"Put" in Its Place Trivia Quiz

Answer: After three months in orbit, it burned up on re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

The name Sputnik means "companion" or "fellow traveler"; used astronomically, it is equivalent to the English word "satellite". Sputnik 1 wasn't the Earth's first satellite, of course - that honor belongs to the Moon - but it was the first artificial one, and its successful launch on October 4, 1957 galvanized the world. The satellite weighed about 183 pounds (84 kilograms) and looked like a metal sphere with four long antennae, which it used to transmit temperature and atmospheric density data back to Earth - to the delight of amateur radio operators everywhere.

Sputnik was not greeted with joy and pride everywhere in the world, of course; the fact that it used a rocket launcher originally designed for transporting nuclear missiles was not lost on the western world. The "Sputnik crisis" inspired a generation of scientists on both sides of the Cold War - and guaranteed government funding for them! Incredibly, people were walking on the moon less than twelve years after this little metal ball was launched into the sky.

Answer: It has a long, flat striking surface.

The putter's long, flat head is designed to hit the ball so that it rolls along the top of the grass, rather than going airborne. (This is why grass is kept much shorter on putting greens than elsewhere on the course.) Usually, the ball needs to travel only a few feet to the cup, so precision is crucial, as nervous golfers learn to their cost. (A golfer whose putts suffer from nervous tics is said to have a case of the "yips.") Some versions of the putter are designed with longer shafts that can be braced against the stomach or chest to reduce the yips, but these are not standard and their use in the sport is controversial.

Answer: A computer? Why, that's a person who does mathematical calculations. It's a woman, usually.

The first documented use of the word "computer" to refer to a device for calculation was not until 1897, when - as the "Oxford English Dictionary" reports - it appeared in an article in a journal called "Engineering." Early mechanical computers were all analog, often relying on gears powered by hand cranks. So, for real number-crunching power, mathematicians and scientists called on the human brain - especially brains belonging to women, whose other options in math and science were limited and who were willing to work for half the pay of a man. Complex problems were broken into parts and solved in parallel by teams of women, whose calculational abilities were measured in "girl-years."

Short on respect and short on cash, these human computers were nevertheless vital to scientific progress. The first known organized team of computers calculated the return of Halley's Comet in the mid-eighteenth century. In 1840, a male computer named Radhanath Sikdar was the first to find the height of Mount Everest. Henrietta Swan Leavitt, working as a computer counting stars in photographs at Harvard College Observatory, discovered Cepheid variable stars (whose brightness varies periodically over time) and mapped out the relationship between their luminosity and the period of their variations - information that allowed us to measure the distances between galaxies for the first time. Another Harvard College Observatory computer, Annie Jump Cannon, pioneered the classification of stars based on their temperature and spectra - the famous OBFGKM system still used today. And all this on a pay scale of 25 cents per day or less ...

Answer: Inside a plastic container shaped like an egg

Silly Putty can be a bit bizarre to play with. It generally holds the shape it's given, but over time, it flows like a liquid. Although it bounces, it can be broken by a sharp impact. It's useful as an adhesive, too, leading to several of its high-profile uses: astronauts use it in space to hold their tools and it's quite handy for picking up lint and hair while cleaning house. Patients recovering from hand injuries or suffering from high stress levels even find it soothing and productive to squeeze balls of putty.

Its inventors believed it to be a failure for several years after they first produced it in the early 1940s, since it couldn't really take the place of rubber - but then toy store owner Ruth Fallgatter, holding a sample, realized that it could be a gold mine! Seldom has a product of war brought so much joy.

Answer: The KGB

Putin, already a member of the Communist Party, joined the KGB (the Soviet Union's intelligence agency and secret police) after graduating law school in 1975. He is known to have served in Leningrad in the early 1980s and in East Germany in the late 1980s; the fall of that country and the reunification of Germany drove him back to Leningrad. His precise duties during his KGB years are unknown, but he is said to have served as a spy as well as taking action to curb political dissent.

