Alan Rock's Trivia

Q: In economic terminology, what does the ‘P’ in GDP stand for?  

 A: Product (Gross Domestic Product).

 

Q: What cocktail is made with measures of gin, vermouth and olives or lemon? 

A: Martini

Q: Who are the the only presidents buried at Arlington National Cemetery? 

A: John Kennedy and William Taft

Q: Who was the only grandchild of a president who became President? 

A: Benjamin Harrison

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q: Who was the only unanimously elected President by the Electoral College? 

A: George Washington was unanimously elected by the Electoral College in 1789, and again in the 1792 election; he remains the only president to have received 100% of the electoral votes. James Monroe, the fifth President, received every Electoral College vote except one. A New Hampshire delegate wanted to preserve the legacy of George Washington.

Q: Before the Twelfth Amendment was passed in 1804, how was the Vice President determined? 

A: The Vice President was originally determined by the presidential candidate receiving the second-largest number of electoral votes. The Twelfth Amendment, passed in 1804, changed the system so that the electoral college voted separately for president and vice president.

Q: Who was the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms?  

A: Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms and is counted chronologically as both the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth president.

Q: Who was the first President born outside the contiguous United States? 

A: Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Stanley Ann Dunham, an American of predominantly English descent from Wichita, Kansas, and Barack Obama, Sr., a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya Colony. Obama is the first President to have been born in Hawaii.

 

 

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q: When Louis Armstrong moved from New Orleans to Chicago in 1922 he was going to play with who’s band?  

A: King Oliver. Joe Oliver was nicknamed "King" because he was the King of jazz trumpet. That was until his protege, Louis Armstrong, came on the scene. Louis had got his start playing with King in New Orleans. King moved to Chicago and started his band there. This gave Louis the opportunity to develop his unique ability for improvisation. When Louis moved to Chicago to play with King's band, he was suddenly the better player and was eventually convinced of this by the band's pianist Lillian Hardin, whom Louis later married. She convinced him to go solo.

Q: Who was the Creole musician from New Orleans who was the self-proclaimed "inventor" of jazz? 

A: Jelly Roll Morton. Jelly Roll Morton was a pianist and composer, and was undoubtedly one of the most influential and original musicians in the beginnings of jazz music. His claim to being its inventor, however, is somewhat dubious.

Q: Which president presented his State of the Union six times in person and then two times in writing?  

A: Woodrow Wilson delivered his first six messages in person, but the final two -- after he had suffered a debilitating stroke -- were sent in written form.

Q: Who was the first U.S. president to be photographed while in office?   

A: Feb. 14, 1849, James Polk became the first.  The photographer was Mathew Brady, who is famous for his Civil War pictures.

Hairy Truth: Did you know your hair grows fastest in the morning?

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q: According to the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, your risk of being in an auto accident increases 34% if you? 

A: Have a cell phone in your car

Q: Which U.S. President had the first radio installed in the White House?

A: President Warren Harding

Q: According to The Guinness Book of World Records how big was the world’s largest hot dog? 

A: The winning Wiener was 125.5 pounds.  The naked dog alone, weighing 51 pounds, was cooked for three hours on a 100-foot mobile grill. Once the mammoth bun and gallons of condiments were added, the meaty beast had its final weight.

Q: Did you ever wonder what is the Guinness World Record for most living generations in one family? 

A: Seven is the answer

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q: The last bare-knuckle boxing championship was held on FEB 7, 1882. Who won? A: John L. Sullivan won. If he were alive today, he'd be almost as old as George Foreman.

Q:As of April 2014 how many cell phones are in use in he United States?  

A: 327.5 million the U. S. is #3: In the world, over 6.8 billion, with China #1 with 1.2 plus billion and India #2 with 937 plus million phones.

Q: If a dish is served ‘Florentine’ what is usually included?  

A: Spinach 

Q:What U.S. state contains no caves? 
A: Delaware is the only U.S. state without a cave within its borders.

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q:On Feb. 1, 1974, the first mass-marketed doll for boys was introduced by Hasbro sold and for $2.49. The action figure's name came from the 1945 film starring Robert Mitchum and Burgess Meredith. What was the name of the doll?   

A: G.I. Joe

Q: On Feb. 1, 1940, Frank Sinatra had his first recording session with the Tommy Dorsey Band. He sang, "Too Romantic" and "The Sky Fell Down". Who did Sinatra replace?  

 A: Jack Leonard as the band's lead singer.

Q:On Feb. 1, 2006, Ben Bernanke became the U.S. Federal Reserve chief. Who did he replace?  

A: Alan Greenspan, who held the position for 18 years.

Who was Duke Ellington's most prolific collaborator? 

A: Billy Strayhorn. Billy Strayhorn wrote such famous hits as "Take the 'A' Train", which he actually wrote riding said train on his way to meet Duke Ellington for the first time in Harlem. 

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q:For you baseball fans, Nolan Ryan has a birthday today. How many no hitters did he pitch?  A: 7

Q: We’ve all had the hiccups but how long was the longest battle of hiccups? 

