Morocco was the first nation on Earth to recognize the United States as an independent country. The acknowledgement was made in 1777, largely at the request of the Continental Congress who wanted safety for American trading ships visiting the Moroccan port of Tangier. The official Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship was signed in 1786 and modified in 1836. It remains the longest unbroken treaty in U.S. history.

The Andrew Jackson equestrian statue that stands in Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C., isn't merely a heroic likeness of POTUS No. 7; it's a feat of engineering. It was the first equestrian statue in the world whose weight — all 15 tons of bronze — is balanced entirely on the horse's two back legs. Sculptor Clark Mills used his own horse as a model for Jackson's horse in battle, Duke.

Although rules have been relaxed a bit in recent years, it's traditional that women granted a private audience with the pope dress in demure black. That is, unless they happen to be Queen Sofia of Spain, Queen Paola of Belgium, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg, Princess Charlene of Monaco, Queen Mathilde of Belgium, Queen Letizia of Spain or Princess Marina of Naples. Those Catholic royals are permitted to invoke the Vatican tradition of "privilege du blanc" and dress in white to meet the pope.

Despite being the birthplace of Count Basie, Whitney Houston, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jon Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and Frank Sinatra, New Jersey is the only U.S. state that doesn't have an official state song. Apparently, Garden State lawmakers can't pick just one. They've tried many times over the years including in 2016, when a bill was proposed designating five separate songs (none by the above-named artists) as "official." The idea was voted down.

Most of the so-called trained seals that perform in circus acts aren't true seals; they're sea lions. There are three ways to tell. True seals don't have earflaps; sea lions do. True seals have smaller front flippers and belly-crawl on land; sea lions have stronger front flippers and flexible hind flippers that let them "walk" on land. True seals making relatively quiet grunting noises; sea lions bark and bellow.

Bradley Cooper holds the rare distinction of having appeared on the Bravo TV series "Inside the Actors Studio" as a student audience member and, years later, as an interview subject. He can be seen in episodes of season five, which aired in 1999, asking questions of Sean Penn and Robert De Niro. In season 17, which aired in 2011, students were asking Cooper questions.

TRIVIA

1. Which body of water separates Morocco and Spain?

A) Bay of Biscay

B) Dardanelles

C) Strait of Gibraltar

D) Strait of Messina

2. What made Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn newsworthy in 1981?

A) American hostages freed from Iran

B) Eurovision song contest winners

C) First MTV veejays

D) Space Shuttle Columbia astronauts

3. Who was the first woman to run for vice president of the United States on a major party ticket?

A) Shirley Chisholm

B) Geraldine Ferraro

C) Winona LaDuke

D) Sarah Palin

4. Which performers are the subjects of the Broadway musical "Jersey Boys"?

A) The Drifters

B) Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

C) Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

D) Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

5. The Grammy-winning song "Kiss From a Rose" by Seal was featured in which 1995 movie?

A) "Batman Forever"

B) "Clueless"

C) "GoldenEye"

D) "Pocahontas"

6. A cooper is a person who makes what?

A) Barrels

B) Hats

C) Perfume

D) Whiskey

ANSWERS

1. The Strait of Gibraltar separates Morocco and Spain.

2. Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn were the first MTV veejays.

3. Democrat Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman to be a vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket.

4. "Jersey Boys" is a jukebox musical about Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons.

5. "Kiss From a Rose" was a hit from the "Batman Forever" soundtrack.

6. A cooper makes barrels.

WEEK OF JULY 8

Although we call all Olympic first-place finishers gold medalists, no gold medals were awarded at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896. First-place finishers received a silver medal, an olive branch and a diploma. Second-place finishers received a bronze medal, a laurel branch and a diploma. The first time athletes received gold medals for first place, silver for second and bronze for third was at the 1904 St. Louis games.

The design for Norman Bates' house in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" came from a 1925 painting by Edward Hopper called "House By the Railroad." (The real house that Hopper painted is in Haverstraw, New York.) But that wasn't the only instance of Hitchcock's film imitating Hopper's art. Paintings Hopper made in New York City, such as "Night Windows" and "Room in New York," inspired the look and feel of Hitchcock's "Rear Window."

A "kangaroo ticket" refers to a presidential campaign in which the vice presidential nominee has more political clout — or kick — than the presidential nominee. The expression might date to 1844, when James K. Polk was the Democratic presidential nominee and New York Senator Silas Wright was selected by the party as his running mate. Critics claimed that pair's strength would be in its VP nominee — its hind legs (so to speak). Wright declined the nomination, and Polk won without him.

