Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  Whether or not English was a second language for Queen Victoria is the cause for much debate.  Why the controversy?

2)  Chicago's Wrigley Field experienced this first back on this date in 1988.

3)  What does a Jeroboam contain?

4)  A 19th-century entrepreneur started out with a ferry service between Staten Island and Manhattan. Who was he?

Answers:

1)  According to UK/Irish History, during her infancy, Victoria said that she spoke nothing but German, but at the age of three, her mother decided that is was imperative that her daughter must not turn out like the senior members of the royal family whose English was engulfed by their guttural Germanic accents. From that age she was permitted to read but not speak German, and she was taught English - the language of her nation and French - the language of the courts, with some Italian and Latin instruction. Though she ruled England for 64 years, she was never able to speak English perfectly.

2)  39,012 fans were in attendance for Wrigley Field's very first night game.

3)  A Jeroboam is a double magnum-sized bottle containing champagne or wine. As the picture (courtesy of Wikipedia - public domain) shows, the bottles are named after Biblical kings.

Side-by-side comparison of champagne bottles (left to right), on the ladder: magnum, full, half and quarter; on the floor: Balthazar, Salmanazar, Methuselah and Jeroboam

4)  Cornelius Vanderbilt, Sr.

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