Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  This actor won an Oscar for his role as "Randy the Ram" in The Wrestler.

2)  Radar was first used on this date in 1934.  Where?

3)  This physicist wrote the popular science book, A Brief History of Time.

Answers:

1)  Mickey Rourke


2)  Radar was first used in Germany for military purposes in order to detect air, ground and sea targets.



 3)  Stephen Hawking


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  The show Honey West featured television's first female private eye. Who played her on the show?

2)  What is the second most populous city in the U.S.? In the world?

3)  A hippophile is someone who is fond of what?

4)  Actor and occasional musician Bruce Willis is celebrating his 58th birthday. What is the name of his blues band?

EXTRA Trivia Fun

5)   On March 19, 1988, Michael Jackson bought a ranch near Santa Ynez, California, and built his own personal zoo and amusement park. What did he call it?

6)  On March 19, 1953, the Academy Awards ceremony did this for the first time. Did what?

Answers:


1)  Anne Francis. It lasted only one season, from 1965-66.



2)  Los Angeles is the second-most populous city in the U.S. Guangzhou, China (formerly known as Canton) is the second-most populous in the world.



Guangzhou, China

3)  A hippophile is fond of horses.

4)  Bruno

Extra Trivia Fun answers

5)  Neverland

6)  The Academy Awards ceremony was televised for the first time from Hollywood and New York. That year The Greatest Show on Earth was named best picture of 1952; John Ford won as best director for The Quiet Man; Gary Cooper won best actor for "High Noon," while Shirley Booth received best actress for Come Back, Little Sheba.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)   What part of the chicken is called "the parson's nose"?

2)  This alto saxophonist was behind the landmark 1959 release, The Shape of Jazz to Come.

3)  This virus' official name is varicella. By what name is it more commonly known?

4)  This pianist/keyboardist is best known for his fusion group, Return to Forever.

Answers:

1) It's the fatty, fleshy, somewhat nose-shaped flap that's attached to the chicken's anus. Some people say it's their favorite part of the chicken!



2)   Ornette Coleman

3)  Chicken Pox

4)  Chick Corea

Friday, March 15, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  On this date in 1968, Life magazine proclaimed him to be the "most spectacular guitarist in the world."

2)  On this date in 1869, the first American professional baseball team was formed who were they?

3) This be-bop musician died tragically, not of substance-related issues, but from a car accident in June, 1956. WHo was he?

4)  This major-league team had two players that hit more than 50 home runs within the same season. What team was it and who were the hitters?

Answers:

1)  Jimi Hendrix


2)  The Cincinnati Red Stockings.







3)  Clifford Brown

4)  It was the 1961 season; the team was the Yankees and the hitters were Roger Maris, who had 61 home runs and Mickey Mantle who had 54 homers.


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  This fictional island was home to King Kong.

2)  What is the difference between spirits and liqueurs?

3)  This state is home to the Hagerman Fossil Beds and Craters of the Moon.

Craters of the Moon - Pahoehoe "Ropy" Lava


4)  Billy Crystal went to college on an athletic scholarship. What kind of athlete was he?

Answers:

1)  Skull Island



2)  A liqueur is a sweet distilled spirit with sugar contents starting at 2.5 percent. Spirits do not have the added sugar.



3)  Idaho

4)  Baseball 

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  What is the speed of sound in dry air?

2)  How old is Tina Turner?



3) What group had the hit, "Summer in the City" in 1966?

4) What years were the second Boer War fought?

Answers:

1)  768 mph

2)  The seemingly ageless Ms. Turner, seen here performing the John Waite hit, "Missing You," where her legs almost steal the show.

3)  The Lovin' Spoonful. Watch here.



4)  1899 - 1902

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  Wonder Woman, the TV series starring Lynda Carter, premiered on this date in 1974. The original Wonder Woman comic book character was created by Charles Moulton. Moulton was also notable for having invented what device?



2)   He was the only astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions.

3)  Yogi Berra's real first name wasn't Yogi - what was it?



4)  Liza Minnelli won an Oscar for her role in this film.

Answers:

1)  Charles Moulton invented the polygraph.



