Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (128 page)

AUGUST 2

1798
H
ORATIO
N
ELSON ROUTS
the French at the battle of the Nile. This inspires one Dr. Burney to coin history’s most famous anagram, transposing “Horatio Nelson” into “
Honor est a Nilo,
” Latin for “Honor is from the Nile.”

“ERIC CLAPTON” IS A “NARCOLEPTIC”

Whose famous name can be anagrammed into the capitalized word in each question?

1.
Who still ENDEARS himself to audiences, in reruns, as the city editor of the
Los Angeles Tribune
?

2.
Who appeared in his LEANEST-budget film when he narrated Troma’s fourth
Toxic Avenger
movie under the pseudonym “Peter Parker”?

3.
Who sings lead vocals on the 1965 song that inspired They Might Be Giants’ RETROGRADELY titled “I Hope I Get Old Before I Die”?

4.
Who played the Solveig Dommartin role in the 1987 reimagining of
Wings of Desire,
which moved the setting from Berlin, GERMANY, to Los Angeles?

5.
Who DELIBERATED before turning down the lead roles in
Mr. Ed
and
My Three Sons
and then went on to 1960s sitcom stardom on a different show?

6.
Whose GENERAL conversion from soul music to gospel was a result of his girlfriend, Mary Woodson, scalding him with boiling grits and then killing herself in 1974?

7.
On TV’s MORDANTLY funny
King of the Hill,
Bobby attends a Texas middle school named for whom?

8.
Sales of Ray-Ban Wayfarers exploded after what actor’s COSTUMIER fitted him with a pair for the 1983 film in which he portrayed Joel Goodson?

9.
Jacques Cousteau’s grandson Philippe has described, in INTERVIEWS, how he was present at the death of what man?

10.
Whose 1969 hit “Make Your Own Kind of Music” OSCILLATES wildly in speed and volume when used to creepy effect on TV’s
Lost
?

11.
Who played the HOMINAL robot, Ash, in
Alien
?

12.
Whose UNSUPERABLE children’s show gave early roles to actors like Laurence Fishburne, Natasha Lyonne, and S. Epatha Merkerson?

13.
After Vince Clarke left Depeche Mode, who became the main GERMINATOR of the band’s songs?

14.
What professional politician-MISTRUSTER has hosted TV’s longest-running program since 1991?

15.
Who claims that a contact lens allergy is what prevents her from being ISOLABLE from her signature tortoiseshell glasses?

1956
A
LBERT
H
ENRY
W
OOLSON
dies in Duluth at the age, it is believed, of 109. Since he was the drummer boy for a Minnesota army regiment in 1864, Woolson is the last veteran of the Civil War.

SOLE SURVIVOR

1.
Who was Martha, found dead in Cincinnati on the afternoon of September 1, 1914?

2.
What actor, a TV veteran, is also the last living member of
The Magnificent Seven
?

3.
In 2006, what quarterback became the last USFL veteran to play in an NFL game?

4.
What does the U.N. call the last remaining colony on mainland Africa?

5.
What poem takes place “on the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five: hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year”?

AUGUST 3

1857
S
AM
H
OUSTON IS DEFEATED
in his first bid for the governorship of Texas, but he’ll win that office in 1859, making him the only governor in U.S. history ever to lead two different U.S. states (he was previously governor of Tennessee).

GOOBER(NATORIAL) PILE

What states have been led by these governors?

Easy

1.
Harold Stassen and Jesse Ventura

2.
Woodrow Wilson and Jim McGreevey

3.
Earl Warren and Jerry Brown

4.
Patrick Henry and Douglas Wilder

5.
Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt

Harder

1.
Hannibal Hamlin and Edmund Muskie

2.
Zell Miller and Alexander Stephens

3.
Orval Faubus and Jim Guy Tucker

4.
William McKinley and Salmon P. Chase

5.
John Connally and Ann Richards

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
James Polk and Austin Peay

2.
Philip La Follette and Tommy Thompson

3.
Evan Mecham and Bruce Babbitt

4.
Benjamin Butler and Edward Everett

5.
Gifford Pinchot and Milton Shapp

1943
G
ENERAL
G
EORGE
P
ATTON
slaps a shell-shocked soldier in hospital and is nearly court-martialed, though Eisenhower hushes up the affair. The incident later becomes one of the most memorable scenes in George C. Scott’s 1970 portrayal of him in
Patton.

TONY DANZA SYNDROME

What actors shared the same first names as the characters they played in these movies?

Easy

1.
The Shining

2.
The Elephant Man

3.
The Big Lebowski

4.
The King of Comedy

Harder

1.
The Devil Wears Prada

2.
While You Were Sleeping

3.
I Never Sang for My Father

4.
The Shootist

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Georgy Girl

2.
Goodfellas

3.
Blackboard Jungle

4.
Brewster’s Millions

1979
A
T THE HEIGHT
of the energy crisis, America reels as gas prices top $1 a gallon for the first time. Ah, the good old days.

IT’S A GAS

1.
What snooty nickname is applied to gases like neon, argon, krypton, and xenon that refuse to interact with other elements?

2.
Ronald Reagan made headlines in 1980 for claiming that 80 percent of air pollution comes from what?

3.
Name one of the two non-metals on the periodic table that end with the “-ium” suffix normally reserved for metals.

4.
What’s the chemical name for a dentist’s “laughing gas”?

5.
What gas makes up 96 percent of the atmosphere of Venus but just .04 percent of our atmosphere?