 A: It lasted 68 years. American Charles Osborne owns the record for having the longest streak of hiccups – 68 years. He started hiccupping in 1922 and didn’t stop until 1990.

Q: What is the longest recorded flight of a chicken? 

 A: The world's longest flight of a chicken that has been recorded is 13 seconds. The world's longest distance flight of a chicken that has be recorded is 301 1/2 feet

What phobia did Thomas Edison suffer from? 

A: He was afraid of the dark

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q:Who held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television?  

A: President Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and television on Jan. 25, 1961.

Q:Elvis Presley made only one television commercial. What was it an ad for?  

A: : Southern Maid Doughnuts,  in 1954.

Q:What was the most points scored by Wilt Chamberlain?  

A: Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a basketball game in 1962, when he played for the Philadelphia Warriors.

Q: Hans Langseth had the longest beard at a record. How long was it when he died?  

A: length of 17 1/2 feet long! When he died, his beard was given to the Smithsonian Institute.

(BONUS) What is the world cleanest country? A: Switzerland.

Alaan Rock's Trivia

Q: How many squares are there on a chess board? 

A: 64

Q:There have been three famous jazz musicians with the name Bill Evans. Two of them (piano and sax) kept their name. What did the third Bill Evans change his name to?  

A: Yusef Lateef. He is a fine solo musician who also has played with Cannonball Adderley, Charles Mingus, Roy Eldridge, and Dizzy Gillespie. There is some debate on Lateef's real name, it may have been Bill Huddleston. He did go by the name "Bill Evans" though.

Q:Albert DeSalvo was also known by the infamous name? 

A: The Boston Strangler

Q:E.I. du Pont introduced the first commerical production on Nylon on this date in 1938. What did they use it for?  

A: To manufacture tooth brush bristles.

Q: Every commander in chief since Franklin Roosevelt has had both a library and a memoir, expect one. Can you name this president? 

A: John F. Kennedy doesn't have both a memoir and a presidential library.

Q:How many painting did Vincent Van Gogh sell his whole life?  

A:  He only sold 1 painting and that was to his brother.

Q:Abraham Lincoln once invented a device that did what? 

A: lifted riverboats over shallow water.

Q:How tall was Robert Pershing Wadlow, the tallest man in medical history for whom there is irrefutable evidence?  

A: When last measured on June 27, 1940, was found to be 8 ft 11.1 inches tall.

Alan Rock's trivia

Q:Who is credited with: “Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”? 

A: Tennyson

Q:How many languages are spoken in the world today? 

A: roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers.

Q:What is the most popular language in the world?  

A: Mandarin Chinese. There are 1,213,000,000 people in the world that speak that language.

Q:If you were to place the planet Saturn in a big enough bowl of water, what would happen?  

A: it would float!

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q:What was the name of the Indian Princess on the Howdy Doody show?  

A. Princess Summerfallwinterspring

Q: On JAN 11, 1964  who was the Surgeon General that labeled cigarette smoking the #1 cause of lung disease. 

A: Luther Terry.  Big Tobacco responded calmly and logically by calling the surgeon general a communist and declaring that cigarettes are as American as mom, apple pie, and wheezing. Research has shown that nobody stops smoking for health reasons. Some people do quit, however, when they finally realize that their nose smells like a wet cigar butt.

Q:In ancient Rome, during the eulogies at funerals, what did mourners customarily munch on?   

A: Parsley

Q:Who was the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury, in 1757? 

A: American statesman Alexander Hamilton,

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q:Who was the first woman candidate for the U.S. presidency?  

A: On April 2, 1872, Victoria Woodhull

Q;Locusts can eat their own weight in food in a day. A person eats his own body weight in approximately how long?  

A: in about half a year.

Q:What is the farthest you can see with the naked eye?  

A: 2.4 million light years away!

Q: What is the second largest organ in the body?  

A:Liver

(BONUS) Beside Miles Davis, who made up the rest of the group on ‘Kind of Blue’?  

A: Cannonball Adderley (alto), John Coltrane (tenor), Paul Chambers (bass) and Bill Evans  (piano, except, ‘Freddie Freeloader).

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q:Most dust particles in your house are made from what?  

A: Dead skin

Q:What happens if you put a Pearl in vinegar?  

A: It would melt.

Q:Why does your stomach produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks? 

A: If it didn’t, it would digest itself.

Q:What is the largest animal that ever existed? 

A: The blue whale, the largest animal to have ever existed, is 96 feet long and weights 125 tons. This is as much as 4 large dinosaurs (Brontosauri), 23 elephants, 230 cows or 1800 men.

Alan Rock's Trivia

Q: On Jan. 3, 1973, George Steinbrenner bought The New York Yankees for ten million dollars. Who did he buy the Yankees from?  

A: CBS

Q:Who was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? 

A: Jan. 3, 1987, Aretha Franklin.

Q:Where did Lassie come home to, what city? 

A: Yorkshire, England

Q:What was only one code during World War II that was never broken by the enemy and was used by the US Army? 

A: Navajo soldiers, called Code-talkers, developed a radio code based on their native language. It was the only way US soldiers on the battlefield could be sure that messages were from there own side and not from Japanese imitators.