Happy Prime New Year!

2017 should be a prime year for trivia or whatever else you're into in life, because 2017 is a prime number. 2011 was the last year that was a prime number, and we won't have one again until 2027, so savor this prime year like it's a delicious prime rib. Or, if you're vegan, binge-watch Transformers and savor some Optimus Prime.

On with the quiz. Name the year these events happened. In each case, the year is also a prime number...

1. George Washington inaugurated as the first U.S. President

2. The original King Kong movie is released

3. Jamestown colony founded

4. Pan-American exposition opens in Buffalo, New York

5. South Park debuts on American TV

6. An earthquake and tsunami lead to a nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan

7. Partial core meltdown occurs at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania

8. The Simpsons make their first appearance on American TV

9. NAFTA signed into law

10. Eiffel Tower opened to the public

11. John Elway wins Super Bowl MVP, retires

12. The Human Genome Project is completed

13. George Steinbrenner buys the New York Yankees (from CBS!) (for $10 million!)

14. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg tried for espionage and sentenced to death

15. "The Star-Spangled Banner" becomes the national anthem of the United States

16. The deadliest fire in U.S. history kills at least 1,500 in and around Peshtigo, Wisconsin, the same day as the Great Chicago Fire

17. The first NASCAR race is run, the first Emmy Awards are awarded, the first round-the-world flight is completed and the first monkey is launched into space

18. Levi Strauss and Co. begin manufacturing Levi's jeans, the first Preakness Stakes is run,  the Heineken Brewery, and, ironically, the Women's Christian Temperance Union are both founded

19. The first Wimbledon tournament is held, the first Westminster Kennel Club show is held, and a President who won the Electoral College but not the popular vote is inaugurated

Sure, I could go for 20, but 19 is a prime number, so that's a prime excuse for me to close this one out. Watch for trivia nuggets on Twitter (@TriviaRoad) and various quizzes and articles here at the blog.

1. 1789
2. 1933
3. 1607
4. 1901 (McKinley was assassinated there)
5. 1997
6. 2011
7. 1979. Yipes, prime number years seem very ripe for nuclear accidents!
8. 1987 (On The Tracey Ullman Show)
9. 1993
10. 1889
11. 1999
12. 2003
13. 1973
14. 1951
15. 1931
16. 1871
17. 1949
18. 1873
19. 1877 (Rutherford B. Hayes)

Roll call: Women world leaders

After extensive consultations with the CIA World Factbook and Google, I count
14 countries currently led by women. The roll call:

1. Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh. Prime Minister since 2009, currently in her third term. She's #10 on Fortune magazine's list of "The World's 50 Greatest Leaders", which loses a lot of its shine when you see she's right ahead of... Nick Saban, and four behind... John Legend. Bangladesh has been led by one of two women, either Sheikh Hasina or Khaleda Zia, continuously since 1991.

2. Michelle Bachelet, Chile. President from 2006-2010 and 2014-present. Chile does not allow its President to serve consecutive terms. Her popularity rating plunged in 2015 after her son and his wife were accused of using political influence to get a $10 million bank loan they used to flip a property to earn millions of dollars in just a few weeks. I believe we would call that "Whitewater" in the U.S.

3. Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Croatia. President since 2015. Croatia's first woman president and its youngest (46). She's a graduate of... Los Alamos High School in New Mexico. She was an exchange student. Googling her name quickly pops up a bunch of swimsuit photos that aren't her; they're actually of Coco Austin (married to "Ice-T").

4. Angela Merkel, Germany. The current longest incumbent woman leader, chancellor of Germany since 2005. She and her husband are both quantum chemists. She's second on Fortune's "World's 50 Greatest Leaders", so she at least beat out John Legend. Not Jeff Bezos, though.

5. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia. President since 2006, now in her second term. Liberia's president serves a six-year term and is limited to being renewed once. One of three women awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

6. Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuania. President since 2009, now in her second term. She is the first Lithuanian president to be re-elected and reportedly has a black belt in karate. She is joined by President Park of South Korea and President Tsai of Taiwan in the even more exclusive club of never-married women world leaders.

7. Hilda Heine, Marshall Islands. Elected President January 27th, and since they don't waste time in the Marshall Islands, was sworn into office January 28th. Makes sense, she ran unopposed. Wikipedia says she is the first person from her country to achieve a doctorate. She earned her doctor's in education from USC in 2004.

8. Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar. State Counsellor since April 6th. Her fight to bring democracy to Myanmar goes back to 1988, and she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. So the military government rewrote the country's constitution in 2008 in a way that made her ineligible to be President. Despite that, throughout the 2015 election campaign, Suu Kyi made it clear she would be the leader of the country if her party won. It did, sweeping the old military government out of power in a landslide, and creating the office of State Counsellor, essentially a prime ministerial role, for her. Legally she answers to the President, but it's pretty obvious who's really in charge in Nay Pyi Taw.

9. Nepal, Bidhya Devi Bandhari. President since 2015. The CIA's list of Chiefs of State misspells her first name. (It also lists the wrong leader of Trinidad and Tobago, if anyone cares.) Nepal was a monarchy up until 2008, when it became a republic. Bandhari served in Nepal's parliament and was the republic's first defense minister.

10. Norway, Erna Solberg. Prime Minister since 2013. She's been the leader of Norway's Conservative Party since 2004. Keep an eye out, though - difficulties negotiating Norway's budget could lead to her seeking a vote of confidence from Parliament this weekend, which could have the potential to force her out of office.

11. Poland, Beata Szydlo. Prime Minister since 2015, but maybe not a world leader. She holds the office regarded as Poland's most powerful, but much like Myanmar, the majority party leader is probably more powerful than the country's titular leader. And rumor has it that Poland's majority leader wants to replace Szydlo as prime minister with... himself. Szydlo grew up in coal mining country, near the town of Brzeszcze, which reminds me that 'Z' probably isn't worth 10 points in Polish Scrabble.

12. South Korea, Park Geun-hye. President since 2013. How much longer, though, is hard to say. There have been mass demonstrations in Seoul for weeks demanding that she step down. She's accused of letting a long-time friend interfere in state affairs, which includes giving her improper access to confidential government documents and letting her shake down corporations into donating millions of dollars to her. This "friend", Choi Soon-sil, has also been accused of embezzling the President's entire wardrobe allowance, which is kind of sad. Adding a little Nancy Reagan to the this controversy's Hillary Clinton vibe, Choi is the daughter of a former cult leader who consulted Park's father when he was President and is said to have played a large role in raising her.

13. Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen. President since May 20th. She's a law professor whose cats, Cookie and A-Tsai, were featured in her campaign. Possibly for diversity's sake, she adopted three dogs upon becoming President.

14. United Kingdom, Theresa May. Prime Minister since July 13th. To the best of my ability to tell, she is the world's most powerful type 1 diabetic. (Second? Sonia Sotomayor.) She met her husband while both were students at Oxford, and it's said they were introduced by fellow student/future Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

14 women-led countries is down from 18 a couple of years ago. We'll keep an eye on the state of women heads of state here at Trivia Road until the distinction becomes, rightly, a little less trivial.

-$-

Trump stumpers

History was going to be made Tuesday night no matter who won. Guessing Hillary Clinton would win, I had started tweeting trivia about women world leaders. Last night interrupted that flow, but Donald Trump made plenty of history by winning. Let's see how much of that history you know:

1. At age 70, Trump becomes the oldest candidate elected to a first term as President. Whose mark did he break?

2. Trump is the first man elected President without previously either holding a political office or serving in the military. Who's the last President to be elected without previously holding political office?

3. The Republicans have won control of the House, Senate and White House at the same time for the first time since what year? (Hint: Al Smith lost the Presidential election)

4. Trump became the first Republican candidate to win Michigan and Pennsylvania since what year?

5.  It is estimated that Hillary Clinton will win the national popular vote once all the votes are tallied. Who are the other three candidates to win the popular vote but lose in the Electoral College?

6. Trump will be the second President who has been divorced (twice in his case). Who was the first?

7. Trump will be the 5th President born in New York state. Who was the most recent?

8. And he's the second President born in New York City. Who was first?

9. Melania Trump becomes the second First Lady who was born outside the United States. Who was first?

10. Easy finisher: Mike Pence will be the first Vice-President from Indiana since who?

Sorry I've gotten lazy and hidden all the quiz answers under one button. If the button doesn't work, you may need to click the title of this post to view it individually and try it again.

