First Day, Worst Day Trivia Quiz

Answer: Titanic

The ill-fated ship struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean, leading to the flooding of five of its airtight compartments. Despite following maritime safety lifeboat minimums at the time, chaos, insufficient lightboats, and inefficiency led to the Titanic being synonymous with one of the worst disasters in modern history.

Answer: George W. Bush

The jarring video of George W. Bush being informed that the United States was under attack by his Chief of Staff while he sat in a classroom is a solemn reminder of the difficult first term the President went through. The al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001, a mere nine months into the first Bush presidency, during his first year of eight as commander in chief.

Answer: China

The Chinese national team qualified for the 2002 World Cup, the first ever held in Asia, and lost to the Brazilian, Turkish, and Costa Rican national teams, failing to score a goal and conceding 9 goals in 3 games. Despite this poor World Cup performance, the Chinese national team was able to secure a runner's up medal in the 2004 AFC Asian Cup shortly after.

Answer: James Cameron

Tim Healey claimed the film was "a strong contender for anyone's list of all-time horror turkeys". The review aggregator website "Rotten Tomatoes" gives the movie a "rotten" 5% rating, implying that only one out of twenty movie critics gave the film a positive review.

While the start was not particularly successful, James Cameron would make a strong comeback, directing blockbusters such as "Titanic" and "Avatar".

Answer: Apollo 13

A major malfunction led to a heavy question mark around safe return of the three astronauts to Earth. The NASA ground control team worked tirelessly with the three exhausted men to try and improvise a method for them to splash back down to Earth safely.

While the mission's target objective was not achieved, the safe return of the three men with relatively minor injuries has been called one of NASA's greatest achievements. A movie "Apollo 13" about the spaceflight, was released in 1995 and starred Tom Hanks and Ed Harris.

Answer: Alanis Morissette

Alanis Morissette's 1996 hit song "Ironic" is perhaps her best known song as part of "Jagged Little Pill", her third studio album. The song relates to several instances of irony in life, such as the man who was too afraid to fly and had his plane crash during his very first flight, or the 98 year old man that won the lottery the day before he died.

The song has been criticized by comedians for not staying true to the definition of irony, but it's still a catchy tune :)

Answer: The Big Bang Theory

While even the revamped pilot earned mixed reviews, the show would go on to become one of the most successful sitcoms created, running for 12 seasons and 279 total episodes. The original, unaired pilot had markedly difficult personality traits for many of the starring characters, most notably the show's breakout role, Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons).

He was portrayed as sexually adventurous, in stark contrast to his largely asexual behavior and general eccentricity that would make him so popular for 12 seasons.

Answer: Madonna

She mentioned during an interview with Howard Stern that her employers were already upset with her because she was not taking the job seriously; she was also fiddling around with the jelly machine when she accidentally squirted a customer, which led to her irate boss firing her on the spot.

While a funny story, it certainly did not derail her life as Madonna is known today as a musical icon of the 20th century; as of 2024, with over 300 million records sold, she is the best-selling female record artist in history and the most successful solo artist in the US Billboard Hot 100 history.

Answer: Voldemort

With a name meaning "flight from death" in French, the dark wizard was obsessed with his own immortality. Years before the start of the series, he visited with the Hogwarts headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and asked to be assigned the teaching position at the school. Dumbledore, wary of his intentions, refused him.

As a result, Voldemort cursed the position, and no teacher was able to hold it for longer than a year until his permanent death in the last book of the series.

Answer: Fermat's Last Theorem

The theorem has been identified by "Guinness World Records" as "the most difficult problem in mathematics" largely because 350 years passed by since Pierre de Fermat, a 17th century French mathematician, proposed its very simple premise in the margins of a book.

While many attempted, and the proof was often thought to be impossible, Andrew Wiles presented his findings in 1993 in front of an audience, surprising all in attendance when he concluded his presentation by claiming that his research showed Fermat's Last Theorem to be correct. Shortly following this presentation, however, a colleague discovered a flaw in the paper that rendered the proof obsolete. Wiles would spend another year patiently attempting to fix his error. On the verge of giving up, he finally had a breakthrough that allowed him to correct his error and gain global acclaim for an established proof of the theorem.