Everybody knows butterscotch, but no one knows where it came from. Origins in Scotland would account for the "scotch" part of its name, but butterscotch could just as well have come from England. As early as 1854, a candy importer in Chicago was advertising "London Butterscotch" candy "for the cure of coughs." Then again, the idea of mixing hot butter and sugar with a dash of lemon juice or vanilla might have occurred to cooks in other countries even earlier. And aren't you glad it did?

Lake retention time is the average length of time that water or substances such as pollutants remain in a lake. Some lakes "flush" themselves in a matter of days: Precipitation, runoff and groundwater sources bring water in; evaporation and subterranean channels carry it out. Large lakes with minimal drainage have long retention times. For Lake George in New York State, retention time is eight to nine years. For Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes, it's more than 170 years. For Lake Tahoe, it's about 700 years.

The Delahantys were the biggest band of brothers ever to play Major League Baseball. Five of them — Ed, Tom, Joe, Jim and Frank — had big-league contracts, and a sixth brother, Will, suffered a career-ending injury in the minors. "Big Ed," the eldest, was the standout. He batted above .400 two times and .399 once, with a batting average of .346 over his 16-year career. Midseason in 1903, at age 35, he mysteriously fell to his death from a bridge spanning Niagara Falls.

TRIVIA

1. Which country is the world's largest producer of olive oil?

A) Greece

B) Italy

C) Spain

D) Tunisia

2. In what year did Microsoft released Windows 1.0?

A) 1965

B) 1975

C) 1985

D) 1995

3. What's the name for an infant marsupial, such as a kangaroo?

A) Joey

B) Kit

C) Phoebe

D) Pup

4. "I Want Candy" was a U.S. hit in 1982 for which pop group?

A) Bow Wow Wow

B) Duran Duran

C) Talk Talk

D) Wet Wet Wet

5. Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, is in what country?

A) Canada

B) China

C) Kenya

D) Russia

6. Who was the first Major League Baseball player to have his jersey number (4) retired?

A) Luke Appling

B) Lou Gehrig

C) Mel Ott

D) Duke Snider

ANSWERS

1) Spain is the world's largest producer of olive oil.

2) Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released in 1985.

3) Infant marsupials are known as joeys.

4) Bow Wow Wow hit the U.S. charts with "I Want Candy" in 1982.

5) Lake Baikal, the world's deepest lake, is in Russia.

6) Lou Gehrig's No. 4 was retired by the New York Yankees in 1939.

WEEK OF JULY 15

They didn't agree on everything, but a love of opera is something Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had in common with her late colleague and friend Justice Antonin Scalia. Even their eloquent disagreements about the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution had dramatic flair and operatic passion. In fact, the one-act opera "Scalia/Ginsburg" by Derrick Wang uses text from their Supreme Court opinions in its libretto.

The Dark Hedges is an avenue of beech trees planted in the 18th century in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. As the trees grew they formed a weird, gnarled canopy that made them a tourist attraction and a natural filming location for the weird, gnarled HBO series "Game of Thrones" (specifically season two, episode one). When a storm took down some of the trees in January 2016, the wood was salvaged and carved into GOT-themed doors that have been placed on pubs, cafes and inns across Northern Ireland.

There are more than 300 geysers in Yellowstone National Park including "Old Faithful," which is the one most park visitors want to see. Old Faithful is awfully famous, but you could argue that the best-known geyser in the world is Geysir in Iceland. Its name comes from the Icelandic word "geysa" meaning "to gush," and it's the source of the English word "geyser."

On October 21, 1928, 17-year-old aviator Elinor Smith flew her Waco biplane under the four bridges that span New York City's East River. That bit of daredevil flying (by a teenage girl, no less!) made her a national celebrity. She went on to set endurance and altitude records for female flyers, and in 1934 she became the first woman to have her photo on a Wheaties box.

The first barcode scanned at a supermarket was on a multipack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum. That revolutionary event happened at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, on June 26, 1974. Today, barcodes are used to identify everything from cans of soup in the supermarket to babies in the maternity ward, and that old package of Juicy Fruit is believed to reside in the archives of the Smithsonian.