1. Ronald Reagan, who was 69 when he was elected in 1980. I'm seeing this question poorly phrased around the web; Reagan was elected again, in 1984, when he was 73. That's the record for oldest elected President.
2. Dwight Eisenhower
3. 1928; Herbert Hoover won. No, it didn't go well.
4. 1988 was the last election the GOP won either state. They also "flipped" Wisconsin this election, for the first time since 1984.
5. Samuel Tilden (1876); Grover Cleveland (1888), and, of course, Al Gore (2000). In 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and received the most Electoral College votes, but in a four-man race, he didn't accumulate enough to secure victory. The election went to the House of Representatives, which elected John Quincy Adams.
6. Reagan
7. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
8. Theodore Roosevelt
9. Louisa Adams, the wife of sixth President John Quincy Adams, was born in London.
10. Dan Quayle

Non-scientific election predictors

Are you stressing out over the results of Tuesday's impending Presidential election? If so, I will gently suggest to you to "get a life". There are many things on TV preferable to the conclusion of the steaming heap of dung that has been dumped on us over the past 18 months. Here, I picked out some:

NBA TV (6:00 Central): NBA doubleheader, Hawks vs. Cavaliers, Pelicans vs. Kings
USA (7:00-9:00): WWE Smackdown Live
TBS (6:00-11:00): Big Bang Theory binge-a-thon
FXX (7:00-11:00): The Simpsons binge-a-thon
Logo (12:30 p.m.-3 a.m. Wednesday): Three's Company marathon
Animal Planet (2:00 p.m.-4 a.m. Wednesday): Too Cute! marathon. They have a one-minute "Election 2016" listing at 7 p.m., but that's more likely puppies vs. kittens than criminal vs. other criminal.

So, there, anyway, something for everyone, and that barely scratches all your TV alternatives to Tuesday night election coverage, let alone turn off the TV and read a book, go out to a movie, a concert, work out, listen to podcasts, read entrancing-if-rarely-updated trivia blogs, etc. There's also a Cops binge-a-thon on WGN if you'd like an uplifting look into the civic dedication of some of your fellow eligible voters. Or, why not just Netflix and chill? (Note: this column is not sponsored by Netflix.)

Besides, why waste your evening getting your election news from some well-coifed talking head in a TV studio, when you can take it from some of America's trusted election omens? Like:

1. The Washington Redskins.
The Redskins Rule, with a couple of caveats, says the party that controls the White House will retain it if the Redskins win their last home game before the election. This "rule" worked from 1948, the year the Redskins moved from Boston, till 2000. It had to be slightly rewritten (I'll skip that here) to work in 2004, and worked in 2008, but President Obama broke it in 2012, winning re-election despite the Redskins losing their pre-election home game.

2. Schoolkids.
Polls of kids by magazines aimed at them have been eerily accurate for a remarkably long time. The Scholastic publishing company has polled Scholastic News student readers for their Presidential preference since 1940; they've picked the winner 90% of the time, wrong only in 1948 and 1960. Weekly Reader started polling kids in 1956 and was right every time but 1992, a 92% hit rate. Scholastic bought Weekly Reader in 2012 and shut it down (boo!), which could make this year's Scholastic News poll a very strong election omen.

3. Cookies.
Family Circle magazine has held a contest pitting cookie recipes submitted by each First Lady "candidate" since 1992, which has matched the winner of the Presidential election 5 times out of 6. This really appears to be a confirmation that Americans like chocolate chip cookies more than other cookies. The winner is usually a chocolate chip cookie. Michelle Obama lost in 2008 with a shortbread recipe (who thought that would win?); taking no chances, in 2012, she submitted a chocolate chip cookie. As if to reinforce how recycled one of the major candidates is, 2016 has brought the same oatmeal chocolate chip cookie the Clinton camp won with in 1992 and 1996. I thought she didn't stay home and bake cookies?

4. Coffee cups.
7-11 has had an election season promotion since 2000; you can buy a red cup to show you're backing the GOP candidate, a blue cup for the Democrat. This has predicted the President all four times it's been done.

5. The Alabama-LSU football game.
Since 1984, the Presidential winner and the winner of this game have gone hand-in-hand. The game is usually played right around the election, though not always before. In 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012, Alabama beat LSU and the Democrats won the White House; in 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004, LSU beat 'Bama and the GOP won the White House.

So, who's going to win?
1. The Redskins' last home game was a 27-20 win over the Eagles, pointing to the incumbents holding the White House. Projected winner: Hillary Clinton.

