Below are six trivia questions. If you’d like to participate, you can either reply to this e-mail or submit your answers via Google Forms by using the button below. You can find our rules and guidelines by following this link.
1) The Roland TR-808, as heard on songs such as “Planet Rock” by Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force and “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye, and as referenced in songs such as Kesha’s “Your Love is My Drug,” is a machine used to simulate WHAT action?
2) “Der Rattenfänger von Hameln” is the German title of a legend also known by WHAT English title? For example, Robert Browning’s poem regarding the tale in his 1842 collection Dramatic Lyrics has this title.
3) In the novel The Lord of the Rings, the Shire Calendar used by Hobbits features twelve months, each with 30 days, plus two Yuledays (the first and last days of the year) and three Lithedays (three midsummer days known as 1 Lithe, Mid-Year’s Day, and 2 Lithe). On occasion, the day Overlithe is also observed; Overlithe is equivalent to WHAT two-word day on our Gregorian calendar?
4) In 1934, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Hanya Holm were three members of the legendary “Big Four” teaching WHAT art form at Bennington College in Vermont?
5) Michael Bay made an iconic commercial that first aired in 1993 and that features an eccentric collector of memorabilia relating to the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. The collector is unable to win a radio contest that asks “Who shot Alexander Hamilton in that famous duel?” because he, unfortunately, is eating a peanut-butter sandwich at an inopportune time. A voiceover then asks WHAT two-word question?
6) We won’t keep going, but WHAT’S the theme of this newsletter?
Trivia Newsletter CLXVI Recap
1) Vipera berus, the only venomous species of snake native to the British Isles, is sometimes called the common European viper or WHAT other five-letter word (that is not “snake”)?
This is an ADDER. One of the all-time “names of folks you should avoid” is the fearsome giant adder from the Redwall series, Asmodeus Poisonteeth. “Asmodeus” is a reference to a demon in the Abrahamic religions; for example, in the Book of Tobit, Asmodeus is the primary antagonist. (“Poisonteeth,” I assume, comes from the guy’s teeth.)
By the way, the Book of Tobit isn’t generally included in the canon of Biblical books by Protestants, as they categorize it and other books as WHAT WORD, an adjective that comes from the Greek for “to hide away”? The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
2) The Treaty of Frankfurt, signed on May 10, 1871, gave residents of WHAT hyphenated region until October 1, 1872 to decide whether to emigrate to France or remain and become German citizens?
This is ALSACE-LORRAINE. The Treaty of Frankfurt marked the end of the Franco-Prussian War, which lasted just over six months spanning from 1870 to 1871. “If Alsace and Lorraine are taken, then France will later make war on Germany in conjunction with Russia. It is unnecessary to go into the unholy consequences,” wrote Karl Marx to his fellow Germans.
3) In chess notation, the symbol # signifies checkmate. WHAT symbol, also the name of Ed Sheeran’s debut studio album, signifies check?
This symbol is +. But not the period, just the +. People describing the album will typically call it “Plus.” Sheeran has since released other albums with names of math symbols, and earlier this year, Sheeran released his final “mathematical” album, - (“Subtract”).
4) Susette Kelo of New London, Connecticut is most notable in American legal history as the named plaintiff in a lawsuit that alleged that New London misused WHAT two-word power, which the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires be used only “for public use”?
This is EMINENT DOMAIN. Susette Kelo lost her lawsuit in a 5–4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Kelo sparked a great deal of outrage because, unlike a typical eminent domain fact pattern (where property is seized in exchange for compensation so that something like a highway can be built), Kelo’s land was transferred to a private developer for ostensible economic development. It is not hard to find opinions about Kelo and its legacy online; here’s a perfectly good start.
5) “If you’re wrong, admit it” is part of a chapter title in a 1936 self-help book by Dale Carnegie, the title of which book suggests that the book will teach the reader how to do WHAT two things?
The answer here is HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE, as that’s the name of Carnegie’s book.
As I wrote that last sentence, I wondered whether Dale Carnegie was related to the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Often things have fun connections—that’s the idea behind this newsletter, after all. Sometimes they do not. Not only are the Carnegies not related; Dale Carnegie changed the spelling of his original name (“Carnagey”) in order to associate himself with the Carnegie family to boost sales.
6) WHAT NUMBER should be listed next to Dwight Eisenhower’s name in the following list, which list is related in some fashion to this newsletter’s theme? (All unlisted U.S. presidents would, if listed, have a “0” next to each of their names.)
George Washington (3), Thomas Jefferson (1), James Madison (2), James Monroe (5), Andrew Jackson (2), John Tyler (1), James Polk (3), Millard Fillmore (1), James Buchanan (3), Abraham Lincoln (2), Andrew Johnson (1), Ulysses Grant (1), Grover Cleveland (1), Benjamin Harrison (6), Theodore Roosevelt (1), William Taft (2), Dwight Eisenhower (???).
The missing number is TWO.
Each number corresponds to how many new states were admitted2 to the Union during that president’s term. Who knew that Benjamin Harrison, of all people, was in office for the admittance of more states than any other president? The way to get to “2” was either to know that Alaska and Hawaii were admitted while Eisenhower was president, or to just realize that the sum of the provided numbers was 35, and a total of 37 states were admitted (as opposed to the thirteen states that ratified the Constitution), so two states were missing.
Questions #1 through #5 all generally dealt with annexation:
Question #1: “Adder” was meant to get you to think of the numbers related to something being added.
Question #2: Alsace-Lorraine was meant to provide an international example of a specific annexation.
Question #3: “+” served the same role as Question #1.
Question #4: Eminent domain is, or at least can be construed as, another form of annexation.
Question #5: “Admit it” is a part of the question and is, well, exactly what the presidents were part of doing.
Our newsletter title (“Fumblerooski!”) refers to the climax of the 1994 film Little Giants, which shows the protagonists winning a football game by running the trick play known as a fumblerooski. The fumblerooski starts with an intentional fumble and an attempt to pretend that someone has the ball—then, while everyone is confused, the offensive team picks up the fumbled ball and tries to advance it. The fumblerooski has a long history in football, but was probably inspired in this film by its use in the 1984 Orange Bowl. Here, it’s easier just to watch it:
The antagonist in Little Giants shouts out “Fumblerooski!” when it’s used in the film. We used that as our title, however, because the film names the play “The Annexation of Puerto Rico,” and we wanted to help orient you towards America’s annexation of states:
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link.
That word that some would use to describe the Book of Tobit is APOCRYPHAL.
Arguably, George Washington’s number should be five and not three, as North Carolina and Rhode Island ratified the Constitution after Washington took office. I decided to exclude them because we were focused on the 37 states that were admitted to the Union, and not any of the thirteen original colonies and their process of forming the country. “Admittedly” (hah), I also thought it would add more confusion, and obscure the point, to count NC and RI.