There have been quite a few productions of Shakespeare's works in the past several years starring women in traditionally male roles (the recent Broadway production starring Glenda Jackson as King Lear, for example). This isn't a 21st-century conceit; it's been done for centuries. Sarah Bernhardt's performances of "Hamlet" onstage in 1899 and on film in 1900 merely followed in the footsteps of Charlotte Charke, who played the Prince of Denmark in the mid-1700s. Other actresses chose other roles, such as Eliza Winstanley, who played Richard III on the Australian stage in 1842.

TRIVIA

1. Of the current U.S. Supreme Court justices, who has served the longest?

A) Stephen G. Breyer

B) Ruth Bader Ginsburg

C) Sonia Sotomayor

D) Clarence Thomas

2. "Game of Thrones" author George R.R. Martin owns what type of business in Santa Fe, New Mexico?

A) Car wash

B) Hardware store

C) Movie theater

D) Restaurant

3. Artist Marco Evaristti was fined for doing what to a geyser in Iceland?

A) Dyeing it pink

B) Dynamiting it

C) Swimming in it

D) Wrapping it in cellophane

4. Among Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's best-known works is the interlude called "The Flight of the..." what?

A) Bumblebee

B) Conchords

C) Hummingbird

D) Valkyries

5. An ISBN is a numeric identifier assigned to what type of product?

A) Automobile

B) Book

C) Cheese

D) Clothing

6. The Rainbow Bridge connects cities in the U.S. and Canada that share what name?

A) Edmonton

B) New Brunswick

C) Niagara Falls

D) Vancouver

ANSWERS

1) Appointed in 1991, Clarence Thomas is the longest-serving current Supreme Court justice.

2) George R.R. Martin owns the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

3) Marco Evaristti was fined for turning the Strokkur geyser pink with food coloring.

4) The two-minute "Flight of the Bumblebee" is among Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's best-known compositions.

5) ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number; it's used to identify books.

6) The Rainbow Bridge connects Niagara Falls, Canada, with Niagara Falls, New York.

WEEK OF JULY 22

Cosmochemistry is the study of the chemical composition of the universe and how it came to be. The field originated in the 1930s, long before space missions started collecting samples of moon rocks and space dust. Helpfully, the universe regularly deposits extraterrestrial matter on Earth in the form of meteorites — and it's been doing so since time began. Cosmochemistry researchers don't have to leave their home planet to find plenty to study.

The Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina, contains an early-model Zenith TV with remote control. It was a gift from the president of Zenith Corporation, a personal friend of Sandburg's. While the great American poet admitted he enjoyed some television programs — Groucho Marx was a favorite — mostly he thought TV was a waste of time. Luckily, the TV's Space Commander 400 remote control had a mute button, one of the first of its kind.

Mata Hari, the infamous World War I German spy, was actually a Dutch woman called Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. Her colorful life included a career as an exotic dancer and liaisons with influential men that gave her access to information. She was convicted of espionage and executed by firing squad in 1917, although there was no hard evidence against her. There is, however, convincing evidence that the French intelligence officer who accused her was a German spy himself!

The oldest known nuclear reactor on Earth is not manmade. It's the product of unusual circumstances around 1.5 billion years ago near present-day Franceville, Gabon, where the composition of the uranium in the earth and the absence of elements that inhibit nuclear reactions created perfect conditions for natural nuclear fission. Nuclear technicians discovered the anomaly in 1972 while examining uranium samples from the Oklo Mines in Gabon.

Roald Dahl's book "Matilda" is the story of a smart, wonderful girl surrounded by horrible adults. But that's not the story Dahl originally intended to tell. In his first draft of the book, Matilda Wormwood was absolutely awful — so evil that Dahl's editor asked him to reconsider her character. Dahl eventually agreed and gave the story a complete revision.

The Xerces Society is an environmental conservation group that focuses on invertebrate wildlife — bugs, worms, moths, clams, crabs, etc. Founded in 1971, it's named for the Xerces blue butterfly, the first North American butterfly to become extinct because of human activities. The last known Xerces blue butterfly fluttered by in 1941.

TRIVIA

1. Which characteristic describes most meteorites?

A) Chalky

B) Metallic

C) Radioactive

D) Round

2. Poet Carl Sandburg called Chicago "City of the Big ..." what?

A) Appetite

B) Heart

C) Ideas

D) Shoulders

3. Since 1961, the comic strip "Spy vs. Spy" has appeared in which publication?

A) Mad

B) National Lampoon

C) National Review

D) Reason

4. Chemical elements have been named for Uranus and which of these planets?

A) Jupiter

B) Mars

C) Neptune

D) Venus

5. In the Australian folk song "Waltzing Matilda," what is Matilda?

A) A bundle of belongings

B) A type of flute

C) A wallaby

D) A missing woman

6. King Xerxes I built the Gate of All Nations in which ancient capital of Persia?

A) Damascus

B) Isfahan

C) Persepolis

D) Tabriz

ANSWERS

1) Most meteorites are metallic, with high iron and nickel content.

