Trivia Bits from Creators Syndicate

Saturday, May 26 for 05/26/2012

Sat, 26 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Fritz Haber became the "father of chemical warfare" after he developed chlorine gas for the German army during World War I. It was considered a major step forward in military brutality. He also worked on an insecticide called Zyklon B. And here is where Haber?s life takes an ironic, tragic turn, because Zyklon B was also used in the concentration camps. And Haber was Jewish. He fled i ...

Updated: Sat May 26, 2012

Friday, May 25 for 05/25/2012

Fri, 25 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Many video games have cheat codes. The most famous is the Konami Code, which developer Kazuhisa Hashimoto created because he thought Gradius was impossible to play otherwise. There are variations, but it typically goes like this: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B A. Veteran gamers have it memorized and some websites offer "Easter eggs" when you enter the code.

Updated: Fri May 25, 2012

Thursday, May 24 for 05/24/2012

Thu, 24 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

During WWI, British munitions minister David Lloyd George met Chaim Weizmann in Manchester. Weizmann was working on synthetic rubber, and a byproduct of that process was acetone. The British military needed acetone because its supply from Europe was imperiled. And acetone was a critical component of cordite, used in explosives. Weizmann became the first prime minister of Israel, and some say th ...

Updated: Thu May 24, 2012

Wednesday, May 23 for 05/23/2012

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

You'd think young men have been giving their fiancÇes diamond rings for centuries. Perhaps, but it only became an Ironclad social rule after De Beers hired the ad agency NW Ayer & Son in 1939. They developed the slogan

"A Diamond is Forever" and discouraged brides from reselling the rings. It was also De Beers that decided men should spend a full month's salary on a ring, a ...

Updated: Wed May 23, 2012

Tuesday, May 22 for 05/22/2012

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

One of the world's most expensive paintings, in terms of auction price, is Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet. After van Gogh died, Paul Gachet planted a wormwood tree over his grave. The tree's roots ended up breaking into van Gogh's coffin. As if that weren't bad enough, wormwood is a source of thujone, which is found in the absinthe that contributed to van Gogh's suicide. Ultimately, ...

Updated: Tue May 22, 2012

Monday, May 21 for 05/21/2012

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

No, Abraham Lincoln didn't write the Gettysburg Address on the train ride there. In fact, there are five known original handwritten versions of the speech. Each one is named for the person to whom Lincoln gave it. Two of them went to his private secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay. Another went to Edward Evert, the actual headliner that day, and a fourth to historian George Bancroft. The only ...

Updated: Mon May 21, 2012

Saturday, May 19 for 05/19/2012

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

A sedative called thalidomide was supposed to help expecting mothers with their morning sickness. Instead, it produced birth defects called phocomelia, in which your limbs look like seal flippers. But not in the U.S. Despite enormous pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, an FDA official named Frances Kelsey refused to approve the drug. Only 17 babies were born with the thalidomide-related ...

Updated: Sat May 19, 2012

Friday, May 18 for 05/18/2012

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

How do you rebel when rebellion is mainstream? Straight edge punks do it by behaving well. They believe in total sobriety and don't smoke. Many are vegetarian or sexually abstinent. The movement was inspired by a band called Minor Threat, who had a song called Straight Edge, and its symbol is the X that many wore as youths, to indicate to bartenders that they couldn't buy alcohol at punk shows. ...

Updated: Fri May 18, 2012

Thursday, May 17 for 05/17/2012

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

We looked at some hobbies yesterday. Here's another. Philography is the collecting of autographs. But you need to be careful. There are a lot of fakes. And then there is the curse of autopen, which duplicates a signatory's arm and hand movements. Donald Rumsfeld used one to "sign" condolence letters to families of dead Iraq War soldiers. Margaret Atwood even became involved with a com ...

Updated: Thu May 17, 2012

Wednesday, May 16 for 05/16/2012

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Kids used to carry lunchboxes. Go back long enough and they carried metal ones, which apparently were super dangerous and got replaced by plastic ones. Lunchboxes really took off in 1950 when a company called Aladdin put Hopalong Cassidy on the box. It was the first hit featuring a licensed TV star. For collectors, the most valuable box was a 1954 collectible featuring Superman. It sold for mor ...

