Happy New Year Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ellis Island

The natural island of little more than 5 acres was originally called Little Oyster Island, but it was renamed after Sam Ellis, a colonial New Yorker, and expanded to more than 30 acres by artificial landfill.
It opened as the main entry port for immigrants coming to the US in 1892. At least 12 million (and perhaps as many as 20m) applicants were processed there by the time it closed in November 1954.
Most arrivals spent only a few hours there, but more than 3,000 prospective immigrants died in the island's hospital. About 98% of those who arrived were granted entry to the U.S., but reasons such as criminal backgrounds, insanity and contagious diseases were common reasons for refusal.

Answer: Edward Morgan

Most of Forster's novels were set in Britain at the beginning of the 20th century, with social class as a recurring theme. He lived to the age of 91, but his five novels were all written between the ages of 31 and 45. Most of his works have produced successful films, notably 'A Room with a View', 'Howard's End' and 'A Passage to India'.

Answer: 1772

Traveller's cheques for use in 90 European cities were first issued by the London Credit Exchange Company on January 1, 1772.
Thomas Cook & Co began issuing notes that could be used in a similar fashion in 1874.
The first American Express travellers' cheques appeared in 1891.

Answer: Helen Wills Moody

Born Helen Newington Wills, she was described in her NY Times obituary as "the first American-born woman to achieve international celebrity as an athlete".
Moody is unquestionably one of the greatest, and perhaps the greatest, female tennis player of all time. Certainly, her record in the grand-slam tournaments is unlikely to be bettered -- 4 wins in 5 appearances at the French, 7 wins in 9 attempts at the US Open (and she reached the final of the other two), and 8 wins in the 10 times she entered Wimbledon as well as one losing final. Add those up and she reached 22 finals, winning 19 of them, out of 24 total entries. (She never played at the Australian.)

Answer: 1946

Most pre-war commercial flights to and from London used Croydon Airport. Great Western Aerodrome, as Heathrow was then known, began life as a military airfield in WWI, and was then used for aircraft testing in the inter-war years. Construction began on new runways in 1944 with the intention of using the site as an RAF base.

When WWII ended, control of the airport passed the Civil Aviation Authority, and the first commercial flight departed on January 1, 1946 bound for Buenos Aires with a refuelling stop in Lisbon. By 1947, the airport had three runways (with three more being built), each just over a mile long.

Answer: J.D. Salinger

Jerome David Salinger wrote short stories as a schoolboy. In December 1941, 'The New Yorker' magazine accepted a story called 'Slight Rebellion off Madison', about a disaffected schoolboy with pre-war jitters: the boy's name was Holden Caulfield. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the story was deemed unpublishable -- it would eventually appear in 1946. Meanwhile, Salinger was drafted and he served as an infantryman at Utah Beach on D-Day and in the Battle of the Bulge. In 1951, Salinger resurrected Holden Caulfield as the narrator of his first (and only) novel, 'The Catcher in the Rye'. Reactions were varied... the NY Times review described it as "... unusually brilliant ..." while many countries actually banned it.

The reclusive Salinger, by then a practising Zen Buddhist, withdrew completely from the publicity.

Although he published some collections of short stories, he never wrote anything after 1965 and his last interview was in 1980.

Answer: Denmark

The European Economic Community, later European Community' morphed into the European Union with thw signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.
The expansion on January 1, 1973 was the first of many, with Ireland, Great Britain and Denmark joining the original six members (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg and Italy).
Greece joined in 1981, Portugal in 1986 (along with Spain), and Sweden in 1995 (with Austria and Finland).
Ten more countries joined on May 1, 2004, and a further two on January 1, 2007, bringing the total to 27.

Answer: France

Maurice Auguste Chevalier was born to a French father and Belgian mother on September 12, 1888 in Paris, France.
His trademark was a straw hat worn with a tuxedo. He was injured while serving in the front line in the first weeks of WWI and spent two years as a German PoW. His best-known film is probably the 1934 adaptation of the 'Merry Widow' operetta.

Answer: The Rose Bowl

The traditional 'Rose Bowl Parade' precedes to game, which is nicknamed 'The Granddaddy of Them All'. The Rose Bowl was first played in Pasedena, California in 1902 and has been an annual fixture since 1916. In that first game, the champion team from the East, the University of Michigan Wolverines destroyed the Western champions, The Stanford Cardinals, 49-0.
The term 'bowl' comes from the shape of the Pasadena stadium.

Answer: Ghanaian

Kofi Atta Annan was born on April 8, 1938 in Kumasi, Gold Coast. He shares his middle name, which means 'twin', with his twin sister Efua.
The Republic of Ghana was formed from an amalgamation of The Gold Coast, British Togoland and The Empire of Ashanti. In 1957, Ghana became the first European sub-Saharan colony to gain independence in the postwar period.