?

8.
Whose 1994 wedding to Marta Fitzgerald was hosted and officiated by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas?

9.
What radio legend returned to broadcasting to narrate TV’s
The Untouchables
?

10.
What avant-garde composer is the first cousin, once removed, of the host of NPR’s
This American Life
?

2002
NBC
AIRS THE
“winter finale” of its drama
Providence
—but when much of the cast elects not to return, this ends up being the show’s farewell.

THE CAPITAL GANG

Providence
was set in, um, Providence. What state capitals were the setting for…

Easy

1.
Hawaii Five-O

2.
Dynasty

3.
Ally McBeal

Harder

1.
Medium

2.
Matlock

3.
Family Ties

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Judging Amy

2.
Men Behaving Badly

3.
Eight Is Enough

DECEMBER 21

841
B.C.
T
HE FIRST
C
HINESE
N
EW
Y
EAR
(as far as we can date it definitively) takes place around the winter solstice. Since seven-inch copper knives were the common currency of the Zhou dynasty, those little red New Year’s cash envelopes must have been a
lot
bigger back then.

THE BEAST IN ME

Under which Chinese “Year of the…” animal were these famous folks, each rather appropriately, born?

Easy

1.
E. B. White

2.
Charles Schulz

3.
Bruce Lee

4.
Lewis Carroll

Harder

1.
Thomas Harris

2.
William Jennings Bryan

3.
“Buffalo Bill” Cody

4.
Naomi Watts

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Magglio Ordóñez

2.
James Clavell

3.
Lasse Hallström

4.
Thurl Ravenscroft

2012
A
CCORDING TO THE MOST
popular reading of the Mayan Long Count calendar, the end of the world is scheduled for today. Dress warmly if you’re going out.

THE GRAND “FINALLY”

Some more trivia about endings, while you’re waiting for the end of the world.

1.
What play ends with the stage direction “Nothing is heard but the thud of the ax on a tree far away”?

2.
Unlike in the NFL, how deep is the end zone in Canadian football?

3.
Who was Kurt Cobain quoting when he ended his suicide note “I don’t have the passion anymore, and so remember, it’s better to burn out than to fade away”?

4.
What ended the Crimean War, the Spanish-American War, the Seven Years’ War, the Albigensian Crusade, and the American Revolution?

5.
What classic 1968 movie has no dialogue for the first twenty-five minutes or the final twenty-three minutes?

6.
Who was the last U.S. president to sport facial hair in office?

7.
R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” was based on a dream singer Michael Stipe had about being at a party attended only by people with what initials?

8.
What musical’s finale is called “John 19:41”?

9.
In what peninsular British county is Land’s End?

10.
What video-game franchise invented creatures like Moogles, Chocobos, Tonberries, and Cactuars?

11.
What has an axon on one end and dendrites on the other?

12.
In the title of a 1980 sci-fi novel, what’s another name for Milliways?

13.
Until “Who shot J.R.?” in 1980, what show’s finale was the top-rated series TV show in TV history?

14.
What two cities were the endpoints of Route 66?

15.
Who hit a home run (number 521) in the final at-bat of his career, on September 28, 1960?