John's Common Bond #8 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Subway

Subway has over thirty thousand locations in over 90 countries around the world. It made a combined $9 billion in 2006. Famous for its five-dollar footlong submarine sandwiches and for spokesman Jared Fogle (who lost over 240 pounds on his 'Subway diet'), Subway has become a major franchise around the world.

Some of its other slogans since it opened its first store in 1965 have been "Subway, My Way" and "The Way a Sandwich Should Be".

Answer: Hudson

Jennifer Hudson took a seventh-place finish in 2004's season of "American Idol" and made the most of it. "Dreamgirls" was her first movie (she played Effie White), and she took home a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for it. Rock Hudson (real name Roy Harold Scherer Jr.) co-starred with Doris Day in "Pillow Talk" (and many other films), and though he never won an Oscar, he was nominated for one for his performance in "Giant".

Answer: Queen's

Queen's University was founded by the Church of Scotland (after the model of the University of Edinburgh) and was the first college in what would be Canada to bestow degrees. It was also one of the three founding members of the Canadian Intercollegiate Rugby Football Union (in 1897, with McGill University and the University of Toronto).

Answer: Rangers

The Texas Ranger Division has had some questionable spots in its history--during Reconstruction, some of the Rangers were involved in forced confessions, extortion and murder--but it managed to overcome those dark times and become one of the powerful mythic elements of the American psyche. Famous actors who have played Rangers include John Wayne, Nick Nolte, Clint Eastwood and (of course) Chuck Norris.

Answer: Battery

Battery can involve inappropriate sexual touching or rape, and some forms of child abuse. Assault always involves violence. Mopery is somewhat vague, but means somewhat the same thing as vagrancy or loitering (though the word has also come to mean 'exposing oneself to a blind person' due to its use in a 1944 comic novel). And bigamy means having more than one spouse.

Answer: The United Nations

The UN was founded with the goal of preventing wars and of giving member nations (there are 192 of them in 2010) a chance to exchange views and dialogue. Under the United Nations umbrella fall the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the International Court of Justice. Its first Secretary-General was Trygve Lie of Norway.

Answer: Columbia

The Columbia is the fourth-largest river in America (by volume), and it provides more hydroelectric power than any other American waterway. The river is famous for the various fish species that travel it (including Coho and Chinook salmon, steelhead and white sturgeon) and for being the last leg of Lewis and Clark's journey to the Pacific.

In 1941, Woodie Guthrie wrote a song called "Roll On, Columbia, Roll On".

Answer: Wall Street

The best-known role in the movie is that of Gordon Gekko (for which Michael Douglas won a Best Actor Oscar), the ruthless corporate raider whose motto is "Greed is good". Also appearing in the movie is Martin Sheen, Charlie's real-life father, as Bud's father. The movie was directed by Oliver Stone.

Answer: Post

C.W. Post, in addition to becoming a very rich man from his breakfast cereals, was also supposed to have invented the cents-off coupon, so we have him to thank for the extra five pounds in our Sunday newspapers. Elijah's Manna is no longer--in 1908, because of protests by clergymen, it became Post Toasties.

Answer: New York City

The answer is NEW YORK CITY. The city's SUBWAY is famous (and carries more passengers than the rest of America's rail mass transit combined); the HUDSON river (named for Henry Hudson) forms the border between NYC and New Jersey; QUEENS is one of New York's five boroughs; the RANGERS are one of the city's professional hockey teams (along with the Islanders); the BATTERY is the southern tip of Manhattan Island; the UNITED NATIONS has its headquarters in New York City; COLUMBIA is NYC's Ivy League university; WALL STREET its financial center; and the POST one of its daily newspapers.