Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (99 page)

JUNE 16

1939
M
R
. E. E
TTLES
, who runs the swimming pool in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, is shocked to see that what he took to be falling hailstones is actually hundreds of tiny frogs. “Frog rains” are enormously rare (unless you’re in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie), but they can happen.

LIKE THE WEATHER

1.
What’s the better-known nickname of the “Halloween Nor’easter” of 1991?

2.
What was the first Major League Baseball team to play in a stadium with a fully retractable roof?

3.
What classic Frank Loesser winter song is a duet between two characters called “The Mouse” and “The Wolf”?

4.
It was Bernard Vonnegut, the brother of novelist Kurt, who discovered what commercial use for silver iodide?

5.
The U.S. isn’t the only large English-speaking nation that hasn’t ratified the Kyoto Protocol against global warming. What’s the other?

6.
Who began his long TV career in 1969 as the weekend weatherman on WLWI in Indianapolis?

7.
What winds bring warm, dry, smog-free weather to southern California every autumn?

8.
Sufficiently powerful tropical storms in the Atlantic are called hurricanes. What are they called in the western Pacific?

9.
What does a hygrometer measure?

10.
What do a German physicist named Gabriel and a Swedish astronomer named Anders have in common with Irish engineer William Thomson?

1943
C
HARLIE
C
HAPLIN IS MARRIED
for the fourth time, to 17-year-old Oona O’Neill. His new father-in-law, playwright Eugene O’Neill, is so outraged that he never speaks to Oona again.

FATHER OF THE BRIDE

Match these famous people to their equally famous (current or former) fathers-in-law.

JUNE 17

1964
A
FTER THE
M
ARVELETTES
reject the song as too childish, the Supremes release “Where Did Our Love Go,” their breakout hit. The Marvelettes’ sinking career never recovers from the goof.

“WHERE” HOUSE

1.
Before his U.S. renaming, what was Waldo originally called when the
Where’s Waldo?
books were released in the U.K.?

2.
The Coen brothers’ movie
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
was loosely based on what work of literature?

3.
Who co-opted the Wendy’s slogan “Where’s the beef?” in a 1984 debate?

4.
What five-man vocal group provided the music for TV’s
Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego
?

5.
What common item is tracked by the website Where’s George?

6.
Who voiced Shaggy on
Scooby Doo, Where Are You?

7.
The Fermi paradox, in science, is often called the “Where are they?” paradox. Who’s the “they”?

8.
Audi, Renault, or Volvo—what European make is the missing vehicle in
Dude, Where’s My Car?

9.
What artist considered his masterpiece to be the Tahitian tableau
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going
?

10.
What two future Munsters costarred in
Car 54, Where Are You?

1974
J
OHN LE
C
ARRÉ PUBLISHES
the first book of his “Karla trilogy”:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,
named for an old children’s counting rhyme.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SAILOR…

1.
For what team did the famed double-play combo “
Tinker
to Evers to Chance” play?

2.
In what band did Roger, Andy, and John
Taylor
(no relation) all play?

3.
In what church was the twentieth century’s first “Unknown
Soldier
” buried?

4.
What port, in modern-day Iraq, was home to the legendary Sinbad the
Sailor
?

5.
What
rich man
is the only real-life American ever to have two actors Oscar-nominated for portraying him?

6.
What word for a wandering Asian ascetic comes from the Arabic for “
poor man
”?

7.
Despite being disguised as an old
beggar man,
who was quickly recognized at home by his faithful dog Argos?

8.
Susan Orlean wrote a 1998 bestseller about Florida’s John Laroche, the titular “
thief
” of what?

9.
What German lab assistant is remembered today only because, in an 1877 experiment with
Dr.
Robert Koch, he devised a new way to grow bacteria in gelatin?

10.
What Baltimore
lawyer
was held prisoner by the British fleet on September 14, 1814, after having dined aboard the HMS
Tonnant
?

11.
What Oglala
Indian chief
is the subject of the unfinished Black Hills memorial, begun in 1948, that will dwarf Mount Rushmore if ever completed?