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Trivia Bits by Stan Newman

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  • Trivia Bits, July 24
    Eponym of the week: Clyde Vernon Cessna. Previously an automobile dealer, he built his first airplane in 1911, eight years after the Wright brothers' first flight. In the 1920s and 1930s, his companies became leading manufacturers of personal …

  • Trivia Bits, July 23
    Thanks to intrepid Trivia Detective Sher Garfield of Bellevue, Wash., who passed along these additional common phrases, each of which has exactly one occurrence of each of the five vowels: house paint, peanut oil, freaking out, and milk moustache. …

  • Trivia Bits, July 22
    Who is Sergei Krikalev, and why should you care about him? This cosmonaut, the veteran of six space flights, has spent a total of 803 days in space, more than any other human being. Because Krikalev was aboard the Mir space station when the Soviet …

  • Trivia Bits, July 21
    Word of the week: "ideo locator." It is the dot or arrow that appears on tourist maps with the words "you are here." It's apparently uncertain whether the "ideo" part is derived from the Greek "idio-" (meaning …

Trivia Bits, May 13

Frank Nieman of Pleasant Hill, Calif., thought he remembered hearing the 1961 Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer tune "Moon River" on a 1940s radio show in Cincinnati and asked us to check into it. Our research revealed that Cincinnati's WLW had a poetry-reading program called "Moon River" back then, but its theme song started with, "Moon River, a lazy stream of dreams," and had a completely different melody.

The Curse of Billy Penn: Since the 1987 construction of Philadelphia's One Liberty Place, which exceeded the height of William Penn's statue atop City Hall, none of the city's major sports teams has won a championship. Last June, Philly's new Comcast Center was topped out as the city's tallest building.
In an effort to lift the curse, workers attached a small statue of Penn to the building's final beam. Will it help? As they say, it couldn't hurt.

With three incumbent U.S. senators in the running for the presidency as of this writing, we offer this relevant question: How many incumbent U.S. senators were elected president in the last 100 years, that is, from 1908 until now?
A) None
B) 2
C) 4
D) 7

Previous answer: Scottish-born Mungo Park was an explorer of Africa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

TRIVIA FANS: Send the trivia questions you've always wanted answered, or original TriviaBits ideas of your own, with your full name and hometown, to Stan Newman at StanTrivia@aol.com or on a postcard to P.O. Box 69, Massapequa Park, NY 11762.



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Originally Published on Tuesday May 13, 2008

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Click on the title to read Stanley Newman's article from Newsday, "Exercise Your Puzzle Muscles", which explores the ways that puzzles can keep you mentally fit as you age.

Also, see the Editors's Note from this edition of Newsday recounting the history of the Newsday crossword puzzle and Stanley Newman's pivotal role in revolutionizing it.
 
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