Three of a Kind, Part 53 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Viking

Viking River Cruises is one of three divisions of Viking Cruises. The firm was created in 1997 in St. Petersburg, Russia. Its present headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland. The cruises, both ocean and river, tend to be posh and rather expensive.

American actor Kirk Douglas both co-produced and starred in the (somewhat) historical action adventure "The Vikings" (1958). The cast is all-star: Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine, Janet Leigh, James Donald, and Orson Welles. Calder Willingham, Dale Wasserman, and Edison Marshall based their screenplay on Edison Marshall's novel "The Viking" (1951). Marshall drew his material from much older accounts such as the "Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok" and the "Tale of Ragnar's Sons" (Fridleif, Radbard, Dunvat, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye, Björn Ironside, Agnar, Ivar the Boneless, Ubbe, Ragnvald, Eric Weatherhat, and Hvitserk).

The Minnesota Vikings professional gridiron football team was founded in 1960 as an expansion team. The team plays in the North Division of the National Football Conference of the National Football League. The team name (the scary berserker logo, Viktor the Viking, and the fight song "Skol, Vikings") were chosen because of the Nordic culture in Minneapolis. The population includes large numbers of Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Finns, and Icelanders.

Answer: amber

Actress Anne Dudek appears in the American television series "House, M.D." as interventional radiologist Dr. Amber Volakis. She first appears in Season 4. Her primary role is as an antagonist to Dr. House, who nicknames her "Cutthroat Bitch." She is killed in a bus accident but reappears as a drug-and-alcohol produced hallucination thereafter.

Amber Laura Heard (b. 1986) is an American actress with credits in motion pictures, television, music videos, and public service announcements. She has played Mera in the DC Extended Universe, including the films "Justice League" (2017), "Aquaman" (2018), and "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" (2023). In 2011, she met Johnny Depp on the set of "The Rum Diary." While the film was a failure, the romance between them was a success, leading to a short marriage (2015-2016) ending in several sensational lawsuits.

Willy Ley (1906-1969) was a German-American science writer who advocated vigorously for the US space programme. He was held in such high regard that a crater on the dark side of the moon was named after him. His book "Dragons in Amber: Further Adventures of a Romantic Naturalist" (Viking, 1951) told the story of earthly natural history through the fossil record. Amber is petrified tree resin. A "dragon in amber" is an unfortunate insect which was trapped by sticky oozing sap, encased, and turned into a beautiful stone. It is the delight of both jewelers and paleontologists. The process does not preserve DNA thus the fanciful premise of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park thrillers is not realistic.

Answer: hound

In Daniel P. Mannix' 1967 novel "The Fox and the Hound," a puppy named Cooper and a red fox named Kit become close friends and pledge to each other to continue their lifelong relationship. With maturity comes the slowly-growing realization that they are pursuer and pursued. Walt Disney Productions adapted this story to a 1981 animated movie of the same name.

The De Havilland Aircraft Company produced the DH65 Hound, a two-seat light bomber biplane, which flew 162 mph with a 530 hp Napier Lion engine. The prototype first flew in 1926 and was delivered to the RAF in 1928. Because of its primarily-wood construction, it was not ordered in favour of airplanes with metal bodies.

The Hounds album "Puttin' on the Dog" was released on vinyl in 1979. It was their second album, following their debut album "Unleashed" in 1978. There were major changes in the line-up of the band between the albums. "Puttin' on the Dog" was their last release.

Answer: bacon

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was an English lawyer who served as both the Attorney General and the Lord Chancellor of England. He was a philosopher and essayist, as well. As a scientist, he developed what came to be known as the Baconian Method of observation, inductive reasoning, theorizing and repeatability, published as "Novum Organum" (1620).

Kevin Bacon (b. 1958) formed the singing duet The Bacon Brothers with his brother Michael. Kevin also appeared in many motion pictures: "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978), "Friday the 13th" (1980), "Footloose" (1984), "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" (1987), "Tremors" (1990), "Flatliners" (1990), "JFK" (1991), "A Few Good Men" (1992), "Apollo 13" (1995), "Mystic River" (2003), "The Darkness" (2016), and "The Toxic Avenger" (2023).

Richard Paul Bacon (b. 1975) is a radio and television presented in the U.K. He was the host of the children's programme "Blue Peter" for 18 months in the late 1980s before being discharged for misconduct. He was accused of using cocaine and of punching a hole in a wall. Thereafter he presented on "The Big Breakfast," "Top of the Pops", "Back To Reality," and "Castaway Exposed" before becoming a radio-TV producer.

Answer: jet

The New York Jets were founded in 1959 as the Titans of New York as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). The professional gridiron football team won the Super Bowl in 1968. Probably their best-known player was quarterback Joe Namath (1965-1976). The cheerleading squad is known as the Jets Flight Crew.

The term "jet" in "jet engine" derives from the French verb "jeter" meaning to toss or to thrust. The French word derived from the Latin "iactare" meaning to toss. The term "jet engine" was coined in 1943 to describe the device which propelled propellerless aircraft. Dr. Hans von Ohain's jet airplane first flew in 1939; Sir Frank Whittle's first flew in 1941. The German Messerschmitt Me 262 ("Sturmvogel") saw combat from mid-1944.

