Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac by Ken Jennings Read Free Book Online Page B

president in Philip Roth’s alternate-history novel
The Plot Against America
?
    5. What French philosopher invented a namesake system of plotting points on two axes labeled
x
and
y
?

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    1888 T HE N ATIONAL G EOGRAPHIC S OCIETY is founded at the Cosmos Club on Washington, D.C.’s, Lafayette Square.
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    NATIONAL GEOGRAPHY
    What’s the only nation that borders
both
of these countries?
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    Easy
    1. Andorra and Portugal
    2. Pakistan and Bangladesh
    3. Israel and Libya
    4. Uruguay and Venezuela
    5. Belgium and Spain

    Harder
    1. Burma and Malaysia
    2. Costa Rica and Honduras
    3. Italy and Slovakia
    4. Ecuador and Bolivia
    5. Morocco and Tunisia

    Yeah, Good Luck
    1. Nigeria and Gabon
    2. Tajikistan and Russia
    3. Slovenia and Bosnia
    4. Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau
    5. Kazakhstan and Iran

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    1910 T HE UNFORTUNATELY NAMED PLUMBER Thomas Crapper, who helped popularize and improve the flush toilet, dies outside London.
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    FOUR FLUSHERS

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    1. What NHL team is named for a W. C. Handy standard?
    2. W. C. Minor, a murderer and schizophrenic, spent the last decades of his life in a lunatic asylum writing hundreds of entries for what reference work?
    3. What was the hometown of W. C. Fields, which he joked he wanted to put on his tombstone?
    4. W. C. Heinz and Richard Hornberger used the pen name “Richard Hooker” to write what Korean War novel?

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JANUARY 28
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    1820 T HE E STONIAN-BORN Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, exploring the south Pacific, sights ice fields and thus becomes, it is believed, the first European to discover Antarctica. In fact, if the current research is correct, he beat Britain’s Edward Bransfield, often credited with the discovery, by only two days.
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    PIONEER AT HAND
    Match these geographical features to the European explorer who discovered them—or “discovered” them, to be more PC.
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1. Alaska
    2. Brazil
    3. The Cape of Good Hope
    4. Lake Victoria
    5. The mouth of the Amazon
    6. New York Harbor
    7. New Zealand
    8. Queensland, Australia
    9. The St. Lawrence River
    10. Tierra del Fuego
A. Vasco Nuñez de Balboa
    B. Vitus Bering
    C. Pedro Cabral
    D. Jacques Cartier
    E. James Cook
    F. Bartolomeu Dias
    G. Ferdinand Magellan
    H. John Speke
    I. Abel Tasman
    J. Giovanni de Verrazano
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    1956 R ALPH K RAMDEN IS BOUNCED from the quiz show
The $99,000 Answer
when he doesn’t know who wrote “Swanee River.” (Ralph’s answer: “Ed Norton?”)
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    INNER TUBE
    What TV series are about these fictional shows-within-shows?
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    1.
The Alan Brady Show
    2.
FYI
    3.
Tool Time
    4.
The Girlie Show
    5.
When the Whistle Blows
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    1985 F ORTY-FIVE RECORDING ARTISTS gather at the A&M recording studios in Hollywood to sing “We Are the World.” (The producers have cannily selected the date of the American Music Awards to ensure a big turnout.)
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    COUNT IT OFF
    Can you put these bands in order from one to ten, based on the number of members in their most famous lineup?
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    1. Broken Social Scene
    2. The Dave Matthews Band
    3. Eurythmics
    4. Green Day
    5. Iron & Wine
    6. Led Zeppelin
    7. Madness
    8. Slipknot
    9. Toto
    10. UB40

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JANUARY 29
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    1802 J OHN B ECKLEY IS APPOINTED the first librarian of Congress. This was a real cushy job back then, since there were only 740 books in the Library of Congress.
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    SHUSH LIFE
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    1. The first name of the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System was what famous author’s last name?
    2. Mohammed Khatami is both a former national librarian and a former president of what nation?
    3. Rupert Giles was the librarian-mentor on what TV hit?
    4. What composer of the
Symphonie Fantastique
made his living as the librarian of the Paris Conservatoire?
    5. What famous fictional librarian’s last name was Paroo?

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    1886 K ARL B ENZ PATENTS the first gas-powered automobile, which he calls the “Motorwagen.” The car was so difficult to maneuver that it repeatedly crashed into walls while Benz test-drove it, to the amusement of