Saturday, December 12, 2015

Trivia Bits 12 December

 

pomelo

A pomelo (pictured) is a type of fruit which is an original citrus fruit, with the look of a big grapefruit, native to South and Southeast Asia.

Synonymous with the Australian outback and coming from the Latin nullus, "no", and arbor, "tree" is the word Nullabor which is the name of the area of flat, almost treeless, arid or semi-arid country of southern Australia, located on the Great Australian Bight.

The Waldorf salad was first created between 1893 and 1896 at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City and is generally made of fresh apples, celery and walnuts, dressed in mayonnaise.

Aurora, Chandler, Legacy and Reka are all varieties of blueberries with many North American native species of blueberries grown commercially in the Southern Hemisphere in Australia, New Zealand and South American nations.

American pianist and composer James P Johnson wrote the theme song of the Roaring Twenties dance craze Charleston which debuted in his Broadway show Runnin' Wild in 1923.

George Clooney once had a pet Vietnamese black bristled potbellied pig named Max.

A zettabyte comes between a Exabyte and a yottabyte and has the magnitude of data as 10007ZB.

American film and stage actress and model Lauren Bacall was considered to be the Rat Pack’s original Den Mother and is considered a reference to the home of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall which served as a regular hangout.

British Navy Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher during World War I wrote in a letter to Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, in 1917 I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis -- O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) -- Shower it on the Admiralty!!! which seems to be the first-known use of the phrase O.M.G.

The French term au fait has entered the English language to indicate familiarity or having some knowledge of or informed about something.

Quotables 12 December

 

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Friday, December 11, 2015

Trivia Bits 11 December

 

The Good Guys

The Good Guys (logo pictured), a chain of consumer electronics retail stores in Australia, had the slogan Pay Less, Pay Cash!

Robert Muldoon served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984.

In 2014, Gabriele Cirulli created the game 2048 which is a single-player online game in which the objective is to slide numbered tiles on a grid to combine them and create a tile with the number 2048

The US federal income tax was first enacted in 1862 to support the Union's Civil War effort, was eliminated in 1872, revived in 1894 then declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the following year but in 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the US tax system.

The Hindu holy day begins at sunrise, the Jewish holy day begins at sunset, and the Christian holy day begins at midnight.

A prime example of process music, Come Out, a 1966 piece by American composer Steve Reich, was made out of the recorded speech of a young man injured in a race riot who was wrongly arrested for murder.

11 of the 13 members, including Surrey cricketer John Dunn, of the Hong Kong cricket team died when their steamship, SS Bokhara, carrying the team back from Shanghai was lost in a typhoon in 1892.

It is in the Spanish city of Barcelona that the Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi designed buildings of Casa Vicens and La Pedera stand.

The Indulkana Range with the highest peak being Mount Chandler is in the northwest of South Australia on the traditional Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands.

On August 9, 2011, a 21-year-old Turkish woman named Derya Sert, who was born without a uterus, became the first woman in history to have successful uterus transplant surgery.

Quotables 11 December

 

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Thursday, December 10, 2015

Trivia Bits 10 December

 

Rolf de Heer

Adelaide-based filmmaker Rolf de Heer (pictured) directed the 1981 movie Dingo, the only movie to feature legendary trumpeter Miles Davis in an acting role in a story that traces the pilgrimage of John Anderson (Colin Friels), an average guy with a passion for jazz, from his home in outback Western Australia to the jazz clubs of Paris, to meet his idol, jazz trumpeter Billy Cross (Miles Davis).

Krona, an Oan scientist, first appeared in Green Lantern #40 (1965) and was created by John Broome and Gil Kane for DC Comics.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's first concert took place on 11 December 1906 under the baton of Alberto Zelman, founder of the MSO, who later became the first Australian conductor to conduct the London and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras.

The only Australian Zoo operated on a non-profit basis is the Adelaide Zoo and was opened on 23 May 1883, now occupying 8 hectares/20 acres of land granted by the Government, was founded by the South Australian Acclimatization and Zoological Society which became the Royal Zoological Society of South Australia after a Royal Charter was granted by King George VI in 1937.

