A Smattering of Generalities Trivia Quiz

Answer: False

This is believed to be true by many but it just isn't right. He died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966 and was cremated two days later. His remains were interred in the Court of Freedom within the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Answer: False

The Etruscans had pasta made from flour and water as early as the fourth century B.C. and the Romans, Egyptians as well as the Greeks knew about pasta thousands of years ago. In Marco Polo's book "A Description of the World", he tells of Chinese people eating vermicelli and even lasagna noodles.

The erroneous story about Marco Polo introducing pasta to Italy from China in 1295 has been traced and is believed to have come from a 1929 issue of "The Macaroni Journal", a trade magazine.

Answer: True

Monotremes, who are mammals, lay eggs with a leather like shell. There are five spiny anteaters in this classification along with our old friend, the duck-billed platypus. All hail from Australia and New Guinea.

Answer: False

S.O.S., the international code signal for distress really doesn't stand for anything. The S.O.S. letters were adapted by international agreement in 1908 because they are easy to transmit. The letter "S" is three dots and the letter "O" is three dashes. The signal word for a distress call by radio or telephone is "Mayday". It was adopted from the French word "m'aider"
which means "help me".

Answer: False

West of Key West, we have the Marquesas Keys and then the Dry Tortugas where the Fort Jefferson National monument is located.

Answer: True

Not all movies follow the book "to the letter". Few of them do. Hollywood screenwriter Noel Langley changed the silver shoes to ruby slippers in the script for MGM's 1939 movie.

Answer: False

Bulls are color-blind. At bullfights, bulls respond to the motion of the matador's cape. They are also teased cruelly by the darts placed by the picadors and the screams of the matadors. I've always pulled for the bull.

Answer: True

Bram Stoker named his fictional vampire "Dracula" after Prince Vlad IV of Walachia. He was a tyrant who ruled the region south of the Transylvania Alps (now part of Romania) from 1456 to 1462. His father was named Vlad Dracul which is Romanian for "devil". During those six years, he executed thousands of people by impaling them on pointed stakes. Vampire legends arose perhaps as reaction to the thousands of executions.

In Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula", it was fitting that Dracula was killed by a stake that was driven though his heart.

Answer: False

Victor Frankenstein, a student of natural psychology, created the monster. In the novel by Mary Shelley who wrote the story in 1818 at the age of only eighteen. The monster was never named.

Answer: True

The Panama Canal sits about 85 feet above sea level. The fresh water flows into the canal from streams and lakes into Gatun Lake which is formed by a dam on the Chagres River. Locks (water filled chambers) lift ships into the canal as well as lower them when they have traversed the canal.

Answer: False

Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest. He was 42 years old on the day he was inaugurated President in 1901 following the assassination of William McKinley. John F. Kennedy was the youngest ever ELECTED to the presidency. At his inauguration in 1961, he was 43 years old.

Answer: False

Close, but no cigar. What was actually written was, "Alas! Poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio."

Answer: False

Impeachment is when the House of Representatives brings charges against the president. The Senate then tries the case and votes on conviction. In 1868, the House voted to impeach Andrew Johnson, but in the Senate, he escaped conviction by only one vote.
When Clinton's turn came, the House voted 228 to 206 to impeach Clinton. The Senate, however, voted 55 to 45 against conviction on the first count and 50 to 50 on the second count (17 votes short of the required two-thirds majority).

President Nixon was not impeached. Following the House Judiciary Committee recommendation of three articles of impeachment against him, he cut his losses and resigned before the House of Representatives could begin impeachment proceedings.

Answer: False

Icebergs are actually huge masses of ice that break off from glaciers or ice sheets. Icebergs are made from snow that has been compressed into ice over thousands of years by its own weight Snow melts into fresh water just like icebergs.

Answer: True

During the Salem witch hunts in 1692, 19 women and 2 dogs were hanged and one man was pressed to death under heavy stones. More than 150 were imprisoned. There is no recorded history of Salem witches in the U.S. being burned at the stake. Before the
Salem witch trials began, 16 people had already been hanged elsewhere in New England. In 1693, the town of Salem freed the people still in jail on witchcraft charges. The governor of Massachusetts cleared the victims of all charges 20 years later and the colony's government made monetary payments to all the families.

Answer: False

The erection of Stonehenge was finished at approximately 1500 B.C. The Druids arrived in England more than 1000 years later during the Iron Age. This idea of Druids building Stonehenge belonged to John Aubrey, an English Antiquarian.

Answer: False

The first U.S. president to be born in a log cabin was Andrew Jackson. He was followed by Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield--- for a total of six presidents being born in log cabins. The first president to have been born in a hospital was Jimmy Carter.

Answer: True

In the 1860s a Jewish tailor by the name of Levi Strauss had been making overalls out of canvas for the miners in the California gold rush. He switched from canvas to denim and then dyed it an indigo blue to hide dirt and stains. His new product was an immediate hit with the miners.

Answer: False

King George III purchased the palace in 1761. It had been built in 1703 by John Sheffield, the Duke of Buckingham. Ownership has passed down through the family ever since. Queen Elizabeth II privately owns Buckingham Palace, Balmoral Castle, Windsor Castle, Sandringham, Hampton Court, the Tower of London, the State coaches, the royal train, the royal parks in London and last but not least, the crown jewels.

Answer: False

Explorer John Fremont named the entrance into San Francisco Bay the Golden Gate in 1846---two years before gold was discovered at John Sutter's mill in the Sacramento Valley. Fremont named the Golden Gate after the Golden Horn, the inlet that forms the harbor of Istanbul, Turkey because the San Francisco Bay entrance looked so much like the harbor entrance at Istanbul.

The Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937.