2) Carl Sandburg called Chicago the "City of the Big Shoulders."

3) "Spy vs. Spy" is a long-running comic strip in Mad magazine.

4) The chemical element Neptunium is named for the planet Neptune.

5) The Matilda in "Waltzing Matilda" is a bundle of belongings.

6) Xerxes I built the Gate of All Nations in Persepolis, capital of ancient Persia.

WEEK OF JULY 29

There were just five individual track and field events for women at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Mildred "Babe" Didrikson qualified to compete in all of them, but Olympic rules limited female athletes to three. So, she skipped the 100 meters and the discus. Then she took gold in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin, setting new world records in both. In the high jump, she tied with her teammate Jean Shiley but took silver after a tie-breaking "jump off."

Ancient Egyptians loved watermelon. We know because watermelons were depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and watermelon seeds have been found in ancient tombs, including King Tut's. Although watermelons originated in the Kalahari Desert region of southern Africa — and the sweet ones we eat today originated in West Africa — they'd reached Egypt at least 5,000 years ago.

Ladies in Victorian England were fond of making and wearing ornaments of real human hair — either their own or that of a friend or loved one, possibly deceased. In an issue of The Lady's Newspaper from 1849, a Mr. George Dewdney, "artist in hair," advertised his services manufacturing hair bracelets "beautifully made and mounted in fine gold" for a price of 7 shillings each.

"Jersey Shore" was just the start of MTV's "Shore" franchise. Viewers in Latin America have the privilege of seeing "Acapulco Shore." MTV Spain delivered "Gandia Shore" set on the Mediterranean coast. In Poland there was "Warsaw Shore," where the closest shore is beside the Vistula River. Viewers in the U.K. have "Geordie Shore" set in Newcastle upon Tyne. (Geordie is a nickname for the people and dialect of North East England.)

The video for Duran Duran's smash hit "Rio" was filmed in Antigua, a Caribbean island about 3,000 miles from Rio de Janeiro. The model in the video is Reema Ruspoli. She went on to marry an Italian prince. And the yacht in the video is the Eilean. It was restored in 2007 and is still sailing today.

The European principality of Monaco, population slightly less than 31,000, has the highest life expectancy at birth of any country in the world: 89.4 years, according to the CIA World Factbook. The African nation of Chad, with 15.8 million people, has the lowest life expectancy: 50.6 years. On the list of 224 countries analyzed, the United States ranks No. 43, with a life expectancy at birth of 80 years.

TRIVIA

1. Anti-doping rules were in effect for the first time at which Olympic games?

A) Berlin 1936

B) Helsinki 1952

C) Mexico City 1968

D) Moscow 1980

2. In 2003, watermelon and raspberry replaced which two flavors in the Life Savers Five Flavors roll?

A) Lemon and lime

B) Lime and pineapple

C) Lime and orange

D) Orange and pineapple

3. What makes Selkirk Rex cats unusual?

A) They all have blue eyes

B) They all have curly coats

C) They are naturally tailless

D) They have black tongues

4. Which country has the most miles of coastline?

A) Australia

B) The Bahamas

C) Canada

D) Chile

5. Sir Isaac Vivian Alexander Richards, better known as Viv Richards, is an Antiguan famous for doing what?

A) Creating a new pineapple hybrid

B) Inventing a water desalination system

C) Playing cricket

D) Writing the Antiguan national anthem

6. H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco has competed at five Olympic games in which sport?

A) Alpine skiing

B) Bobsleigh

C) Equestrian

D) Sailing

ANSWERS

1) The 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City marked the first time Olympic athletes were tested for performance-enhancing substances.

2) Watermelon and raspberry replaced lemon and lime in the Life Savers Five Flavors roll.

3) Selkirk Rex cats are unusual because they have curly coats.

4) Canada is the country with the most miles of coastline.

5) Viv Richards is among the top cricket batsmen of all time.

6) H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco has competed in the Olympic bobsleigh.

TRIVIA FANS: Leslie Elman is the author of "Weird But True: 200 Astounding, Outrageous and Totally Off the Wall Facts." Contact her at [email protected].