December 25th in History Trivia Quiz

Answer: Isaac Newton

Technically this is a trick question. "By the calendar in use at the time of his birth he was born on Christmas Day 1642. Today his date of birth would be 4 January 1643 which is the "corrected" Gregorian calendar date bringing it into line with our present calendar. (The Gregorian calendar was not adopted in England until 1752.)" Information found at www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/ Mathematicians/Newton.html

Answer: Hilton

This was of course Conrad Nicholson Hilton. He died on January 3, 1979.

Answer: He was afraid of bright colors and patterns and always wore either black or gray suits

All the others are true. I retrieved the information from
http://www.ripleysf.com/ripley/about/about.html.

Answer: Cary Grant

IMDB lists the following information about Bogart's experience on "Sabrina":
"Bogart and William Holden couldn't stand each other. Bogart disapproved of Audrey Hepburn (he wanted his wife Lauren Bacall in the role), while Holden fell in love with her. Bogart got $300,000, Holden got $150,000, and Hepburn only $15,000. Asked how he liked working with Hepburn, Bogart replied: "It's ok, if you don't mind to make 20 takes."

There is also some controversy about Bogart's birthdate as well.
New York Times reported on 12/25/2000 that "Humphrey Bogart was born on 23 January 1899, but Warner Brothers publicity decided that a Christmas birthday would be far more advantageous because 'a guy born on Christmas can't be all bad.'" However, copies of two 1900 census forms prove this to be incorrect."

Answer: Buffett

Yes good ole Jimmy Buffett.

Answer: Rip Torn

Sissy's cousin is Rip Torn. It was through him that she was able to enroll in the New York Actors Studio. You can see Rip Torn in such movies as "Men in Black"; "Defending Your Life" (a personal favorite of mine); and "Beastmaster". Information found on www.imdb.com

Answer: Bram Stoker's Dracula

"Love Song For A Vampire" by Annie Lennox is a hauntingly beautiful song.

Answer: Australia

On 25 December 1643 Captain William Mynors landed there and this remote island in the Indian Ocean was later claimed for Britain. It became a territory of Australia in 1957.

Answer: False

According to IMDB this is the reason Chaplin moved to Switzerland:

"Tired of political and moralistic controversies and plagued by tax collectors, he left the United States for Switzerland in 1952. He published his memoirs in 1964. In 1972 he returned to Hollywood to claim a special Oscar honoring his lifetime contributions to movies. He was named Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1975. He died in his sleep from old age."

Answer: Had a great fear of flying

All of the statements are true except fear of flying. Dean Martin supposedly had a great fear of elevators. Dean was related to Carl Wilson through marriage--his daughter Gina was married to Carl Wilson. He did box under the name "Kid Crochet" and won 11 out of 12 fights. He does have 3 stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Motion Pictures, Television and Recrds. In addition Dean Martin loved comic books and read them all his life, drank apple juice on stage instead of alcohol and died 29 years to the date from his mother's passing in 1966.
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As a side note, Fun Trivia Member cag1970 forwarded this information about Dean Martin: "Dean's son, Dean Paul Martin, a pilot in the California Air National Guard, died during a routine training mission in 1987. Dean Paul is best known for starring in the 1979 movie "Players" opposite Ali MacGraw and Maximillian Schell, and gave Dean his only grandchild, a son that he had with wife Olivia Hussey."
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Answer: Halley's Comet

"In 1758 Halley's comet was first sighted by Johann Georg Palitzsch during its return. The most famous of all comets, having been observed in 1531, 1607, 1682, 1758, 1834 ,1910 and 1986. Halley entered the picture in 1705, realizing that the appearance of the comet in 1682 was the same comet as those observed on the previous two dates listed above. Surmising that the comet was following the same laws which governed planetary orbits, he calculated the orbit corresponding to a 76 year period and predicted its return in 1758. Though he did not live to see it, the return of the comet in 1758 was a triumph for orbit calculations based on Newton's laws and led to the naming of the comet after Halley. Subsequent to Halley's analysis, historical research showed that Halley's comet had been observed at every passage since 240 BC." (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solar/halley.html)

Answer: Silent Night, Holy Night

Here is the 'legend' behind this Christmas carol. "In the winter of 1818 at St. Nicholas' Church at Obendorf, a village near Salzburg, Austria, Joseph Mohr, the assistant to the priest, faced a dilemma. It was just days before Christmas, and the church organ which was so important to providing music for the Christmas services was broken. Since the organ repairman was not a local of the village it would actually be months before the repair could be made, and Christmas would be long past.
His solution to the problem of the broken organ resulted in one of the most popular Christmas carols of all time. In 1816 Mohr had written a simple poem that the villagers could understand expressing the wonder of the birth of Jesus. He asked his friend Franz Gruber who was the organist at St. Nicholas to write music to accompany his poem so that they could sing it together using a guitar to accompany their singing."
(http://www.german-way.com/german/stille.html)

Answer: Montgomery Ward

Here is how Rudolph came to life:

"Rudolph came to life in 1939 when the Chicago-based Montgomery Ward company asked one of their copywriters, 34-year-old Robert L. May, to come up with a Christmas story they could give away to shoppers as a promotional gimmick. (The Montgomery Ward stores had been buying and giving away coloring books for Christmas every year, and May's department head saw creating a giveaway booklet of their own as a way to save money.) May, who had a penchant for writing children's stories and limericks, was tapped to create the booklet.

