Janice Anderson of Pleasant Hill, Calif., wants to know who invented the typewriter, and how the arrangement of keys was decided upon. Pennsylvania-born Christopher Sholes was the primary inventor of the first commercially successful typewriter, patented in 1868. The key arrangement is generally believed to have been designed to separate commonly used combinations of letters, to keep the machine from jamming.

When did people start naming hurricanes? According to the National Hurricane Center, West Indies hurricanes were named for the particular saint's day on which the storm occurred for hundreds of years, through the early 20th century. Later, latitude-longitude positions were used. The use of women's names became the practice during World War II, because of a storm named Maria in the 1941 novel "Storm" by George R. Stewart.

According to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the first use of the phrase "Evil Empire" is credited to:
A) A Ronald Reagan speech
B) The film "Star Wars"
C) An Isaac Asimov short story
D) A 1917 New York Times article

Previous answer: "Adjustable spanner" is the British term for a monkey wrench.

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.

Stanley Newman is the editor of the Newsday Crossword and author/editor of more than 125 books on crosswords, word games and trivia, including "15,003 Answers: The Ultimate Trivia Encyclopedia" (Random House). To find out more about Stanley Newman visit StanXwords.com, or e-mail him at StanTrivia@aol.com.
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