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Trivia Bits Saturday, July 4
Little Letters: Kathryn Dawn Lang likes to spell her name with lower-case letters. Lang is also notable for appearing on the cover of the debut issue of two magazines. One of them was Entertainment Weekly, which was dated Feb. 16, 1990. The other …
Trivia Bits Friday, July 3
Keep Quiet: To hide his Jewish origins, Marcel Mangel changed his name to that of a French Revolution general, François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers. He became Marcel Marceau, the French mime who came to define the art form. His father, a kosher …
Trivia Bits Thursday, July 2
The Ebola virus is named for the Ebola River, in the D.R. Congo, where the virus spread to more than 55 villages in 1976. This probably ruined any tourism industry along the Ebola River. In fact, the Ebola virus is a lot like the Marburg virus, …
Trivia Bits Wednesday, July 1
Happy Canada Day: Our Canadian readers are celebrating Canada Day and probably not reading this column in their papers. Originally, it was called Dominion Day, because Britain promoted some of its colonies to a semi-independent status called …
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Trivia Bits, October 21Who was Charles Joseph Bonaparte, and why should you care about him? A grandnephew of Napoleon I, C.J. served in Teddy Roosevelt's cabinet as secretary of the Navy and attorney general. In the latter capacity, Mr. B. created the Bureau of Investigation in 1908, now known as the F.B.I. (Thanks to Ken Clark of Kent, Wash.)
Prime Time: In addition to England, the other nations through which the Earth's prime meridian of longitude passes through are France and Spain in Europe, and Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo and Ghana in Africa. The moon's prime meridian lies in the center of the side visible from Earth. Mars has one, too, defined by the crater Airy-0, which was named for a 19th-century Greenwich astronomer. Completed in 1942, Washington State's Grand Coulee Dam is the largest hydroelectric power facility and the largest concrete structure in the United States. A) A Native American leader B) A deep ravine C) A type of evergreen tree D) A snow-covered mountain Previous answer: According to the International Olympic Committee, Coca-Cola is the longest continuous corporate sponsor of the Olympic Games, since 1928. 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. COPYRIGHT 2008 STANLEY NEWMAN DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE
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