The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (JETS) has been published by the Evangelical Theological Society since 1958. The society was founded in 1949 to counter liberal theology. Both the society and its journal are committed to upholding the infallibility and inerrancy of Holy Scripture and the Trinitarian doctrine of the nature of God. JETS describes itself as a "major journal of American Evangelical theology."

Answer: Latin

In a sort of orthographic imperialism, the Roman/Latin script (letters, characters) became the basic script for most European languages. Old English was first written in the Anglo-Saxon futhorc runic alphabet, from about the 5th century. The Latin alphabet was brought to the British Isles in the 7th century and became dominant. Likewise Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, Bosnian, Slovene, and Turkish.

Pig Latin is an invented language with no relation to Latin whatsoever. It is like a code in which English words are modified by moving the first consonant, consonant cluster, or initial vowel to the end of a word and adding either "-ay" or "-yay" or "-hay." Example: "Untriviafay isyay unfay."

Latin music (Musica latina in Spanish and Portuguese) is a musical category encompassing music from any Spanish-speaking area from around the world mainly from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.

Answer: world

Maximilian Michael ("Max") Brooks (b. 1972) is the son of comedian Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. He is a writer, much of whose work centres on zombies, e.g. "The Zombie Survival Guide" (2003), "World War Z" (2006), and "Closure, Limited and Other Zombie Tales" (2011).

René Descartes wrote "Traité du monde et de la lumière" ("The World, also called Treatise on the Light"). Descartes believed that every physical event could be explained by the motion of and interaction between tiny bits of matter. He explained the movement of the planets in these terms. He wrote this work between 1629 and 1633. In 1633, the Roman Catholic Inquisition convicted Galileo Galilei of espousing thoughts similar to Descartes'. This perhaps explains Descartes' decision not to publish his tome.

Among aficionadas of televised soap operas, the NBC series "Another World" is known as "AV." This programme was broadcast continuously from 4 May 1964 until 25 June 1999. In addition to the regular cast, a truly remarkable number of guest stars passed through "AV": Elizabeth Ashley, Christine Baranski, Theodore Bikel, Jane Krakowski, Ray Liotta, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Christopher Noth, James Pickens, Jr., Christina Pickles, Brad Pitt, Joan Rivers, John Saxon. Janine Turner, Betty White, and Henry Winkler.

Answer: Willow

In both "Pocahontas" (1995) and "Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World" (1998), the character Pocahontas is counseled by a spirit tree named Grandmother Willow.

Willow Shields (b. 2000) is an American actress perhaps best known for her role as Primrose Everdeen in the dystopian series "The Hunger Games." She was also a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" (2015).

According to the backstory in the "Barbie" franchise, Barbara Millicent Roberts was born in the fictitious small town of Willows, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Historical Society concurs. The city is named for its many weeping willow trees which reputedly descended from a single ancestor.

Quercus is the Latin botanical name for oak trees. Brooke Shields (b. 1965) is an American model, actress, and memoirist. Alyson Hannigan (b. 1974) played teen witch Willow Rosenberg in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997-2003) and hosted "Penn & Teller: Fool Us" (2016-2023).

Answer: thrush

The thrush family (Turdidae) comprises many birds. One of these, the Hermit Thrush, is the official state bird of Vermont. This melodic singer, which was adopted by the state legislature in 1941, is sometimes called the American nightingale.

Oral candidiasis, commonly called thrush, is a fungal infection of the mouth caused when Candida albicans, a strain of yeast, and other related fungi overgrow the normal flora resident there. These microbes normally coexist; candidiasis occurs when an imbalance occurs. The result is painful white patches in the mouth and throat. Some antibiotics or corticosteroids can actually cause this imbalance. Thrush is relatively easy to cure, especially if it is diagnosed and treated promptly.

Hot rodding traces its beginnings to the end of WWII. Enthusiasts stripped down (body weight) and built up (engine size) older cars to produce hot rods. One aspect of increasing the performance of hot rods was to relieve exhaust back pressure (and heighten exhaust sound) by installing specially-made mufflers. For over fifty years Tenneco has produced a brand of hot-rod mufflers called Thrush. Tenneco tags itself thus: "Thrush is proud to serve hot rodding enthusiasts with the power they demand, the sound they love and the dream in their hearts."

Answer: tower

Building of the Tower of London and the royal palace attached to it began in the 11th century during the Norman Conquest. It is located on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It has been used as a prison since about 1100. Many famous imprisonments have occurred there: King Edward V of England and his younger brother Prince Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, Anne Boleyn, Rudolf Hess, Guy Fawkes, and Thomas More. It is the modern home of the Crown Jewels of England.

Jeremiah Tower (b. 1942) had never seen the inside of a cooking school before he was hired by Alice Waters to cook at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. He became a celebrity chef, owned many restaurants, and is often credited (with Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck) for creating California Cuisine or New American Cuisine. Chef and television celebrity Anthony Bourdain owned Zero Point Zero Productions. He produced a feature-length biographical documentary titled "Jeremiah Tower: The Last Magnificent" (2016).

"The Watchtower" is one of two publications published by the Jehovah's Witnesses. The other is called "Awake!" They are both produced by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania. "The Watchtower" was first published in 1879. The magazine's name comes from the Adventist movement; it suggests being intent and observant in looking for signs of Christ's Second Coming.