Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (48 page)

MARCH 22

1987
T
HE GARBAGE BARGE
Mobro 4000,
having been turned away from a landfill in Islip, Long Island, begins a 6,000-mile voyage to seek a new home for the trash. Six states and three countries refuse the
Mobro
’s putrid cargo before it’s finally incinerated back home in Brooklyn.

TRASH TALKING

1.
At what movie’s climax does Mookie throw a garbage can through the front window of Sal’s Pizzeria?

2.
What cartoonist of
Maus
also created the less highbrow Topps Garbage Pail Kids?

3.
A fifth of what city’s population lives in its infamous shantytowns, called
favelas
?

4.
What Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins record producer later became the drummer in Garbage?

5.
Who was originally created from a green spring coat that Elizabeth Henson had thrown out?

6.
What was the
Sanford and Son
junkyard converted to when the two stars left the show?

7.
What state’s bottle bill offers ten cents for used beverage containers, while other states offer only a nickel?

8.
What eighteen-minute song tells the true story of its writer’s arrest for illegally dumping garbage on Thanksgiving Day, 1965?

9.
On what island was Fresh Kills, the world’s largest landfill?

10.
Who became a writer when his friend E. B. White found some of his cartoons in a trash can and submitted them to
The New Yorker
?

2233
C
APTAIN
K
IRK WILL BE BORN,
according to StarTrek.com and the tiny town of Riverside, Iowa, which has declared itself Kirk’s birthplace and holds an annual festival looking forward to the great day.

I’M GETTING TOO OLD FOR THIS SHIP

Match these captains to their commands.

MARCH 23

1844
G
ENERAL
T
OM
T
HUMB,
the famous little person in P. T. Barnum’s circus, is a hit with Queen Victoria during a Buckingham Palace performance. On his way out, the two-foot-tall Thumb gets into an altercation with one of Her Majesty’s poodles, who is roughly his height.

THUMB THING TO TALK ABOUT

1.
Why is Oneida Lake, near Syracuse, New York, sometimes called “the thumb”?

2.
What animal, which eighteenth-century settlers called a “native bear,” has
two
opposable thumbs on each hand?

3.
Gene Siskel owned the iconic white suit from what movie, his all-time favorite?

4.
What gullible author believed that Harry Houdini had “wonderful powers” after Houdini showed him the child’s trick of pretending to remove his thumb?

5.
In what 1979 novel is the “Thumb” device actually a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic?

1945
N
EW
J
ERSEY VOTES
to make Rutgers, a private college established by the Dutch Reformed Church, a state university. New Jersey is, therefore, the only U.S. state whose leading public university isn’t named for the state.

COLLEGE KNOWLEDGE

What state’s “University of” main campus is located in each of these cities?

Easy

1.
Athens

2.
Gainesville

3.
Eugene

4.
Tuscaloosa

5.
Lawrence

Harder

1.
Storrs

2.
Moscow

3.
College Park

4.
Charlottesville

5.
Norman

Yeah, Good Luck

1.
Orono

2.
Durham

3.
Vermilion

4.
Kingston

5.
Columbia (two answers)

1952
B
ILL
M
OSIENKO, OF THE
C
HICAGO
B
LACK
H
AWKS,
makes NHL history when he scores the fastest hat trick in history: three goals in just twenty-one seconds elapsed.

A SEASON ON THE RINK

1.
What hockey great wears number 68 to commemorate the Prague Spring of 1968?

2.
What kind of animal have Detroit Red Wings fans been throwing onto their home ice before big games since 1952?

3.
What hockey violation is committed when the puck travels across both the red line and the goal line without being touched?

4.
What two NHL legends—a Penguin and a Canadien—were born just hours apart in Quebec on October 5, 1965?

5.
Which of the so-called original six teams was the NHL’s first U.S. franchise?