Saturday, June 27, 2015

Trivia Bits 27 June

 

Indiana Jones

Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr or Indiana Jones (pictured) suffers from ophidiophobia, the fear of snakes, and comes from the Greek words "ophis" (ὄφις) which refers to snakes and "phobia" (φοβία) meaning fear.

Comprising the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, The Southern Ocean separates Antarctica from Australia and is generally taken to be south of 60°S latitude and encircling Antarctica.

For Stephen King's 1983 American psychological horror/thriller film Cujo, five St. Bernards were used, one mechanical head, and an actor in a dog costume to play the title character.

In heraldry and coming from Latin, a small circle is referred to as an annulet from the Latin annul (us) ring.

19th century photographer Napoleon Sarony reportedly paid stage actress Sarah Bernhardt 1500USD to pose for his camera which would be equivalent to more than 20,000USD today.

The ICC Cricket World Cup is the international championship of One Day International (ODI) cricket with a finals tournament held every four years, with Australia holding the current record of five wins since the series inception in 1975.

Makhir of Narbonne was a Babylonian-Jewish scholar who settled in Narbonne, France at the end of the 8th century, and his descendants were leaders of the local Jewish community who bore the title of nasi (prince).

Russian native Emilio Kosterlitzky, known as the Mexican Cossack, spoke nine languages, jumped ship in Venezuela, fled to Mexico where he fought in the Apache Wars and in the Mexican Revolution, and eventually became an undercover operative for the U.S. government during World War I.

Charles Schepens, an influential ophthalmologist and regarded by many in the profession as the father of modern retinal surgery, was also a leader in the World War 2 Nazi resistance movement in France.

In 1876, Edward Bouchet became the first black American to earn a Ph.D. from an American university completing his dissertation in physics at Yale in 1876.

Quotables 27 June

 

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Friday, June 26, 2015

Trivia Bits 26 June

 

The Last Emperor poster

The first film granted permission by the Chinese government to be filmed in the Forbidden City was The Last Emperor (poster pictured), 1987 which won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

Formerly known as French Guinea, Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea is a country in West Africa with the capital being Conakry, a port city on the Atlantic Ocean which serves as the economic, financial and cultural centre of Guinea.

Ernst Reuter, after having not been approved by the Soviets as the elected mayor of post-war Berlin, became the first mayor of the non-Soviet controlled part of the city, West Berlin in 1947.

Although construction of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Strasbourg started in 1015, it was not until 1439 the spire was completed.

Russian sculptor Pavel Sokolov designed sphinxes for Egyptian Bridge, griffins for Bank Bridge, and lions for Bridge of Four Lions all situated in Saint Petersburg and built between 1825 and 1826.

Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44BC on the Ides of March, 15 March, Caesar was due to appear at a session of the Senate but was waylaid on the steps of the Senate, Caesar attempted to get away, but, blinded by blood, he tripped and fell; the men continued stabbing him as he lay defenceless on the lower steps of the portico and according to Eutropius, an Ancient Roman historian, around 60 or more men participated in the assassination resulting in being stabbed 23 times.

John Cadbury, an English Quaker, began roasting and grinding chocolate beans to sell in his tea and coffee shop in 1824 and in 1842 Cadbury's Chocolate Company in England created the first chocolate bar.

The name of the town Railton in northern Tasmania supposedly came about because the lines of the Mersey and Deloraine Tramway Company connected there when the line was completed in 1885.

The Pietà, sculptured during 1498 to 1499, is a world-famous work of Renaissance sculpture, in Carrara marble, by Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City and has carved MICHAELA[N]GELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN[US] FACIEBA[T] (Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this) on the sash running across Mary's chest.

The study of snakes is called ophiology with the branch of zoology that is concerned with the study of amphibians and reptiles, which include snakes, lizards, turtles, terrapins and tortoises alongside others is known as herpetology.

Quotables 26 June

 

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Thursday, June 25, 2015

Trivia Bits 25 June

 

John Keats 

In La Belle Dame Sans Merci, an 1819 ballad written by the English poet John Keats (pictured), the sedge is withered from the lake with the sedge being flowering plants which resemble grasses or rushes.