2. The Scholastic News election for 2016 picked Hillary Clinton 52% to 35% over Donald Trump. A small caveat: Forbes magazine reports Kanye West, Harambe, Spiderman and bacon each received 1% of the vote of 153,000 students. Over 1,500 kids specifically voted for bacon for President? Something doesn't smell right there. Then again, I also would vote for bacon over either major candidate. Mmm, bacon. Predicted winner: Hillary Clinton.

3. Hillary's recycled oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe crushed Melania Trump's sugar cookie recipe, 1,623 Facebook likes to 535. Predicted winner: chocolate chips. Er, Hillary Clinton.

4. The current 7-11 coffee cup vote is actually pretty awesome, because for the first time this year, there is a purple cup option for none of the above. Current results: purple 39%, blue 31%, red 29%. I doubt that translates to a shock victory for Gary Johnson, though. Projected winner: Hillary Clinton.

5. We'll have to find out about the Alabama-LSU game tonight, but let's just say it's looking pretty good for 'Bama if you believe in these kind of things.

Note: there is also an election predictor based on Halloween mask sales that has been correct each election since tracking started in 1996. It appears that omen went Donald Trump's way this year. I failed to find a very good source I could include here.

Sorry that I have turned Trivia Road into an abandoned road the past five months. I hope to contribute here in quiz form or long form (or, as today, loooooooong form) much more regularly and also tweet out a trivia fact of the day at @TriviaRoad on Twitter. I've started with daily facts about women world leaders, and already gotten pranked by an Angela Merkel parody account, so I'm off to a rollicking start.

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Party like it's 1899

Happy Memorial Day. Trivia Road dedicates today's quiz to Emma Morano of Pallanza, Italy. Not only is Emma 116 years old, and not only is she the world's oldest living person, (a distinction she gained about three weeks ago) she is also believed to be the last living person in the world born in the 1800s. She was born November 29th, 1899. Among Emma's secrets to longevity: thinking positively about the future, eating three raw eggs a day and remaining single since 1938.


Emma's longevity is impressive in historical perspective. She was born during the McKinley administration. The Spanish-American War and Second Boer War were fought during her birth year. Marconi broadcast the first radio signal across the English Channel in 1899.

Emma's also outlived an impressive roster of famous individuals also born in 1899. Hey, that would be a good topic for a quiz! Identify these people born in 1899:


1. d. 1957, he won his only Oscar for his portrayal of Capt. Charlie Allnut

Humphrey Bogart

2. d. 1961, this author's home in Key West, Fla. is still known for its colony of polydactyl cats

Ernest Hemingway

3. d. 1974, this bandleader has a bridge in Washington D.C. named for him, and he's on the back of the District of Columbia quarter

Duke Ellington

4. d. 1980, this director appears in some of his own films carrying a violin case, a double bass case, a trumpet case or two Sealyham terriers

Alfred Hitchcock

5. d. 1985, he authored a writing style guide with William Strunk in 1918 and wrote classic children's novels in 1945 and 1952

E.B. White, who wrote Stuart Little in 1945 and Charlotte's Web in 1952

6. d. 1986, he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1942; in the 1931 movie The Public Enemy, he smashes a grapefruit in co-star Mae Clarke's face

James Cagney

7. d. 1987, his iconic movie scene is from the 1951 movie Royal Wedding, where he dances on the ceiling

Fred Astaire

8. d. 1989, this businessman owned the St. Louis Cardinals for 36 years

August A. (Gussie) Busch

9. d. 1992, he won a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 and is famous for authoring The Road to Serfdom

Friedrich Hayek

10. d. 1994, this American cartoonist was the creator of Woody Woodpecker

Walter Lantz

Also born in 1899: 15-time Wimbledon champion Suzanne Lenglen (d. 1938), playwright Noel Coward (d. 1973), author Vladimir Nabokov (d. 1977), composer Hoagy Carmichael (d. 1981), actress Gloria Swanson (d. 1983), conductor Eugene Ormandy (d. 1985), and, on the notorious side, Bruno Richard Hauptmann (executed for kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son in 1936) and Al Capone (d. 1947). Finally, the legendary soccer club Barcelona FC was founded the very day Emma Morano was born, November 29, 1899.

-$-

Almost basketball-free Final Four quiz

A highly entertaining men's NCAA basketball tournament will come to an end tomorrow night when Villanova plays North Carolina for the national championship. Carolina's looked like the class of the tournament from the opening tip, but I've really enjoyed Villanova's scrappy play. Carolina's a 2.5-point favorite, and that feels about right. They're not really running away from opponents from the start of games and they haven't been beating you from the three-point line. This feels like a game that should come down to an interesting finish.