The photographic process that uses a surface coated with selenium is called xerograph from the Greek roots ξηρός xeros, "dry" and -γραφία -graphia, "writing" in a process that used no liquid chemicals.

Also known as Bolotny Island, Balchug Island opposite the Kremlin in Moscow takes its name from the Tatar word for marsh.

The atomic number of gold is 79 with the atomic number of a chemical is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom of that element.

Iron Range is a National Park located in Queensland, Australia, 1,940 km northwest of Brisbane and 100 km east of Weipa in the Cape York Peninsula, Queensland and within the National Park is the Iron Range (Lockhart River Resources Reserve), Scrubby Creek mining site and the Lockhart River Aboriginal Reserve.

Fastnet Rock, a small clay-slate island with quartz veins, is the southernmost point of Ireland with Construction of the first lighthouse beginning in 1853, and first producing a light on 1 January 1854.

Elmer Robinson was the 33rd mayor of San Francisco, California serving from January 1948 until January 1956.

Quotables 10 December

 

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Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Trivia Bits 09 December

 

Stobie poles

Sometimes called Stobie poles in South Australia, a pylon is a tower that carries electrical or communication wires and is made of two steel joists held apart by a slab of concrete.

Actor Christopher Walken was a lion tamer in his teenage years and later played the role of Clayton Dutch Miller in a 1963 Off-Broadway revival of Best Foot Forward, co-starring with Liza Minnelli, who played Ethel Hofflinger at Stage 73 and ran for 224 performances.

Sociocracy is a form of government relying on principles of consensus and developed by Gerard Endenburg, who in 1978, Endenburg founded the Sociocratic Center Netherlands, as a new method of governing businesses.

The volcano Calbuco is in the South American country of Chile and with the eruption on April 22, 2015, followed by two smaller eruptions on April 24 and April 30, it was Calbuco's first activity since 1972.

Former actress, Reverend Mother Superior Dolores Hart is the only nun to be an Academy Award-voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Patty Duke Show challenged the scope of special effects on television in the 1960s, with American actress of stage, film and television Patty Duke playing two roles.

Author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist Clive James’ 2009 autobiography was named The Blaze of Obscurity which he read as a radio version in October 2009 on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week programme.

German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor Paul Hindemith composed c. 1925 the Overture of 'The Flying Dutchman' as played at sight by a bad spa orchestra at the well at 7 in the morning which is a musical parody for string quartet, based on the overture to The Flying Dutchman by Richard Wagner and in performance lasts approximately eight minutes.

São Tomé and Príncipe is an island country located in the Gulf of Guinea off the western equatorial coast of Central Africa with Portuguese being the official language.

A postage stamp the United States Department of the Treasury issued in 1962 that commemorated the centennial of the Homestead Act featured art based on a photograph by Fred Hultstrand.

Quotables 09 December

 

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Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Trivia Bits 08 December

 

The Griffin

The Griffin (pictured), a mythical creature, has the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion.

Stephen King’s 2013 novel Doctor Sleep is the sequel to his 1977 novel The Shining, reached the first position on The New York Times Best Seller lists for print and ebook fiction (combined), hardcover fiction, and ebook fiction and also Doctor Sleep won the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.

The 1987 song Never Gonna Give You Up was a hit for English singer, songwriter, musician, and radio personality. Rick Astley, was No. 1 hit single in 25 countries and by the time of his retirement in 1993, Astley had sold approximately 40 million records worldwide.

The bid Lay Down Misere in the card game 500 has become betting slang for a sure win particularly in Australia.

St Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet, Kent in 597AD on his mission to convert the English under King Ethelbert.

American author May Justus' 1963 book New Boy in School, a departure from her usual thematic focus on rural Appalachia, was "probably the first" book on racial desegregation for young readers.