The herb thyme features with parsley, sage and rosemary in the folk song Scarborough Fair made a classic with Simon & Garfunkel's version of the song as the lead track of the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, and was released as a single after being featured on the soundtrack to the movie The Graduate in 1968.

The Pritzker Prize is awarded annually for achievement in the field of architecture and was founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the award is funded by the Pritzker family and sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation and is considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes.

At its creation in 1877, the 40-strong Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels was the largest blackface minstrel troupe to have ever been formed.

In Greek mythology, the source of all rivers is Oceanus, a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the divine personification of the World Ocean, an enormous river encircling the world.

Chaki, tea caddies for Japanese tea ceremonies, are traditionally made from wood, bamboo, or ceramic, and are classified by material, shape and the type of tea they are designed to hold.

The world's largest structure created by living creatures is the Great Barrier Reef off the Queensland coast being over 2000km long, and covering an area of nearly 260,000 sqkm.

For the Scots, a mountain peak is described with the term Ben as in Ben Nevis, Ben Macdui, Ben Hall and Ben Lawers.

From 1863 to 1865, Australian bushranger Ben Hall and his various associates conducted one of the most prolific periods of bushranging in the colony with over 100 robberies attributed to them in this time, including the holding up of several villages, dozens of mail coach robberies and the regular theft of prized racehorses.

The Trow Ghyll skeleton, found near Clapham in the West Riding of Yorkshire in August 1947, was claimed to have been the decomposed remains of a German spy who died during the war.

Quotables 25 June

 

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Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Trivia Bits 24 June

 

Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel 

In 1938 Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel (pictured) sold all rights to the comic-strip character Superman to their publishers for $130.

The last thing to happen is the ultimate, the next-to-last is the penultimate and the second-to-last is the antepenultimate.

Farm raised domesticated turkeys cannot fly but wild turkeys can fly for short distances at up to 55 miles per hour and can run at speeds of up to 25 miles per hour.

The ubiquitous 'black box' flight recorder in every airliner in the world was invented in Australia by David Warren of the Aeronautical research laboratories in 1958.

With three volcanic cones, Kibo, Mawenzi and Shira, the dormant volcano Mount Kilimanjaro is in the African country of Tanzania and the is highest free-standing mountain (i.e., not part of a mountain range) in the world at 5,895 metres (19,341 ft) above sea level.

The largest species of all living sea turtles is the Leatherback and is found in all tropical and subtropical oceans, and its range extends well into the Arctic Circle.

Rio de la Plata is an estuary on the border of Argentina and Uruguay and is formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River.

Six pockets are on a standard snooker table one at each corner and one at the centre of each of the longest side cushions which are around 86 mm (3.5 in), though high-class tournaments may use slightly smaller pockets to increase difficulty.

A cat's arching back is part of a complex body language system, usually associated with feeling threatened as the arch is able to get so high because the cat's spine contains nearly 60 vertebrae which fit loosely together.

Kevin Keegan is best known for playing over 200 games with English soccer club Liverpool in the 1970’s and made his England debut on 15 November 1972 in a 1–0 World Cup qualifying win over Wales.

Quotables 24 June

 

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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Trivia Bits 23 June

 

logo of The Ghan 

A camel features on the logo of The Ghan (pictured), a passenger train between Adelaide, Alice Springs, and Darwin on the Adelaide–Darwin railway in Australia taking 54 hours to travel the 2,979 kilometres (1,851 mi) with a four-hour stopover in Alice Springs.

The French submarine Plongeur, launched on 16 April 1863, was the first submarine in the world not to use human power for propulsion.

Long in the tooth, meaning "old," was originally used to describe horses for as horses age, their gums recede giving the impression that their teeth are growing hence the longer the teeth look, the older the horse.

Hydrogen sulphide is often referred to as rotten egg gas and is a colourless gas, heavier than air, very poisonous, corrosive, flammable, and explosive.

LD is the toxicological term for Lethal Dose which is an indication of the lethality of a given substance or type of radiation.

In Norse mythology, the goddess Freyja’s chariot was drawn by  two cats with the goddess being associated with love, sexuality, beauty, fertility, gold, war, and death.