After the Soviet Union fell, Putin went into politics, and by 1999 Boris Yeltsin (Russia's first president) had decided he wanted Putin to succeed him. During his eight-year presidency, Russia emerged from the economic chaos of the 1990s, but Putin was criticized for his handling of the war in Chechnya, his prosecution of some successful businessmen, and his stern and autocratic reaction to domestic critics. Not one to surrender power easily, he did step down as President after his constitutionally mandated two terms ended in 2008 - but his handpicked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, immediately named him Prime Minister! Putin's story is certainly not over.

Answer: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

Joan Jett, a Philadelphia rocker born in 1958 and backed by the trio of the Blackhearts, is better known for a single that came out the next year - "I Love Rock N' Roll", #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1982. But "Bad Reputation", released the year before, also receives frequent radio play and inspires numerous covers.

In the song, Jett aggressively defends her "bad reputation", even accusing the listener of being out of touch for even caring about such a thing: "You're living in the past, it's a new generation: a girl can do what she wants to do, and that's what I'm gonna do."

Answer: The athlete attempts to throw a heavy metal ball as far as possible.

The "shot" - the heavy metal ball in question - weighs 6 kilograms (or 13.2 pounds) in men's international competition, and it must be "put" behind the line with a kind of pushing throw that begins at the athlete's neck. Modern shotputters choose between two main putting styles: the glide and the spin, which both involve the athlete rotating through part of a circle and applying that momentum to the motion of the shot. Good shotputters can fling that 6-kilogram shot over 20 meters; in 1990, Randy Barnes set a world record by putting the shot 23.12 meters, over 75 feet!

Answer: Munich, Germany

On the night of the Putsch, Gustav von Kahr -- the commissioner of Bavaria -- was giving a speech in the Bürgerbräukeller beer hall, addressing some 3000 businessmen and government figures. At 8:30 p.m., Hitler entered the hall at the head of 600 stormtroopers, accompanied by Rudolf Hess and Hermann Göring, among others. Von Kahr and the other two Bavarian triumvirs (police chief Hans von Seisser and army general Otto von Lossow) were taken at gunpoint into a back room and urged to proclaim their support for the Nazi revolution.

They eventually agreed, but escaped at the first opportunity and recanted their pledges. The putsch collapsed as the Nazis failed to take military barracks and failed to occupy Munich. The next morning, three thousand Nazis marched on the center of the city in a last-ditch attempt to gain control -- and were stopped by a hundred policemen.

Unfortunately, despite the ignominious end of his first attempt at a power grab, Hitler was not dissuaded from his ultimate goal of dictatorial rule.

Answer: The 25th Annual PUTnam County Spelling Bee

"C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E" is an improvised performance (where, within certain parameters, the actors write the script spontaneously while on stage) designed by Rebecca Feldman. A performance of the work by a comedy group called The Farm inspired the musical "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," which follows the trials and travails of six young teenagers participating in a spelling bee run by several adults with problems of their own.

A handful of audience members, often chosen for traits like memorable names or unusual hairstyles, joins the spellers every show to shake things up a bit. With such unusual songs as "My Friend, the Dictionary" and "Magic Foot," the musical has a lot of fun tapping into America's spelling bee subculture.

Answer: Never end a sentence with a preposition.

The phrase "to put up with" is (despite that final preposition) a popular English expression meaning "to tolerate" -- and its idiomatic meaning is lost when the prepositions are taken out of order. The story goes that a stern (and imprudent) grammarian instructed Churchill not to end his sentences with prepositions -- and was promptly skewered by this reply, highlighting the absurd results of rigidly applying this rule to English.

"Never end a sentence with a preposition" belongs to a family of somewhat controversial rules, generally enforced by secondary school teachers but routinely flouted in English both spoken and written, formal and informal.

Thank you for joining me in this tribute to the letters PUT. I fervently hope that it has not PUT too much strain on your comPUTer, damaged anyone's rePUTation, or caused any disPUTes between you and your loved ones.