2)  Wally Schirra



3)  "Lawrence" - Lawrence Peter Berra! Here is a page devoted to some of his famous sayings:

4)  Minnelli won for her role as Sally Bowles in Cabaret.





Monday, March 11, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  Those of us with computers have seen the initials DHTML.  What does the "D" stand for?

2)  In Greek mythology, who flew too close to the sun and melted the wax from his wings?

3)  In what year did Disneyland in Anaheim open?

4)  Born on this date in 1885, he was the first man to drive a car faster than 300 mph -- who was he?


Answers:

1) D stands for Dynamic.  HTML is an acronym for hypertext markup language. It is a language that is used to produce documents for the World Wide Web.  HTML pages contain information about the fonts, text, text colors, justification, background colors, paragraphs, images, hyperlinks and other elements of a web page. Many tags can take attributes, which provide more information about how the page should be displayed. Web browsers can interpret this information to display the page in a manner which is both appealing and useful.

2)  Icarus. Read the story of Icarus here.





3) 1955
    

4) Sir Malcolm Campbell, who broke the world land speed record on nine occasions between 1924 and 1935.
Sir Malcolm at Brooklands for one of the Campbell Trophy races in the late 1930's.

Friday, March 08, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  This animal can go for longer periods without water than can a camel.

2)  This serialized radio program was the first successful spinoff of a nationally broadcast show. Name the  spinoff.and the original show.

3)  Only two presidents ever won their election races with the intervention of voting by members of the House of Representatives.  Who were they?

4)  Hugo Chavez died this week. How old was he?

Answers: 

1)  Kangaroo rats never drink water and can go without water longer than camels.  They live in arid environments, such as the Sonora Desert of the American Southwest, and are able to metabolize water from their food, which consists of primarily seeds. Giraffes are also able to endure longer periods without water than camels.



2)  The Great Gildersleeve was a spinoff of Fibber McGee and Molly.

Harold Peary as Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve



3)  Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams

4)  Chavez was 58 years old at the time of his death.

Thursday, March 07, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  In 1925, Victor Lustig famously twice conned people into buying this landmark for scrap metal.

2)  This car manufacturer unveiled a two-seat, three-wheeled concept car this week.

3)  This rock group had a heavily jazz-influenced horn section and had a breakout hit with their 1969 cover of this Billie Holiday song. What was the name of the song? What was the name of the band? Extra credit: Who was the lead singer?

4)  Stalin died from this condition that is still a leading cause of death in the U.S.

Answers:

1)  The Eiffel Tower


2)  Toyota


3)  The song was "God Bless the Child," which has been covered by many artists, but none as popularly as the hit version by Blood Sweat and Tears. In addition to that great horn section, there were the powerful and soulful vocals by David Clayton Thomas.



4)  Stalin perished from having had a stroke.

Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  Which countries were involved in the Falklands War?

2)  This artery is the largest in the human body.

3)  Willie Nelson had a big hit and ultimately won a Grammy with "You Were Always on My Mind" in 1982. Ten years earlier another artist (or artists) recorded the song but didn't quite have the success with it that Willie did.  Who recorded the song in 1972?

4)  Which countries border Germany?

Answers:

1)   The Falklands War (Spanish: Guerra de las Malvinas or Guerra del Atlántico Sur), also known as the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was a 1982 war between Argentina and the United Kingdom. The conflict resulted from the long-standing dispute over the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which lie in the South Atlantic, east of Argentina. (Wikipedia)

2)  The largest artery is the aorta.

3)  Brenda Lee and Elvis Presley made their own recordings in 1972. Brenda's peaked at # 45 on the Country charts and Elvis's version was released as a double-sided hit with "Separate Ways," coinciding with his separation from wife, Priscilla.

Here's Brenda Lee's version.
Here's Elvis's
And let's not forget how crowded dance floors got when the DJ played the Pet Shop Boys 1987 cover !


4)  There are nine countries in all that border Germany: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland.








Tuesday, March 05, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)   Elvis left active duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on March 5, 1960, and received his discharge from the Army Reserve on March 23, 1964. What rank was he when he was discharged from duty?

2)  The sun consists of which elements?

3)  Who said, "An Iron Curtain has descended..."

4)  How many recognized moons are in the Solar System?


