Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (74 page)

MAY 3

1968
T
HE FIRST PROTESTS
at the Sorbonne begin the Paris student uprising of May 1968, which will inspire John Lennon’s song “Revolution.”

REVOLUTION 9

1.
What current world leader began his plan to take power after the 1989 Caracazo riots?

2.
Who took the throne in the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688?

3.
What kind of poison disfigured Ukrainian reformer Viktor Yushchenko, leading to the Orange Revolution of 2004?

4.
Shirley Temple Black was the U.S. ambassador to what nation at the time of its 1989 revolution?

5.
What Morris Day–led band faces off against Prince and the Revolution in the film
Purple Rain
?

6.
The Bolshevik Revolution is sometimes known by the name of what month in which it began?

7.
What kind of “revolution” comes in 2nd MIX, EXTREME, and SuperNOVA variations?

8.
Whom did the Daughters of the American Revolution bar from singing at Constitution Hall in 1936?

9.
What were renamed Brumaire, Germinal, and Thermidor, among other names, during the French Revolution?

2003
J
UST THREE YEARS AFTER
appearing on New Hampshire’s state quarter, the famous “Old Man of the Mountain,” the product of thousands of years of glaciation and erosion, collapses overnight. Easy come, easy go.

A FIT OF PEAK

1.
What European country is named for the dark-looking Dinaric Alps?

2.
What two U.S. states have the word “Mountain” in their official nicknames?

3.
What fictional village sits in the shadow of Mount Crumpit?

4.
What was known as “Bolshaya Gora” when it was part of Russia?

5.
Sir Edmund Hillary appears on the currency of what nation, his native country?

6.
What was first marketed with hillbilly-themed advertising, since its name is a euphemism for moonshine?

7.
What distinction is usually claimed to belong to Gangkhar Puensum, a 24,000-foot peak in Bhutan?

8.
What three Disneyland attractions have the word “Mountain” in the name?

9.
What harbor is overlooked by Victoria Peak?

10.
Who covered Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and made it into a number one hit?

11.
Where would you find the 89,000-foot peak Olympus Mons?

12.
What Moroccan mountain range is named for the Titan that, in Greek myth, Perseus turned to stone there?

13.
What New England peak famous for its bad weather was the site of a record 231-mph wind gust in 1934?

14.
What two members of the
Brokeback Mountain
cast have siblings who are also award-winning actors?

15.
What range contains the world’s highest mountains not located in Asia?

MAY 4

1895
C
OMPLETED MORE THAN
three years earlier, the Memorial Arch in Greenwich Village’s Washington Square is finally dedicated. The first arch on the site was a flimsy wooden job, erected in 1889 to celebrate the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration.

SQUARE DANCE

1.
What Kellogg’s product was introduced to compete with Post’s unsuccessful Country Squares?

2.
What 1980 film is named for the legendary square-shaped capital of Kublai Khan?

3.
What color is the square that’s the logo for H&R Block?

4.
What former Broadway
Annie
and future Emmy winner was the star of TV’s
Square Pegs
?

5.
What country borders both of the world’s only two nations with square flags?

6.
Who would use a Punnett square—an architect, a geneticist, or a sailor?

7.
What organization’s symbols are the square and compasses?

8.
What’s the name of the flat, square prison that holds the Kryptonian criminals in the
Superman
movies?

9.
What European capital’s two largest plazas—Charles Square and Wenceslas Square—are named for beloved kings?

10.
Complete this analogy. New Deal: Franklin Roosevelt:: Square Deal:______.

1942
T
HE FIRST “CODE TALKER
” recruits—Navajos speaking in a secret code based on their tribal language—join the U.S. Marines. Their spoken code will never be cracked by the Japanese and will be used well into the Vietnam era.

CODE TALKERS

Decode these questions about five famous people with codes named after them.

1.
What U.S. state’s civil law is most closely based on the Napoleonic Code?

2.
What scriptural phrase, spoken by Balaam in Numbers 23:23, is now more closely associated with Samuel Morse?

3.
What civilization lived by the Code of Hammurabi?

4.
At the end of
The Da Vinci Code,
the Holy Grail is revealed to be buried at what popular spot?

5.
The Hollywood “Production Code” of the 1930s was named for what former postmaster general and chairman of the Republican National Committee?

1971
A
TINY
C
ANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP,
the Don’t Make a Wave Committee, officially changes its name to the Greenpeace Foundation.

CATCH A WAVE

1.
What is the Japanese word for “harbor wave”?

2.
What military contractor, famous for making the Patriot missile system, also invented the first microwave ovens?

3.
What French New Wave director plays the UFO expert in
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
?

4.
What famed Motown songwriting trio had their first Top Ten hit with “Heat Wave”?

5.
What are the “ten” referred to when a surfer “hangs ten” on a wave?