Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (38 page)

MARCH 2

1939
H
OWARD
C
ARTER,
who led the expedition that uncovered King Tut’s tomb, dies at age 64. Carter lived sixteen years after his discovery and died of natural causes—so much for the so-called Curse of the Pharaohs.

CAN YOU DIG IT?

Try to unearth the answers to these subterranean questions.

1.
What city boasted the world’s first subway line?

2.
What novel begins in the Sandleford warren?

3.
Where would you find the King’s Palace, the Papoose Room, and the Witch’s Finger?

4.
Who is buried in Paris’s Père Lachaise cemetery, except for his heart, which is sealed inside a pillar in a Warsaw chapel?

5.
By a wide margin (more than three to two), what’s the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust?

1955
B
O
D
IDDLEY AND HIS BAND
enter a Chicago studio and record two demos that will become huge R&B hits. But “I’m a Man” is dwarfed by the success of its B-side, called simply “Bo Diddley.”

SINGLE DOUBLES

Can you make these unlikely cover versions make sense, by finding the single by each artist that has
the same name
as the artist who recorded the corresponding song?

Easy

1.
Neil Diamond, “A Horse with No Name”

2.
Gary Numan, “Drive”

3.
Edwin Starr, “Low Rider”

4.
Weezer, “Peggy Sue”

5.
Bell Biv Devoe, “Unskinny Bop”

Harder

1.
Aerosmith, “U + Ur Hand”

2.
The Association, “Do It to It”

3.
Prince, “Rocket Ride”

4.
Jackson 5, “Be Near Me”

5.
Herb Alpert, “Boogie Oogie Oogie”

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Keyshia Cole, “7 and 7 Is”

2.
Graham Nash, “Call On Me”

3.
Bobbie Gentry, “Touch Me”

4.
Henry Gross, “Let the Music Play”

5.
Big Audio Dynamite, “Tom Sawyer”

1965
T
HE
S
OUND OF
M
USIC
(or “The Sound of Mucus,” as Christopher Plummer called it) is released. Its enormous success will single-handedly save Twentieth Century–Fox, on the verge of bankruptcy after the 1963 failure of
Cleopatra.

NOTES AND QUERIES

1.
Baklava is usually made using what kind of paper-thin
dough
?

2.
What actress is married to Taylor Hackford, the Oscar-nominated director of
Ray
?

3.
Who had a best seller at age 84 with her autobiography
Me
?

4.
In England, what is governed by the
FA
?

5.
What country’s currency, named for the sun god Inti, is the
nuevo
sol
?

6.
“Bad money drives out good,” according to what Elizabethan financier’s
law
?

7.
What ingredient provides the “pearls” in bubble
tea
?

8.
Before his ears were cut off in 1990 by a political rival, what nation was ruled by dictator Samuel
Doe
?

MARCH 3

1699
E
XPLORER
S
IEUR D
’I
BERVILLE,
camping sixty miles south of New Orleans, names the site Point du Mardi Gras, in honor of the festival being celebrated that day in his French homeland.

TUESDAY TRIVIA

1.
What singer-songwriter played bass in the New Wave band ’Til Tuesday?

2.
Greeks consider Tuesday the unluckiest day of the week because what city fell on a Tuesday in 1453?

3.
Tuesday Weld played Thalia Menninger on what TV series?

4.
What disease is Mitch Albom’s professor dying of in his bestseller
Tuesdays with Morrie
?

5.
What movie’s plot kicks off with the promise “I’m gonna blow my brains out right on this program a week from today. Tune in next Tuesday”?

1887
“M
IRACLE WORKER”
A
NNIE
S
ULLIVAN
arrives at the Alabama home of young Helen Keller. No less an authority than inventor Alexander Graham Bell helped matchmake the two strong-willed women.

DEAF JAM

1.
What singer took his stage name from a Dublin hearing aid billboard?

2.
What’s the difference between “I love you” in American Sign Language and the “devil’s horns” of heavy metal fans?

3.
After a fever took his hearing, who painted his bleak “Black Paintings” in a house called Quinta del Sordo, Spanish for “House of the Deaf Man”?

4.
Whose last words were actually “Pity, pity—too late!” about a gift of wine,
not
the oft-reported “I shall hear in heaven”?

5.
What musical family’s two oldest brothers, Virl and Tom, were born deaf?

1919
I
N THE
S
UPREME
C
OURT RULING
on
Schechter v. United States,
Oliver Wendell Holmes writes that “shouting fire in a crowded theater” isn’t protected speech. Sadly, Justice Holmes is silent on court protection for “a ringing cell phone in a crowded theater” or “shouting ‘Oh, no, you
didn’t!
’ at the screen in a crowded theater.”

THE SATANIC “VS.”

Can you match the plaintiffs in these landmark Supreme Court cases to their defendants and the issues “decided”?