May, drawing in part on the tale of The Ugly Duckling and his own background settled on the idea of an underdog ostracized by the reindeer community because of his physical abnormality: a glowing red nose. Looking for an alliterative name, May considered and rejected Rollo (too cheerful and carefree a name for the story of a misfit) and Reginald (too British) before deciding on Rudolph. He then proceeded to write Rudolph's story in verse, as a series of rhyming couplets, testing it out on his 4-year-old daughter Barbara as he went. Montgomery Ward distributed 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph booklet in 1939, and although wartime paper shortages curtailed printing for the next several years, a total of 6 million copies had been given by the end of 1946.

The Rudolph phenomenon really took off, however, when May's brother-in-law, songwriter Johnny Marks, developed the lyrics and melody for a Rudolph song. Marks' musical version of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (turned down by many who didn't want to meddle with the established Santa legend) was recorded by Gene Autry in 1949, sold two million copies that year, and went on to become one of the best-selling songs of all time (second only to "White Christmas").

Although the story of Rudolph is primarily known to us through the lyrics of Johnny Marks' song, the story May wrote is substantially different in a number of ways. Rudolph was not one of Santa's reindeer (or the offspring of one of Santa's reindeer), and he did not live at the North Pole. Rudolph dwelled in an "ordinary" reindeer village elsewhere, and although he was taunted and laughed at for having a shiny red nose, he was not regarded by his parents as a shameful embarrassment. Rudolph was brought up in a loving household and was a responsible reindeer with a good self-image and sense of worth. Moreover, Rudolph did not rise to fame when Santa picked him out from the reindeer herd because of his shiny nose. Santa discovered the red-nosed reindeer quite by accident, when he noticed the glow emanating from Rudolph's room while delivering presents to Rudolph's house. Worried that the thickening fog -- already the cause of several accidents and delays -- would keep him from completing his Christmas Eve rounds, Santa tapped Rudolph to lead his team, observing upon their return: "By YOU last night's journey was actually bossed. Without you, I'm certain we'd all have been lost!"

Information found at http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/rudolph.asp

Answer: True

Sousa's promoter David Blakely dies while Sousa and his wife are on vacation in Europe in 1896. On the return voyage, Sousa receives the inspiration for The Stars and Stripes Forever which was Christmas Day.
Information found at www.dws.org/sousa/

Answer: 62

The following information was found at www.aikido.cz.pl/EN/history.html

"Emperor Hirohito reigned from 1926-1989. He was the last Japanese emperor to uphold the Shinto idea of imperial divinity. Hirohito reigned just over 62 years after acceding to the throne on December 25, 1926. His life of 87 years and 8 months made him Japan's longest-living Emperor. He was also the longest-reigning Emperor in Japanese history."


Hirohito was born in Tokyo in 1901. I have no information at this time on how he was dressed as a boy. His father was the Taisho Emperor, Yoshihito. His mother, Empress Teimei, was Princess Sadako, the fourth daughter of Prince Michitaka Kujo. The future Emperor Hirohito was their first son, and his name as a child was Michinomiya.


He graduated from the Gakushuin (Peers' School) in 1914 and became crown prince in 1916. After graduating from the Crown Prince's School in 1921, he traveled in Europe for 6 months--a tour without precedent for a Japanese crown prince. In November 1921, after his return to Japan, he became regent for his father, who was ill.


Prince Hirohito in 1924 married Princess Nagako, the first daughter of Prince Kunihiko Kuninomiya. She whe eldest daughter of His Imperial Highness the late Prince Kuniyoshi of Kuni, was born in Tokyo on March 6, 1903. She studied at Gakushuin Girls' School. She is very fond of music and Japanese-style painting and is considered an accomplished artist in both fields. She also enjoys composing poetry and practicing calligraphy.


On Dec. 25, 1926, when the Taisho Emperor died, Crown Prince Hirohito became Emperor of Japan. His enthronement ceremony took place in Kyoto on Nov. 10, 1928. The Showa era, as his reign is called, witnessed dramatic transformations in Japanese life, including the status of the Emperor himself."