Answers:

1)  Elvis was a sergeant when he completed his tour of duty with the Army.


2)  The Sun is made of hydrogen (74%) and helium (about 24%).



3)  While the term "Iron Curtain" in reference to Communist Russia appeared as early as 1918, Allen Dulles was responsible for the familiar quote in a December 1945 speech: "[a]n iron curtain has descended over the fate of these people and very likely conditions are truly terrible. The promises at Yalta to the contrary, probably 8 to 10 million people are being enslaved."
The first recorded occasion on which Churchill used the term "iron curtain" was in a 12 May 1945 telegram he sent to U.S. President Harry S. Truman regarding his concern about Soviet actions, stating "[a]n iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind." He was further concerned about "another immense flight of the German population westward as this enormous Muscovite advance towards the centre of Europe." Churchill concluded "then the curtain will descend again to a very large extent, if not entirely. Thus a broad land of many hundreds of miles of Russian-occupied territory will isolate us from Poland." (from Wikipedia)

4)  Counting only those moons orbiting what are considered to be accepted planets, there are 166 natural satellite moons in the solar system.

Mercury and Venus-0.
Earth-1.
Mars-2.
Jupiter-63.
Saturn-60.
Uranus-27.
Neptune-13.




Monday, March 04, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  Which president was the first to be inaugurated in Washington D.C.?

2) Who was the first female member of Congress?
3) Jazz musician nicknames:

     a) Roland Berrigan was known as ______________
     b) William Cole ______________
     c) Joseph Oliver ______________
     d) Julian Adderly ______________

4)  Who was the first female Cabinet member?

Answers:

1)  Thomas Jefferson


2)  Jeanette Rankin. She was sworn in on this date in 1917.



3)  a) Bunny
     b) Cozy
     c) King
     d) Cannonball

4)  Frances Perkins. She was sworn in on this date in 1933 and served as Secretary of the Department of Labor..


Friday, March 01, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  What was Superman's father's name?

2)  On this date in 1780, this state became the first to abolish slavery.

3)  How many degrees are there in each internal angle of a pentagon?

Answers:

1)  Jor-El




2)  Pennsylvania

3)  108


Thursday, February 28, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  Comedian Eddie Anderson died at the age of 71 after 21 years on radio followed by 15 years on television. He was known mainly for playing this character.

2)  What do etymologists study?

3)  Established in 1804, this was the world's first black republic.

4) What are the most common symbols on a national flag? the least?

Answers:

1)  Eddie Anderson played the role of Rochester, Jack Benny's valet.

2)  Etymology is the study of word origins, usage and evolution over time.



3)  Haiti



4)  The most commonly used symbol are stars, which appear on over 50 national flags. The second most common symbol is the crescent, which is featured on 9 flags. The least common symbol is an image of the Bible, which is on the Dominican Republic flag.





Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1) Where is the historic sanctuary, Machu Picchu located?


2)  How many Wimbledon Men's Singles titles did tennis player Bjorn Borg win?

3)  When discussing electricity, what does the "D" in "DC" indicate?

4)  Chromatics is the science of what?

Answers:

1)  Peru

2)  Borg won five Wimbledon titles. This photo was from his 1977 victory against Jimmy Connors.


3)  DC stands for "Direct" current (AC = "alternating current").


4)  Chromatics is the science of colors.


Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Alan Rock's Trivia!

Questions:

1)  Mattel introduced the Ken doll as a boyfriend for Barbie. What was Ken's last name?



2)  Demi Moore posed nude twice for the cover of this magazine. The first photo was for the cover of the August 1991 issue and showed Demi in an advanced stage of pregnancy. The second cover was published a year later and showed Demi in fighting trim, obscuring her nakedness with a hand-painted man's suit.

3)  This one corporation owns all the following products and brands - and then some: Kool-Aid, Cheez-Whiz, Jell-O, Miller Beer, Marlboro, Oscar Mayer, Post, Velveeta, Tombstone Pizza and Maxwell House.

4)  Brass is comprised of what metals/minerals?

Answers:

1)  Ken "Carson"

2)  Vanity Fair




3)  Phillip Morris Company

4)  Copper and zinc