365 Days of Amazing Trivia! (2014)

Six—with at least one additional raven kept around as insurance. The tradition dates back to King Charles II in the late 17th century.



Wednesday, July 2, 2014

What Hollywood filmmaker was the first person to make a solo dive in a manned submarine to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench—6.8 miles below the ocean's surface?​
 
James Cameron, director of Titanic and The Abyss, in 2012. He made it to the floor of the trench's Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean in a custom-designed, torpedo-shaped sub, Deepsea Challenger. Only two others—Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy submariner Don Walsh—had made the manned dive before him. They did it together in 1960 in a bathysphere.



Thursday, July 3, 2014

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 2,300 people in the United States lived beyond their 100th birthday in 1950. What is the bureau's prediction for 2050?​
 
Thomas Jefferson, in 1801, when the executive mansion was called the President's House. Jefferson, the second president to live in the building that is now known as the White House, invited local citizens along with diplomats, government officials, military officers, and some Cherokee chiefs to enjoy refreshments indoors and horse races, cockfights, and other festivities outdoors.



Saturday, July 5, 2014

What is the name of the bird with the multicolored beak pictured on Froot Loops cereal boxes?​
 
Scientific fraud. The expression became part of the scientific lexicon as the result of a scam perpetrated in 1974 by American transplantation immunologist William Summerlin, who used a black permanent marker to darken patches of fur on white mice to support his claim that he had successfully grafted tissue from black mice onto white mice.



Monday, July 7, 2014

What unique reason did Singapore officials give for slapping an NC-17 rating—no children under 17—on a 2002 satirical comedy entitled Talking Cock: The Movie?​
 
"Bad grammar." It was the first time such a reason was given for an NC-17 rating. The film was made in Singlish, colloquial Singapore English that combines English with several Chinese dialects, Malay, and Tamil. Talking cock, is Singlish for "spouting nonsense."



Tuesday, July 8, 2014

How heavy is a set of the last printed edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 2010? Hint: It contains 32 volumes.​
 
Seabiscuit (2003) and War Horse (2011). Although Finder (aka Finder's Key) shared the title role in both films with other horses, he saw most of the key action.



Thursday, July 10, 2014

What was the primary use of jersey fabric before fabled fashion designer Coco Chanel began making women's sportswear with it?​
 
Only one. It's known as Beijing Time in China, and Chinese Standard Time internationally. The vast country had been divided into five time zones until the 1949 Civil War, when the newly established People's Republic of China adopted a one country/one time zone policy.



Saturday, July 12, 2014

What bodies in the solar system, other than planets, have been found to have moons?​
 
Asteroids. The first discovery of a natural satellite—or moon—orbiting an asteroid was made in 1993 by the spacecraft Galileo. The moon, which was named Dactyl, was orbiting asteroid Ida 243. A number of other asteroids have been found to have moons since then.



Sunday, July 13, 2014

At what annual sports event is a player given the title "Mr. Irrelevant"?​
 
At the National Football League Draft. The dubious distinction is bestowed upon the player who is selected last and has only a slim chance of making the roster of the team that picked him. With the title the last pick gets a week's vacation and banquet in Newport Beach, California, and a Lowsman Trophy, a statuette of a player fumbling a football.



Monday, July 14, 2014

What Pulitzer Prize-winning play, later made into a movie, was the inspiration for Thomas Hart Benton's sensuous 1948 painting Poker Night?​
 
Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, which was written under the working title The Poker Night. Benton based his painting on the third act poker scene in the original (1947) stage version of the play, which starred Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden. The painting had been commissioned as a gift for the producer Irene Selznick. The movie was made in 1951.



Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Why was a rock band's 1977 recording of "God Save the Queen" declared offensive and denied airtime by the BBC?​
 
The recording by the punk rock band Sex Pistols shared nothing but its title with the national anthem of the United Kingdom. Released during Queen Elizabeth II's silver jubilee, it called the British government a "fascist regime" and ranted, "God save the Queen/She ain't no human being/There is no future/In England's dreaming."



Wednesday, July 16, 2014

What cigarette was promoted in ads that proclaimed its smokers "would rather fight than switch"?​
 
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