Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (82 page)

MAY 19

1664
A
STRONOMER
R
OBERT
H
OOKE
records seeing a dark spot in the southern hemisphere of Jupiter. This may be the first discovery of Jupiter’s “Great Red Spot,” a giant storm twice the diameter of the earth.

SPOT CHECK

1.
What painter used his trademark Benday dots in canvases like
Drowning Girl
and
Whaam!
?

2.
How many pips are on the two sides of the domino in the Domino’s Pizza logo?

3.
Of what famous family are Pongo and Perdita the parents?

4.
What’s the more common name for the retinal scotoma caused by the optic nerve?

5.
In the nursery rhyme “Ladybird, Ladybird,” why is the bug told to “fly away home”?

6.
Each Pac-Man maze features 240 regular dots and how many larger “power pellets”?

7.
What officially replaced “CQD” on July 1, 1908?

8.
What are the “spots” in the British dessert Spotted Dick?

9.
What world nation has three consecutive dotted characters in its name when written in mixed-case letters?

10.
What is counted by the Wolf Number, named for Swiss mathematician Rudolf Wolf, who helped discover their influence on geomagnetism?

11.
What singer of “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” was in Dallas on November 22, 1963, waving at the motorcade just blocks before Kennedy was shot?

12.
What painter’s masterpiece contains—in addition to its human subjects—three dogs, a horse, a monkey, and a butterfly?

13.
What is the
Pale Blue Dot
in the title of Carl Sagan’s 1994 book?

14.
How many dot positions are there in each letter of the Braille alphabet?

15.
What word for a series of dots is a top secret code word in the Bond film
Casino Royale
?

1993
T
HE
90210
GANG GRADUATES
from Beverly Hills High, most preparing to enter fictional “California University.” Oddly, they never run into the
Saved by the Bell
cast, also attending good old California U the same year, but on a different network.

ACA-DUMMY-A

What do dumb teen comedies and dumb sitcoms have in common? Phony universities!

MAY 20

1902
C
UBA ADOPTS ITS
“Estrella Solitaria” flag design—“the Lone Star.” Even though it was inspired by the U.S. Stars and Stripes, the flag is still used today by Castro’s Cuba.

STAR SEARCH

What national flags use these unusual stars?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

1916
B
OY WITH
B
ABY
C
ARRIAGE,
painted by a young Norman Rockwell, appears on the cover of
The Saturday Evening Post
—the first of more than three hundred Rockwell paintings to make the cover.

SUBSCRIPTION APTITUDE TEST

Complete these magazine analogies. Make sure to fill in all the bubbles on your answer sheet completely. You may begin now.

1.
O
: Oprah Winfrey::
Living
:______

2.
The Devil Wears Prada: Runway:: Ugly Betty
:______

3.
Alfred E. Neuman:
Mad
:: Sylvester P. Smythe: _____

4.
Time
: the U.S.::
Maclean’s
:______

5.
Playboy
: Playmate::
Penthouse
:_____

6.
George
: Cindy Crawford::
People
:_____

7.
YM
: “Your”::
FHM
:______

8.
Vogue: Teen Vogue:: Cosmopolitan
:______

9.
Shattered Glass: The New Republic:: Almost Famous
:______

10.
500 top-grossing companies:
Fortune
:: 500 fastest-growing companies:______

2002
A B
RITISH GOVERNMENT SURVEY
finds that Brussels sprouts are the most-hated vegetable in the United Kingdom.

BIG-CITY DINING

Answer these questions about other foods named for world capitals.

1.
What tuber, also called the sunroot or topinambur, is actually native to North America, not the Middle East?