Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (135 page)

AUGUST 14

1849
C
HARLES
E
DWARD
G
ORDON
C
RAWFORD
is born. While serving as district judge in India, he will found the world’s first “naturist” club—which has only two other members, both missionary’s sons. Maybe it’s just me, but three naked guys just hanging out in Bombay doesn’t really sound like a very good nudist colony.

BARELY THERE

Can you get to the naked truth behind these questions?

1.
What magazine ran the famous cover of a very pregnant Demi Moore in the buff?

2.
According to the TV series, how many stories are there in
The Naked City
?

3.
Where would you see this couple?

4.
What attorney general spent $8,000 on blue drapes to cover up the nude statues in the Great Hall of the Department of Justice?

5.
Who was onstage when Robert Opel streaked the 1974 Academy Awards?

1956
B
RITISH NOVELISTS
I
RIS
M
URDOCH
and John Bayley marry at Oxford. Their marriage inspires the movie
Iris,
in which—for the only time in movie history—
two
stars (Kate Winslet and Judi Dench) are Oscar-nominated for playing the title character.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR

What actress played the title role in these first-name-basis movies?

Easy

1.
Frida

2.
Heidi
(1929)

3.
Amélie

4.
Gilda

5.
Nell

Harder

1.
Julia

2.
Tess

3.
Marnie

4.
Laura

5.
Eddie

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Gloria
(1980)

2.
Angie

3.
Lolita
(1962)

4.
Annie

5.
Lili

2006
A W
ELSH HIGHWAY COUNCIL COPS
to a little translation goof in a road construction sign near Cardiff. The English on the sign says “Cyclists dismount,” but the Welsh translation below apparently reads, “Bladder disease has returned.”

TONGUE TWISTERS

Trivia that was lost in translation.

1.
What biblical object may be a King James Version mistranslation of “a robe with long sleeves”?

2.
Julius Nyerere, who did the first Swahili translations of Shakespeare, later became the first president of what nation?

3.
Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair, or Jimmy Carter—on a state visit, whose statement that he “loved” the Polish people was rendered as “I sexually desire the Polish people” by a translator error?

4.
What 1997 epic was retitled
His Powerful Device Makes Him Famous
for Hong Kong release?

5.
What Latin phrase, well known to Americans, actually comes from a poem, attributed to Virgil, about a salad recipe?

AUGUST 15

1281
T
HE
M
ONGOLS’ INVASION
of Japan fails when, for a second time, a typhoon destroys their fleet. The Japanese will come to call these fortuitous storms “divine wind,” or
kamikaze.

TURNING JAPANESE

1.
How many
morae,
Or “syllables,” are there in Japanese haiku?

2.
Who are Kambei, Katsuhiro, Gorobei, Shichiroji, Kyuzo, Heihachi, and Kikuchiyo?

3.
Which island of Japan is just twenty-six miles from Russia at its closest point?

4.
Gwen Stefani has named her backup dancers after what fashionable shopping district of Tokyo?

5.
Japan’s World War II surrender was signed aboard what vessel, the last battleship ever built by the U.S. Navy?

6.
Who got his name by combining the Japanese words for “gorilla” and “whale”?

7.
What do sumo wrestlers throw into the ring to purify it before each bout?

8.
What takes its name from the Japanese for “whimsical pictures”?

9.
What children’s hobby uses the Yoshizawa-Randlett diagramming system?

10.
What brand of whiskey does a nonplussed Bill Murray advertise in the film
Lost in Translation
?

11.
What flower symbolizes the throne of the Japanese emperor?

12.
What famous quartet was originally named Oikake (“Chaser”), Machibuse (“Ambusher”), Kimagure (“Fickle”), and Otoboke (“Stupid”)?

13.
What popular
koan
may be answered by thrusting the palm toward the teacher?

14.
What’s the Japanese name for a potentially poisonous delicacy made from puffer fish meat?

15.
What is Takeru Kobayashi famous for?

1857
A
NOTE IN THE
L
IVERPOOL,
Nova Scotia,
Transcript
provides the first published evidence of the Oak Island “Money Pit,” which has stymied treasure hunters for 150 years.

X MARKS THE SPOT

Can you dig up these treasured answers?

1.
What children’s TV character lived in the Treasure House?

2.
What legendary Arizona gold mine is named in honor of prospector Jacob Waltz?

3.
The cipher that leads to the treasure in the movie
National Treasure
is hidden on the back side of what?

4.
Besides his other treasure, who also carries a leather pouch that will always hold a single silver shilling?

5.
Who directed his own father to Oscar gold in
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
?

6.
What was the first name of the pirate Captain Kidd?

7.
In German myth, what river hides the treasure of the Nibelung?

8.
Who did Brazil name an official national treasure in 1962, so he wouldn’t emigrate to Italy?

9.
What movie concerns the search for One-Eyed Willie’s pirate treasure?

10.
Atocha, which shares its name with a famous sunken treasure ship, is the largest railway station in what city?