Strange Facts You Don't Need to Know Quiz

Answer: John Quincy Adams

The presidential election of 1824 was very unusual. The old Federalist Party had pretty much disappeared, leaving only the Democratic-Republican Party to contest the election. But this didn't mean there was only one candidate for president; in fact, there four major candidates, all of whom won electoral votes: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford.

Andrew Jackson won a plurality of both the popular vote and the electoral vote, but not a majority. This meant that the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, where each state delegation received one vote. Only the top three vote-getters in the general election were eligible to be considered, and Henry Clay, who finished fourth, threw his support to Adams. John Quincy Adams was elected on the first ballot, carrying 13 states, as opposed to seven for Jackson, and four for Crawford.

When Adams subsequently named Clay to be Secretary of State in his new administration, Jackson and his supporters were outraged, and claimed that Adams and Clay had struck a "corrupt bargain" whereby Clay became Adams' heir apparent. The scandal resulted in a splintering of the Democratic-Republican Party into the Democrats and Whigs. Jackson defeated Adams in their rematch in 1828.

Answer: Edward IV

Perhaps due to their habit of intermarrying with the French, British royalty have usually been a rather puny and unprepossessing lot. We know quite a bit about their physical characteristics, because almost all of them have been dug up and prodded about by scientists from time to time. Edward I (of "Braveheart" infamy) was a very tall man for his time; he stood 6'2" (188cm) tall. Henry VIII was a six-footer. Charles I first was a diminutive 5'4" (rather shorter after his head was lopped off).

The person who probably came closest to our image of what a king should look like was Edward IV. He was nearly 6'4" (193cm) tall, with long, golden hair, and was considered very handsome when he was young (by the time he died at age 50, he was so fat he could barely move).

Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles are both of about average height, 5'4" and 5'9" respectively, but Prince William is a lofty 6'3" and Kate Middleton is 5'10", so future members of the royal family may be quite tall.

Answer: A railroad worker

"Gandy dancer" is another name for a railroad section hand. Gandy dancers are responsible for maintaining a specific section of track. The origin of the term is unknown, although various theories have been put forth. My grandfather, Alonzo Smith, was a gandy dancer on the Illinois Central Railroad for 52 years.

He could bend a quarter between his thumb and forefinger the way some men bend a bottle cap. Gandy dancers tend to be a bit rowdy, and a section boss had to be tough and strong to keep his gandy dancers in line.

Answer: $43,936.73

Howard earned $25 million in 2014, and had 569 at bats. You do the math. Since he batted only .233 and struck out 190 times, some people might find his salary a bit excessive. Zack Greinke, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, earned $28 million in 2014, and started 32 games. That means he was paid $875,000 per start.

Answer: It isn't a ruby

The Black Prince's Ruby is set in the cross of the Imperial State Crown. It weighs 170 carats and is about the size of a chicken egg. It isn't a ruby, however, but a red spinel. In medieval times, it was difficult to distinguish between red spinels and rubies, so the name has stuck.

The jewel seems to have been acquired by Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III of England, while he was fighting in Spain near the end of the 14th century. Edward was known as "the Black Prince" for reasons that are not exactly clear; he may have worn black armor, or carried a black shield. At any rate, it is known that Henry V had the jewel pierced and attached to the helmet he wore at the Battle of Agincourt. Today a small ruby fills the hole that Henry V had drilled through it.

The Crown Jewels were destroyed by Oliver Cromwell during the period of the Commonwealth, but the Black Prince's Ruby was preserved and repurchased by Charles II after his restoration, and has been part of Crown Jewels ever since.

Answer: It is almost identical to the sun

18 Scorpii is a star in the constellation Scorpio, just bright enough to be seen by the naked eye on a dark night. What makes it special is that it is a star almost identical to our sun. Such stars are known as "solar twins." There are actually quite a few of them, but 18 Scorpii is the closest, a mere 45 light years from earth. 18 Scorpii is a type G2V star, like our sun, and is a solitary star, not part of a binary system, like most stars are. Its diameter is almost identical to that of the sun, its mass is about 2% more, and it generates about 6% more radiation than our star. The only major ways that 18 Scorpii varies from the sun is that it contains more heavy elements, and may be slightly younger.

There are actually stars that are even more like our sun than 18 Scorpii, but they are much farther away. 18 Scorpii is thought to be one of the stars most likely to harbor intelligent life in our neighborhood of the galaxy.

Answer: William D. Leahy

Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy outranked many of his more famous contemporaries because of his seniority. Leahy was the first U.S. naval officer ever to hold a five-star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces. Leahy had retired in 1939, but was recalled to serve as the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1942.

He was opposed to the use of the atomic bomb; he wrote: "We had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make wars in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children." Leahy retired again in 1949, and died ten years later.

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Answer: A hybrid automobile

The Fisker Karma is my favorite example of why government and private enterprise don't mix. The premise sounded promising: Fisker, a company based in Anaheim, California, would produce an environmentally-friendly automobile that would create 250 jobs. Now most people would consider spending more than $2 million per job creation a bit much, but what the heck. The jobs presumably would come from sales, because the Karma was actually made in Finland.

Production began in 2011, and the accolades began rolling in immediately. "Time" magazine called the Karma one of "The 50 Best Inventions" of 2011. It also won "Automobile Magazine's" "2012 Design of the Year Award." The German car magazine "Auto Bild" named the Karma as the "Classic Car of the Future." And to top it all off, Britain's "Top Gear Magazine" christened the Karma "Luxury Car of The Year." So what could go wrong?

Well, to start with, the average Karma cost $103,000, so unless you were a millionaire, you couldn't afford to buy one. Secondly, while it boasted an impressive 52 miles per gallon (mpg) in electric mode, its cruising range was a mere 30 miles. That's not a typo. The Karma could only travel 30 miles in electric mode before it had to be recharged. And when operating on its gasoline engine, it got only around 20 mpg, making it one of the absolutely worst cars on the road for fuel efficiency. So much for "going green."

But there were other problems. The Karma broke down. A lot. When "Consumer Reports" tried to test the Karma, it broke down before they could get it out on the road. The magazine reported, "We buy about 80 cars a year and this is the first time in memory that we have had a car that is undriveable before it has finished our check-in process." Needless to say, they did not name it as their "Car of the Year." After a few hundred Karmas had been delivered and sold, reports began rolling in of fires caused by a faulty battery design. In February, 2012 the U.S. government cut off further funding after only 1800 cars had been sold.

Fisker declared bankruptcy in November, 2013 and was purchased by a Chinese company in 2014. Each of the $103,000 Karmas had cost almost $660,000 to produce.

Answer: No

Many people have pointed out that if you subtract 60 pennies from $1.87, you have $1.27 left over, and you can't make that sum using any combination current U.S. coins and currency, unless additional pennies are involved. Unknown to many people, however, is the fact that the United States issued three-cent coins until 1889, and these would still have been in circulation at the time the story was written in 1905. So Della could well have had $1.87 with sixty cents of it in pennies.

Answer: A brothel

"Fare thee well, my lovely Dinah, a thousand times adieu.
We are bound away from the Holy Ground and the girls we love so true.
We'll sail the salt seas over and we'll return once more,
And still I live in hope to see the Holy Ground once more."

The use of the term "Holy Ground" to refer to a brothel or red light district dates back to the 18th century. Since this is an Irish song, it is believed to refer to an establishment in Cobh, or Queenstown, in County Cork. There was a also an area of New York City known as "the Holy Ground." The tradition of ladies of questionable virtue separating sailors and their money is an ancient one that continues to this day.