Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (17 page)

JANUARY 31

1922
J
OANNE
D
RU,
H
OLLYWOOD ACTRESS
(and sister of
Hollywood Squares
host Peter Marshall) is born.

IT’S UP TO U

Name these people whose names also end with the letter
u.

1.
Who became the chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995?

2.
Who has the only speaking part in Mel Brooks’s
Silent Movie
?

3.
In 1961, who sent in troops to eject the Portuguese from their colony of Goa?

4.
Who read the poem “On the Pulse of Morning” at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration?

5.
What Oscar winner for
Ed Wood
turned down the role of Spock on
Star Trek
?

1930
S
COTCH
T
APE, FROM 3M,
goes on the market.

PLAID TO THE BONE

1.
What 1972 comedy begins “Once upon a time there was a plaid overnight bag”?

2.
What Tennessee politician always ran for office in a trademark red-and-black plaid shirt?

3.
Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland—the Plaid Cymru party seeks independence for what country?

4.
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid
was the last film of what legendary costume designer?

5.
What company’s famous plaid pattern is called “novacheck”?

1940
B
RATTLEBORO,
V
ERMONT, RETIREE
Ida May Fuller receives the U.S.’s very first Social Security check, numbered 00-000-001. Fuller had paid only three years of payroll taxes—$25—by the time she retired in 1939, but she received almost a thousandfold return on that investment, since she cannily decided to live to the age of 100, dying in 1975.

OUT TO PASTURE

Kick back and answer these retirement questions.

1.
Of all the teams in the four major North American sports leagues, which team has retired more jersey numbers than any other?

2.
Though he lived almost forty more years, Giaochino Rossini never composed another opera after what 1829 work, rarely performed today due to its six-hour length?

3.
What word for a retired professional comes from the Latin for “having earned a discharge”?

4.
Who retired from the screen after 1961’s
One, Two, Three,
except for a brief return in 1981’s
Ragtime,
ironically playing a police commissioner?

5.
Who has been called the first victim of the “Madden curse,” due to his abrupt 1999 retirement?

6.
Who has had a record fourteen videos “retired” from MTV’s
Total Request Live
countdown?

7.
Who published his last novel,
A Passage to India,
in 1924, though he lived 46 more years?

8.
What storm name was retired and replaced by “Matthew” after the deadliest hurricane in recorded history, in 1998?

9.
Despite retiring from NASA in 1997, what astronaut and physicist was the only person to serve on both the
Challenger
and
Columbia
investigation panels?

10.
What 1985 movie takes place at the Sunny Shores retirement home?

January Answers

JANUARY 1

THE APPELLATION TRAIL

1.
O. J. Simpson

2.
J. K. Rowling

3.
k. d. lang

4.
D. H. Lawrence

5.
H. G. Wells

6.
G. E. Smith

7.
E. B. White

8.
B. J. Armstrong

9.
J. M. Barrie’s (
Finding Neverland
)

10.
M. C. Hammer

DIVISION DAY

1.
The Qur’an

2.
Cell mitosis

3.
Highway lanes

4.
Switzerland

5.
The small intestine

6.
Pulp Fiction

7.
Pennsylvania and Mississippi

8.
The NHL

9.
New Zealand

10.
Fahrenheit 451

11.
A polo match

12.
The Thirty-eighth Parallel

13.
Trapped in the Closet

14.
Delaware

15.
Twenty

JANUARY 2

BREEDER’S DIGEST

1.
Darwin’s

2.
The hospice of Saint Bernard

3.
Philip Marlowe

4.
Jim Calhoun

5.
3-2-1 Contact

6.
Texas and New Mexico

7.
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

8.
China

9.
Jack Russell

10.
Mars

MAJOR ISSUES

1.
Sean Connery

2.
Tiger Woods

3.
Motor Trend

4.
Albert Einstein

5.
Jenny McCarthy

DAMMED IF I KNOW

1.
Montreal’s

2.
Jive

3.
The Boston Tea Party

4.
Michigan

5.
The capybara

JANUARY 3

AVIA-TRICKS

1.
Ohio and North Carolina

2.
Mitsubishi

3.
St. Louis (hence,
Spirit of St. Louis
)

4.
The
Hindenburg
explosion

5.
Wiley Post

HO HO HO

1.
The Marines

2.
Model railroad

3.
Westward Ho!

4.
“Tiny Bubbles”

5.
They were killed by “Jack the Ripper”

WOMAN ON TOP

Easy

1.
Israel