Tidbits, Oddities and Peculiar Stuff Quiz

Answer: Violet Jessop

Violet Constance Jessop was a very fortunate woman indeed. Or, perhaps a very UNfortunate one if you want to think of it that way.
Not only was she a nurse, she also served as a stewardess on the ships concerned.
Many years later she died of congestive heart failure in 1971 at the age of 83.

Answer: Samuel Mudd

Although Samuel Mudd proclaimed his innocence in the assassination plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, testimony during his trial for conspiracy revealed that he had met with assassin John Wilkes Booth at least once prior to the murder. He was the doctor responsible for setting Booth's leg after he had jumped off the stage after shooting Lincoln.

Mudd received a life sentence in federal prison at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas near Key West, Fl. in the Gulf of Mexico. Fort Jefferson provided a fertile breeding ground for "Aedes Aegypti", the mosquito that carries the yellow fever virus.

After the fort was nearly abandoned due to a yellow fever outbreak except for 387 men, Mudd stayed behind after other doctors had left or died. By implementing a lot of the hygienic steps, (for that time), he was able to save many of the victims' lives.

As a result of his actions, one of the grateful survivors, Lieutenant Edmund L. Zalinski, thought Mudd had earned clemency from the government. He petitioned President Andrew Johnson who granted him his freedom.

Answer: Zhukov loved Coca Cola and it was disguised as vodka

Apparently Soviet Marshall Georgy Zhukov had been introduced to Coca-Cola by none other than American General Dwight D. Eisenhower and fell for the Western-style beverage.
The product, which consisted of 50 crates that were made just for him in Belgium, was caramel-free and was packaged in a straight-edged bottle to resemble vodka. The cap of the bottle even had a red star appearing on it to make the drink look more "Russian".

Answer: Cajuns

Cajuns, also known as Acadians, originally hailed from the maritime areas of Canada. That, of course, was the area that they had settled in after they left France. After the Great Expulsion that occurred at the end of the Seven Years War between England and France, which was known in North America as the French and Indian War, the Cajuns migrated southward in search of a new home.

The Spanish, French and English were all instrumental in populating Louisiana and interbreeding entered the picture as a result. Cajuns may have many bloodlines as a result.

Answer: 1818

When Russian emperor Alexander I visited the Stuttgart area of Germany in 1815 while he was in attendance at the Congress of Vienna following Napoleon's defeat, he noticed the oppression of peasants due to their religious affiliation and thus by 1818 had offered to send them to a place that is now known as Tblisi in the nation of Georgia.

Answer: Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich, along with Austrian-American Billy Wilder and others established funding for dissidents and Jewish refugees from Germany. By 1937 she had donated her entire salary proceeds from the film, "Knight Without Armor" into the effort.

Answer: to hang the boxes from the branches of a tree

Animal crackers (biscuits in Britain) were originally imported to the U.S. in the latter part of the 1800s. Later they were produced by the predecessors to the American-owned National Biscuit Company. In 1902 they were called "Barnum's Animals", a reference to Barnum and Bailey Circus.

Later that same year a marketing strategy of tying a string to the box so that the crackers could be hung from Christmas trees resulted in a successful innovation.

When I was a kid, I always wondered what the strings were intended for, so I made little trains out of the boxes and dragged them around the floor. :)

Answer: Thorny dragon

The thorny dragon or thorny devil lizard lives in the desert of Western Australia.

They appear in shades of desert browns and tans and have spiky scales that help to defend them from predators.

Answer: Aye-Aye

While all the animals mentioned are from Madagascar, the Aye-Aye taps on trees to find grubs to eat. It then gnaws holes into the wood and uses its long middle finger to pull the grubs out for a meal.

The only other animal that is known for foraging for food in this manner is the striped possum, (which resembles a black and white squirrel), that hails from New Guinea and surrounding environs.

Answer: May 19, 1780; a combination of smoke from forest fires, a thick fog and cloud cover

May 19, 1780; a combination of smoke from forest fires, a thick fog and cloud cover darkened the skies over parts on New England and into Canada.
The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon onward. This type of darkness did not disperse even partially until the middle of the next night.

For several days prior the sun viewed from New England had appeared to be red, and the sky appeared yellow. While the darkness of day was present, soot was seen to have collected in rivers and in rain water, suggesting the presence of smoke and fire. When the night arrived, people saw the moon as having a reddish hue.