Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (52 page)

MARCH 30

1880
W
ABASH
, I
NDIANA, BECOMES
the world’s first town to replace all its gas streetlights with that newfangled electricity.

CURRENT EVENTS

1.
What metal item on the end of a kite string gave off the sparks in Benjamin Franklin’s famous 1752 experiment?

2.
What’s the official title of the chief electrician on a movie set?

3.
Electrical resistance is measured in ohms. Before the 1971 adoption of the “siemens” unit, what was electrical conductance, the
opposite
of resistance, measured in?

4.
Who was the only U.S. presidential assassin to die in the electric chair?

5.
What university’s fans signal their sports nickname with the semiobscene gesture called the “shocker”?

6.
What’s the common name for batteries that contain zinc and manganese dioxide?

7.
When Bob Dylan “went electric” to loud booing at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, what agricultural song opened his set?

8.
Which flavor of Life Savers can produce sparks when crushed?

9.
What Italian scientist discovered methane and invented the first battery?

10.
What movie is loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s novel
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

11.
The electric eel is native only to what continent?

12.
What Kiss song did Ace Frehley write after an ungrounded railing nearly electrocuted him during a 1976 Florida concert?

13.
What Bruins and Rangers legend founded the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1991?

14.
What’s the name for the chemical and electrical connections formed at the gaps between nerve cells?

15.
How much electricity is needed to power the flux capacitor in the
Back to the Future
films?

1975
T
O CELEBRATE
E
ASTER,
Uruguayan conductor José Serebrier agrees to host a concert of sacred music in Mexico City. Unused to conducting with a baton, Serebrier manages to stab himself through the hand with it but stanches the blood flow with his handkerchief and makes it through the last twenty minutes of the piece.

CONCERT MASTERY

1.
What longtime London Symphony Orchestra conductor is also Woody Allen’s father-in-law?

2.
What city’s orchestra did Eugene Ormandy conduct for forty-four years?

3.
The Black Panther benefit lampooned in Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” took place in what celebrity conductor’s duplex?

4.
What director of the New York Philharmonic was the first American to conduct at the famous Bayreuth Festival?

5.
In what country was Zubin Mehta born?

MARCH 31

1889
T
HE
E
IFFEL
T
OWER IS INAUGURATED
in Paris, as city VIPs are invited to climb the 1, 792 steps to the tower’s top. (The elevators won’t open for months.)

CITY OF LIGHT

1.
In Europe, but not the U.S., what are measured in “Paris Points”?

2.
Whose 1863 novel
Paris in the Twentieth Century
was discovered in a trunk and published in 1994?

3.
What two July events close the Champs-Élysées every year?

4.
In
Casablanca
’s Paris flashbacks, “the Germans wore gray,” but what color did Ilsa wear?

5.
What Paris-born actress returned to her hometown for 2004’s
Before Sunset
?

6.
Who’s the only member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame buried in Paris?

7.
What composer brought Parisian taxi horns home to New York to use as instruments in the 1928 premiere of one of his most famous works?

8.
What Parisian hill is home to the Moulin Rouge and the Sacré-Coeur Basilica?

9.
On what saint’s day in 1572 did Catherine de Medicis have 3,000 Protestants killed in Paris?

10.
What gardens on the Seine are named for the palace that burned down there during the Paris Commune?

1933
MGM’
S
G
ABRIEL
O
VER THE
W
HITE
H
OUSE
premieres. William Randolph Hearst bankrolled this bizarre fantasy, in which a hackish president, played by Walter Huston, “finds religion” after a near-death experiment—and proceeds to become a heroic fascist dictator!

OVAL OFFICE BOX OFFICE

Who played the chief executive in these movies?

Easy

1.
Air Force One

2.
The American President

3.
Dr. Strangelove

4.
Dave

5.
Independence Day

Harder

1.
Mars Attacks!

2.
Deep Impact

3.
Absolute Power

4.
Head of State

5.
Canadian Bacon

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
The Pelican Brief

2.
Being There

3.
Superman II

4.
Seven Days in May

5.
Fail-Safe

1997
T
HE
A
RIZONA
W
ILDCATS FACE
the Kentucky Wildcats in the NCAA basketball championship game. Who wins? The Wildcats!

EN MASSE-COTS

What’s the only team name shared between these two leagues?

1.
The NFL and the CFL

2.
The SEC East and the SEC West

3.
The NHL and Major League Baseball

4.
The NBA and the WNBA (though one is pluralized)

5.
The NASL and MLS

March Answers

MARCH 1

EMPIRE RECORDS

1.
A cesarean section

2.
The shah of Iran

3.
Brutus

4.
George VI

5.
Octavian (Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus)

DID I CATCH A “NINER” IN THERE
?

1.
November

2.
Lima

3.
Quebec

4.
Hotel

5.
Whiskey

6.
India

7.
Golf

8.
Foxtrot

9.
Delta

10.
Sierra

UNSOLVED MISTERS

1.
J

2.
L

3.
D

4.
H

5.
N

6.
C

7.
F

8.
K

9.
I

10.
M

11.
B

12.
E

13.
G

14.
A

15.
O

MARCH 2

CAN YOU DIG IT?

1.
London

2.
Watership Down

3.
Carlsbad Caverns

4.
Frédéric Chopin

5.
Oxygen

SINGLE DOUBLES

Easy

1.
America

2.
Cars

3.
War

4.
Buddy Holly

5.
Poison

Harder

1.
Pink

2.
Cherish

3.
Kiss

4.
ABC

5.
A Taste of Honey

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Love

2.
Chicago

3.
Fancy

4.
Shannon

5.
Rush

NOTES AND QUERIES

1.
Phyllo

2.
Helen Mirren

3.
Katharine Hepburn

4.
Soccer (the Football Association)

5.
Peru

6.
Sir Thomas Gresham

7.
Tapioca

8.
Liberia

MARCH 3

TUESDAY TRIVIA

1.
Aimee Mann

2.
Constantinople

3.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

4.
Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS

5.
Network

DEAF JAM

1.
Bono (Bonovox brand hearing aids)

2.
The extended thumb in “I love you”

3.
Francisco Goya

4.
Ludwig van Beethoven

5.
The Osmonds

THE SATANIC “VS.”