Poker’s dead man’s hand were the cards of aces and eights reportedly held by "Old West" folk hero, lawman and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok when he was murdered in 1976 in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory by an unsuccessful gambler.

The English dish spotted dick is a cylindrical pudding popular in Britain, made with suet and dried fruit, usually currants and/or raisins, and often served with custard.

French painter and bestselling author Françoise Gilot married the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso and later in life was also wed to the famous doctor, Jonas Salk.

Mistress Overdone, a bawd, appears in William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604 with the earliest recorded performance of Measure for Measure taking place on St. Stephen's night, 26 December 1604.

Quotables 08 December

 

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Monday, December 7, 2015

Trivia Bits 07 December

 

viaduct

A viaduct (example pictured) is a bridge composed of several narrow masonry arches with high supporting piers for crossing a valley, a gorge or a span of water.

The experimental poetry book Tarantula was written between 1965 and 1966 by Bob Dylan.

Occurring most commonly in tropical or subtropical climates and often in rural areas, chromoblastomycosis is a fungal skin infection that can be caught from a thorn or splinter with several treatment options that include medication and surgery.

English musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter Roger Taylor is the drummer for the English band Queen who was also noted for a vocal range spans four octaves which is shown in Bohemian Rhapsody from the November 1975 album A Night at the Opera where he sang the high-falsetto vocals, such as the let me go lines and the final for me ... " during midsection.

Frida Kahlo is an early Mexican painter known for her surreal self portraits and was born on July 6, 1907, in her parents' house known as La Casa Azul (The Blue House), in Coyoacán then a small town on the outskirts of Mexico City.

Kew, a suburban district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace and is also the home of important historical documents such as Domesday Book, which is on public display at The National Archives.

Robert I, King of the Scots, was better known as Robert the Bruce and was one of the most famous warriors of his generation, eventually leading Scotland during the 1310 to 1314 Wars of Scottish Independence against England.

Philip ‘Pip’ Pirrip is the protagonist and an orphan in the Charles Dickens’s 1861 novel Great Expectations which has been adapted into many movies and TV series with the first being the 1917 silent film Great Expectations starring Jack Pickford, directed by Robert G. Vignola.

Peter of Eboli, a monk from Eboli in southern Italy, wrote the first book on the therapeutic properties of spa mineral waters around 1220.

The Vatican's Swiss Guard still wears a uniform designed by Michelangelo in the early 16th century.

Quotables 07 December

 

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Sunday, December 6, 2015

Trivia Bits 06 December

 

Cookie Monster

C is for Cookie is a song by Joe Raposo, first performed on Sesame Street by Cookie Monster (pictured) on March 28, 1972.

Fort Denison, a former penal site and defensive facility, and the Powerhouse Museum, often described as a science museum but with a diverse collection encompassing all sorts of technology, are both to be found in the Australian city of Sydney.

Salaga in northern Ghana was once one of the biggest slave markets in West Africa as it was from here where slaves were transported to the coast for export.

Though the territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth decreased from 1620s, the number of its provincial governors kept increasing, as the offices of a lost province could not be dissolved.

Zara Yaqob was the first Emperor of Ethiopia (1434–1468) to send a diplomatic mission to Europe in 1450 led by a Sicilian Pietro Rombulo specifically asking for skilled labor.

The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582 AD, and was adopted by Great Britain and the English colonies in 1752.

The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I Madero against long-time autocrat Porfirio Díaz, and ended in 1920.

The 1838 classic book Oliver Twist, subtitled The Parish Boy's Progress, was authored by Charles Dickens and is notable for Dickens's unromantic portrayal of criminals and their sordid lives as well as exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London during the Dickensian era.

Sardo is a hard, grating cow's milk cheese that comes from Argentina with a flavour that is mellow, yet rich, and lightly salty and is white-yellowish in colour and is sold in blocks of about 6.5 pounds.

In the Australian soap opera Neighbours, the character Susan Kennedy is played by Northern Irish Australian actress Jackie Woodburne in a role she has played since 1994.

Quotables 06 December

 

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