The first European to cross the Nullarbor Plain in Australian was Edward John Eyre together with his Aboriginal companion Wylie, in 1840-1841, on an almost 2000 mile trip to Albany, Western Australia.

There are five lakes in the Great Lakes, located in the US and Canada, consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario forming the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume.

Setting a new world record, US teenager Colin Burns solved the Rubik’s cube puzzle at the World Cube Association competition in Pennsylvania on 25 April 2015 in the time of 5.253 seconds which bettered the previous record set by Dutch cubist Mats Valik, who set a time of 5.55 seconds in 2013.

The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's It’s A Wonderful Life.

Quotables 23 June

 

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Monday, June 22, 2015

Trivia Bits 22 June

 

Queen Victoria coronation 

The coronation of Queen Victoria (pictured) as Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was on 20 June 1837 and from 1 May 1876 she used the additional title of Empress of India.

Playing singer June Carter in the 2005 American biographical drama movie Walk the Line was Reece Witherspoon and was based on the early life and career of country music artist Johnny Cash played by Joaquin Phoenix.

Mascarpone is an Italian cheese made from cream, is one of the main ingredients in the modern Italian dessert known as Tiramisu, and is sometimes used instead of butter or Parmesan cheese to thicken and enrich risottos.

Ough can be pronounced in eight different ways - the following sentence contains them all: A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.

The linen bandages that were used to wrap Egyptian mummies averaged 1,000 yards (9144.0m) in length.

In the board game of Chess it is possible to win a Brilliancy Prize at a tournament.

English band Culture Club released their debut album Kissing to be Clever on 4 October 1982 on the Virgin label with the album anchored by the international hit Do You Really Want to Hurt Me.

Landlocked country located in western-central South America, the Unitary presidential constitutional republic of Bolivia, the capital being Sucre, declared Independence from Spain on 6 August 1825 which was recognized on 21 July 1847 and their current constitution accepted on 7 February 2009.

At the age of 110 a person is considered to be a supercentenarian with the term supercentenarian having been in existence since at least the 19th Century.

In 1962, the Mashed Potato, the Loco-Motion, the Frug, the Monkey, and the Funky Chicken were popular dances.

Quotables 22 June

 

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Sunday, June 21, 2015

Trivia Bits 21 June

 

Two-Headed Monster 

The purple coloured two headed monster on Sesame Street (pictured) spoke in baby-like gibberish and in typical sketches would sound out words in front of a brick wall, or do something else which involves cooperation.

Gotye’s 2012 album Making Mirrors won the 2012 ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) Award for Album of the Year.

The ancient city of Knossos is located on the Greek island of Crete with the site discovered in 1878 by Minos Kalokairinos; excavations in Knossos began in AD 1900 by the English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans (1851- 1941) and his team, and continued for 35 years.

Australian comedian, writer and actor Glenn Robbins plays Wayne Wheeler in the 2013 ABC Australian television comedy series Upper Middle Bogan.

The Australian 'Jindalee Over-The-Horizon Radar' can both detect aircraft and ships well past the line-of-sight horizon, unlike a conventional radar which can only detect objects it can 'see' directly, and the otherwise undetectable US Air Force's 'Stealth' fighters and bombers.

Guinness Stout originated when Arthur Guinness started brewing ales from 1759 at St. James's Gate, Dublin and on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale when he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain.

The 1986 American coming of age comedy-drama adventure film Stand By Me is based on author Stephen King’s novella The Body published in his 1982 collection Different Seasons.

A series of children's books Spot the Dog were written by English author and illustrator Eric Hill were first published in 1980 and later made into a popular children's animation series, known as Spot.

Personally designed by Czar Peter in 1704, the Summer Garden in St Petersburg with a hundred Venetian marble statues but in the late 20th century, 90 surviving statues were moved indoors, while modern replicas took their place in the park.

Australian sprinter Stanley Rowley is the only Olympic participant to win medals for two countries at the Paris 1900 Summer Olympic Games when he won four medals for Australia and a fifth as part of a combined team with runners from Great Britain and Ireland.

Quotables 21 June

 

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