How Did THAT Get There? Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Statue of Liberty

A Statue of Liberty? In France? Well, it makes a bit more sense than you think. As is quite well-known, the Statue of Liberty was sculpted and cast in France and shipped across the Atlantic to New York City as a gift. The one on the Seine River, right near the Eiffel Tower, was gifted to Paris by American ex-patriates only a few years after the actual statue was sent to North America.

It stands at eleven and a half meters tall. There are other replicas of the same statue in the Musée d'Orsay and the Jardin du Luxembourg.

Answer: Digital watch

Though "Titanic" was wildly celebrated after its release in 1997, winning a swath of Academy Awards and being considered one of the great romantic dramas of its day, even James Cameron felt that he needed to go back and make some changes to bring it up to snuff. Cameron is particularly known for receiving feedback from Neil DeGrasse Tyson who claimed that the night sky, seen from the ocean, would not have had the same pattern of stars as it was in the film (because the night sky would have had constellations in different places on the specific date).

In later, restored versions of the movie, the night sky was changed to reflect the stars as they were in April 1912. It was one of many changes, but reasonably James Cameron couldn't catch them all (like the inaccuracies regarding places in the script and the occasional wardrobe screw-up).

Answer: Goats

I guess the real question here is 'why goats in trees?' The answer is simple: they're hungry. Argania trees, which grow along the coast here, have seasonal fruits that mature in the higher branches and are of particular interest to the local livestock.

When that time of year comes along, the region's farmers let the goats go wild and climb the trees of their own accord. It's mutually beneficial; when the goats leave their droppings, they'll leave behind kernels of the fruit which, when harvested, dried, and pulped, make argan oil, a common edible oil used in Moroccan couscous.

Answer: Aral Sea

Though the Aral Sea was, at one time, one of the world's largest lakes, irrigation diverted more than ninety percent of its original volume into farmlands in the surrounding rural regions of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan (due to Soviet orders). It's a prime example of ecosystem collapse brought on by human intervention (and not even climate change, at that).

At one point in time, it was one of the largest fishing destinations on Soviet soil. Today, it's desert landscapes as far as the eye can see and, yeah, shipwrecks that line what used to be the edges of the water.

Answer: Body parts

The Salish Sea skirts its way between Vancouver Island, mainland British Columbia, and the state of Washington on the Pacific coast of North America and has numerous picturesque islands and landscapes, but starting in 2007, locals started finding some unnerving items washing up on the shores up and down the seaboard. Since that year, dozens of severed feet-- just the feet, often in shoes-- have washed up, most of them to this day unidentified.

There are a handful of possible reasons for these morbid discoveries, but their findings boil down to them being remains, detached from the body at sea due to decomposition and protected by the shoes they're found in.

Answer: Friends

The NBC medical drama "ER", which ran from 1994 to 2009, was a massive hit for the network and for the multitude of stars who got their break playing roles in its earlier days. At the same time, a fledgling sitcom about twenty-somethings living in New York City had also premiered on NBC, and it was because of this that Geroge Clooney and Noah Wyle played doctors in a surprising first season crossover (specifically in "The One with Two Parts: Part 2"). Neither played their specific characters from "ER", but they did play doctors expecting to go on dates with Rachel and Monica.

Their appearance was one of many cameo gags that the show would come to be known for in its ten year run.

Answer: Stephen King

Though you might not be surprised with Stephen King's general output over the years, you might be surprised that he's hidden somewhere in the kids section of the bookstore. "Charlie the Choo Choo", a book about a rather upsetting train, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2016. Based on a book and plot device found in his "Dark Tower" series, it was released under the name Beryl Evans.

It wasn't King's first time writing under a pseudonym either; he pretended to be Richard Bachman for years. It wasn't King's first time out of adult genre fiction either as he's also written books on sport history, non-fiction writing, and in graphic novels.

Answer: A phone booth

Out in the Mojave Nature Preserve, just a short drive southwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, there was, at one time, a solitary phone booth at the corner of two unmarked roads out in the desert. While this phone booth was originally put out there for local miners, the lack of people living out in the Mojave (or visiting the stretch of rural road there) didn't really allow it to serve much purpose. That said, anyone who called +1 (760) 733-9969 would be able to reach the phone booth, and in the late 1990s, it became a local landmark, attracting callers and visitors to take those calls.

The National Park Service, out of concern for local wildlife, had the phone booth removed in 2000, but not before it became a bit of a local legend.

Answer: Perseverance

Landing on Mars in 2021, Perseverance was the fifth NASA vehicle to make its descent onto the next furthest planet from the sun and, in doing so, it left some of itself to be picked up by...no one, probably. Naturally, landing a rover full of expensive equipment on another planet is no easy task, and it requires a bit of tactical jettisoning, so one might forgive the fact that it had to leave the non-essentials behind while it commenced its rock collection mission. Ironically, Perseverance had problems in its first year of work; Mars was already very dusty, and as a result, its instruments quickly clogged with pebbles. Just one more reason to keep things tidy.

Answer: Fish

'Lluvia de peces' literally translates from Spanish to 'rain of fish', and it's a weirder case than one might think because the Yoro Department, a region of Honduras, is nearly fifty miles from the ocean. Though it's possible that these fish are lifted into the sky and flown over land to drop in Yoro, it's more likely that heavy rain brought on by fierce tropical storms allow local waterways (many underground) to flood and deposit fish in the region. Nonetheless, during these times of the year, locals can often be seen sweeping the fish out of the roadways.