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) NAME the element that is often used for light-bulb filaments and X-ray tubes due to the fact that it has the highest melting point of all known elements.
2) Amelia Earhart worked from 1935 to 1937 as a visiting faculty member at WHAT university, which also paid for the plane Earhart flew on her attempted around-the-world flight? The university’s connection to aviation continued: More than one third of NASA's crewed space missions have had at least one graduate as a crew member.
3) Haribo, the company that first created gummy candy by making gummy bears in 1922, is a syllabic abbreviation formed from the name of its founder, Hans Riegel, and from the name of WHAT city where it was founded?
4) Of the 32 current teams in the National Hockey League, 21 have won the Stanley Cup: the Ducks, Bruins, Flames, Hurricanes, Blackhawks, Avalanche, Stars, Red Wings, Oilers, Kings, Canadiens, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Flyers, Penguins, Blues, Lightning, Maple Leafs, Capitals, and Golden Knights. Eleven have not: the Coyotes, Sabres, Blue Jackets, Panthers, Wild, Predators, Senators, Kraken, Canucks, and WHAT two other teams?
5) Several sources place the age of the Appalachian Mountains at around 480 million years, and the age of fossils of certain cyanobacteria at around 3.8 billion years old, which could cast doubt on the veracity of a claim made in the first verse of WHAT 1971 song, if taken literally?
6) Of the two dozen or so folks who have publicly declared that they are running for president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, WHICH person best fits within this newsletter’s theme? (Last name acceptable.)
Trivia Newsletter CLXXXII Recap
1) A chess variant listed at Lichess.org, the second-most-popular chess server in the world, has all of the rules of standard chess, except that a player can also win by moving their king to any of the spaces d4, d5, e4, or e5. WHAT is the name of this variant, also the name of a television show that aired from 1997 to 2010 (and that is being revived on Hulu)?
This is KING OF THE HILL.
There are a lot of chess variants, and they get weird. Many variants toy with the playing field, such as Chess Cubic:
The funniest chess variant is, as always, chess boxing:
The rules of chessboxing are such:
Two competitors face each other in 11 alternating rounds, six of chess, five of boxing. A bout begins with chess, which is played on a board placed directly in the middle of the ring. Each round of chess lasts four minutes. After each chess round, the bell sounds, and workmen remove the chessboard for a two-minute round of boxing, the gloves go back on, the punching recommences. Participants win by way of knockout, checkmate, referee's decision, or if his opponent exceeds the allotted total of 12 minutes for an entire match on the chessboard. Those are the basics, but they do little to answer the overriding question: Why?
2) Rabbi Joseph Telushkin once wrote that “[m]ost of the great women in the Bible either are married to a great man or related to one,” but that a rare exception to this pattern is WHAT woman, “perhaps the Bible’s greatest woman figure”? He adds that the only thing we know about her personal life is the name of her husband, Lapidot.
This is DEBORAH. For Jeopardy! purposes, try to remember that Deborah is discussed in the Book of Judges, that she is described as a prophetess and judge, and that her name comes from the Hebrew for “bee.” Scholars debate whether a person named Lapidot (or Lapidoth) is being named by the Bible, or whether such an interpretation is due to a faulty translation. Read a bit more about that here.
One way or another, you should also know that Deborah Harry and Chris Stein formed WHAT American new wave band that was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006? The answer’s at the end of this newsletter.1
3) The television show NCIS has been on the air since 2003 and has aired 457 episodes. That’s just over twice as many as the 227 episodes of WHAT show, of which NCIS is a spin-off and that was once described by The New York Times as a cross between Top Gun and A Few Good Men?
This is JAG. With twenty seasons, NCIS is the third-longest-running scripted, nonanimated U.S. primetime TV series currently airing, behind just Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order. The show continues to be a ratings monster, as far as network TV in 2023 goes:
Once again, both staple series and newcomers contributed to CBS’ audience victory, including NCIS, which held onto its crown as the most-watched scripted series of the television season with 9.86M viewers. However, the series lost about a million average viewers season-over-season, which speaks to the continued decline in broadcast viewership overall. In fact, excluding sports, the four most-watched programs of the season hailed from CBS, including FBI, Blue Bloods and Young Sheldon.
4) 2000 AD is a British sci-fi weekly anthology comic. The most famous character to come from 2000 AD by far is WHAT character, who has appeared in novels, video games, and perhaps most notably in a 1995 film and in a 2012 film?
This is JUDGE DREDD.
Here is a tidbit from the IMDB page for the 1995 film Judge Dredd, with Sylvester Stallone in the titular role:
In the Dredd comics, tradition dictates that Dredd does not take off his helmet, thus his face has mostly only fleetingly appeared in full, but the producers obviously would not allow an expensive performer, such as Sylvester Stallone, to never show his face clearly.
My head canon (hah) is that the same person wrote this note on the IMDB page for the 2012 film Dredd, with Karl Urban playing Dredd this time:
In a recent interview recollecting on this movie, Karl Urban said he refused to smile or take the helmet off at any point during the movie's filming or even in between takes. He spoke with an American accent and kept a scowl the whole time and stayed serious to keep in character. At one point, a cast member made a joke causing laughter on the set, and Urban gave him the 'Dredd' stare, prompting the person to immediately apologize.
5) More is known about the life of a woman named Oney than any other person with whom she was enslaved, as she gave several interviews to abolitionist newspapers in the 1840s. She lived most of her life in New Hampshire as a fugitive due to the first iteration of the Fugitive Slave Act, signed into law by WHAT person, from whom Oney escaped and who repeatedly wrote letters entreating others to recapture her?
This is GEORGE WASHINGTON. Here’s a link to those articles from the 1840s, and here’s an excerpt from a letter written by Washington, where he argues that he could not possibly free Oney (after her escape) because doing so would be unfair to the other folks he had enslaved who had not tried to escape:
I regret that the attempt you made to restore the girl (Oney Judge as she called herself while with us, and who, without the least provocation absconded from her Mistress) should have been attended with so little success. To enter into such a compromise, as she has suggested to you, is totally inadmissible, for reasons that must strike at first view: for however well disposed I might be to a gradual abolition, or even to an entire emancipation of that description of People (if the latter was in itself practicable at this Moment) it would neither be politic or just, to reward unfaithfulness with a premature preference; and thereby discontent, beforehand, the minds of all her fellow Servants; who by their steady adherence, are far more deserving than herself, of favor.
But let’s not let Washington get the last word here—instead, let’s turn to this historical marker in Philadelphia:
6) WHAT is the theme of this newsletter?
We were looking for JUDGE/JUDGES:
Question #1: King of the Hill is a show created by Mike Judge.
Question #2: Deborah is a judge, and is discussed in the Old Testament’s Book of Judges.
Question #3: JAG, and generally the term “JAG,” stands for Judge Advocate General.
Question #4: “Judge Dredd” is, well, a “judge.”
Question #5: Oney’s last name was Judge.
Newsletter Title: “Lines and Liens” are things a judge might decide—a “line judge” in a sports context, or the validity of liens (i.e., a claim against an asset that can be used to pay a debt, such as a mortgage against a house) in a legal context.
Question #6 Leaderboard
The Question #6 leaderboard can be viewed at this link. (We’re all caught up!)
Deborah Harry and Chris Stein are known for being in the band BLONDIE—one of their most notable songs is “One Way or Another,” which was a clue we gave you. Other Blondie songs include “Call Me” and “Heart of Glass.” We could have also asked you for Dagwood’s comic-strip wife and a term for a brownie made with vanilla in lieu of chocolate (both answers are Blondie).