Updated: Wed May 16, 2012

Tuesday, May 15 for 05/15/2012

Tue, 15 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

After reading Dr. Ashley Montagu's treatise on "The Natural Superiority of Women," William Marston decided to create Wonder Woman, the first successful female superhero. That lasso must have been his favorite part. It compels the truth, and Marston also invented a lie detector. And lassos tie people up. Marston really liked that part. The early comics contained a suspiciously large nu ...

Updated: Tue May 15, 2012

Monday, May 14 for 05/14/2012

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Great Fire of London was great in some ways. It did destroy 13,000 homes, eliminating the ancient city but stopping short of Westminster. The 1666 fire also managed to scourge London of the plague that had ravaged it the year before. But it also burned so slowly that only five people actually died, two of whom had been on the scene when it started at Thomas Farynor's bakery on Pudding Lane. ...

Updated: Mon May 14, 2012

Saturday, May 12 for 05/12/2012

Sat, 12 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Get your 8-year-olds. Today, we're talking about farting astronauts. According to Boyle's Law, gases expand as pressure decreases. And that includes gases in the digestive system. As a result, high-altitude pilots and astronauts both have problems with abdominal cramps. What's especially scary about this, of course, is that your farts are made up of methane and hydrogen, both of which are quite ...

Updated: Sat May 12, 2012

Friday, May 11 for 05/11/2012

Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Protons and neutrons are made of quarks. Murray Gell-Mann originally called the quark a "quork," a nonsense word. But then he came across a line in "Finnegans Wake," by James Joyce that reads, "Three quarks for Muster Mark." The quark in this case appears to be a sound a gull makes. Either way, the new name stuck, although collaborator George Zweig wanted to call i ...

Updated: Fri May 11, 2012

Thursday, May 10 for 05/10/2012

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

After his career in the NBA, Wilt Chamberlain went on to play for the Orange County Stars, a team in the International Volleyball Association. He also served as the IVA's president. He so piqued interest in the sport that his participation in its all-star game got it televised. The league itself was co-ed and one team in El Paso played many of its games on the Mexican side of the border.

Updated: Thu May 10, 2012

Wednesday, May 9 for 05/09/2012

Wed, 09 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

No country in the Southern Hemisphere has hosted the Winter Olympics, and only one such country has won gold at the Winter Olympics. That would be Australia, which has won five, starting with Steven Bradbury's fluke win in short-track speed skating. In fact, although New Zealand has won a medal in Albertville, no African or South African country has ever won any Winter Olympic medal.

Updated: Wed May 09, 2012

Tuesday, May 8 for 05/08/2012

Tue, 08 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The guys in the prog rock band Yes were trawling YouTube when they came across Closer to the Edge, a Montreal tribute band that was performing their music. Most bands would call their lawyers. Instead, Yes offered lead singer Benoit David a job. He became their lead singer, replacing an ailing Jon Anderson, and even sang on the 2011 album "Fly From Here."

We cannot tell ...

Updated: Tue May 08, 2012

PAUL'S TRIVIABITS (TM) - DAILY for 05/07/2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

What talk show host's headstone in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery reads, "I will not be right back after this message"?

A) Johnny Carson

B) Mike Douglas

C) Merv Griffin

D) Jack Paar

Previous answer: Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane is Chevy Chase.

TRIVIA FANS: Send the trivia questions you've always wanted answered, or o ...

Updated: Mon May 07, 2012

Monday, May 7 for 05/07/2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

In 1650, two years after the Thirty Years War had wiped out the male population, the German city of Nuremburg decided to allow men to take up to 10 wives in an effort to get the repopulation moving. Moreover, men were forbidden to join monasteries, and both priests and nuns were allowed to marry. We assume things went well, since the city is still with us today. Today, you must get married in a ...

Updated: Mon May 07, 2012

PAUL'S TRIVIABITS (TM) - WEEKLY for 05/07/2012

Mon, 07 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Monday, May 7