I doubt that "analysis" makes up for the fact I missed my self-imposed Friday deadline for this week, but it's the best I've got. This is a Final Four quiz, but with a twist - it's not about basketball. All of the answers will be school from this year's Final Four: the University of North Carolina, Villanova University, Syracuse University and the University of Oklahoma, though I wonder if losing by 44 in a national semifinal should really count as an appearance:


1. Which school in this year's Final Four was founded first?

North Carolina, in 1795. It's one of three schools that holds claim to the title of America's oldest public university.

2. Which is the only school in the Final Four with a U.S. President among its alumni?

North Carolina again: James Knox Polk

3. Which two Final Four schools represent Vice-Presidential couple Joe and Jill Biden?

Syracuse (Joe graduated from SU's law school) and Villanova (where Jill mastered in English)

4. Match the schools to their highly-successful but lesser-known sports programs:
A. 6-time men's crew national champions
B. 9-time and defending men's gymnastics national champions
C. 9-time women's cross-country national champions
D. 21-time women's soccer national champions

A-Syracuse, B-Oklahoma, C-Villanova, D-North Carolina

5. Which two of the Final Four schools offer Cherokee language courses?

North Carolina and Oklahoma

6. Which Final Four school's campus has a statue of Gregor Mendel and an abstract sculpture nickhamed "The Oreo"?

Villanova (it's actually titled "Awakening")

7. Which Final Four school has a memorial to 35 students who died in the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988?

Syracuse

8. Which has a remote campus in a former monastery in Arezzo, Italy?

Oklahoma

9. Match the school to one of its celebrity alumni:
A. Maria Bello
B. Lewis Black
C. Megyn Kelly
D. Olivia Munn

A-Villanova, B-North Carolina, C-Syracuse, D-Oklahoma

10. (Good luck with this one)
Match the school to a course title offered there this semester:
A. Contemporary Turkish Cinema
B. Facebook and Jesus
C. Hitler and Hollywood
D. Italian Oral Skills

A-Oklahoma, B-Villanova, C-North Carolina, D-Syracuse

I'll close with my favorite quote from North Carolina's course catalog:
“Professor Glish is an analytical chemist. He cherishes that title because most people do not know what analytical chemistry is so he can do all kinds of different research and call it analytical chemistry.”

-$-

An October classic for March

If you're a St. Louis Cardinals fan and haven't read it already, I happily recommend Pitch By Pitch: My View of One Unforgettable Game, written by Hall-of-Famer Bob Gibson and Lonnie Wheeler. It's a pitch-by-pitch account of game 1 of the 1968 World Series with a lot of background information and good story-telling. (I'm only up to the 7th inning, so don't spoil the ending for me.) Gibson and Pitch By Pitch are the inspirations for today's quiz:

1. Bob Gibson played college basketball at Creighton University and went on to play for what pro basketball team?

That's a gimme for Cardinals fans; the Harlem Globetrotters

2. Gibson won the National League MVP and Cy Young awards in 1968 and led his team to the World Series. Who duplicated those feats in the American League that year?

Denny McLain, who won 31 games

3. Name the two pitchers since 1968 to win the MVP, win the Cy Young and pitch in the World Series in the same season.

Roger Clemens (1986), Willie Hernandez (1984)

4. What team did Sandy Koufax shut out the most times?

Koufax shut the Cardinals out 10 times. Three of those came against Gibson.

5. Major League Baseball lowered the pitcher's mound to its current height after pitchers dominated the 1968 season. What was the previous height and what is the current height?

It went from 15 inches down to 10.

6. Who led the National League in hitting in 1968 with an impressive .335 average?

Pete Rose, and shouldn't that have been talked about a lot more than it has? Hitting .335 in the Year of the Pitcher?

7. And what two relatives finished second and third?

Matty (.332) and Felipe (.317) Alou

8. Who claimed the American League batting title in 1968 with a record-low .301?

Carl Yastrzemski

9. Gibson's league-leading 1.12 ERA in '68 is a well-known stat for long-time baseball fans. Who won the American League title that year with an impressive 1.60?

Luis Tiant

10. Oh, OK, spoiler alert for those reading the book: how many Detroit Tigers did Bob Gibson strike out in game 1 of the 1968 World Series (still a WS record)?

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