True-or-False Spectacular IV Trivia Quiz

Answer: True

Before landing the role of the striking Lily Munster, opposite the late Fred Gwynne, on "The Munsters", Yvonne De Carlo (real name Margaret Yvonne Middleton) spent time on the silver screen, appearing in such movies as "Salome, Where She Danced" (1945), "Slave Girl" (1947), and "The Ten Commandments" (1956).

She also appeared on the famed live television anthology shows "Playhouse 90" and "The Ford Television Theatre". She spent two seasons on "The Munsters" and reprised her role in the feature film "Munster, Go Home!" (1966). Yvonne De Carlo died of natural causes on January 8, 2007, at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital in California.

Answer: True

The Irvine Company donated 1,000 acres of land and sold another 500 acres of land to the University of California in 1959 near Newport Beach, California. The Irvine campus was established in 1965, six years before the planned city of Irvine was incorporated.

The university, one of the largest employers in Orange County, has featured degree-granting programs in such fields as engineering, business and education. A law school was established there in 2006. The school's athletic programs have used the anteater as its mascot.

Answer: False

By definition, an Apollo astronaut is one who actually flew on an Apollo mission - be it a lunar mission, a Skylab mission, or the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission. John Young (Apollo 10 and Apollo 16) commanded two shuttle missions, including the very first shuttle mission in 1981. Vance Brand (Apollo-Soyuz) commanded three shuttle missions. Jack Lousma (Skylab 2) commanded STS-3, the first space shuttle mission to land somewhere other than California. Ken Mattingly (Apollo 16) commanded two shuttle missions. And Paul Weitz (Skylab 1) commanded STS-6, the first mission of the space shuttle orbiter Challenger.

Answer: True

October 17 is a significant date in baseball history because of two interesting events.

The first was the Loma Prieta earthquake, which struck the Bay Area of California during rush hour on Tuesday evening, October 17, 1989 - just minutes before Game 3 of the Bay Bridge Series between the Oakland A's and the San Francisco Giants was supposed to begin. ABC Sports play-by-play man Al Michaels, who had lived in the area for a number of years, tag-teamed with "ABC News Nightline" host Ted Koppel to cover the quake for the network's national audience. After a ten-day delay, the As completed their sweep of the Giants.

Ten years later, on Sunday evening, October 17, 1999, Robin Ventura hit what he thought was a game-winning grand slam for the New York Mets against the Atlanta Braves in the 15th inning of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. But because Ventura never made it beyond first base, he only got credit for a single. Outfielder Roger Cedeņo scored the winning run.

Answer: False

Bruce Bastian, who was a graduated student at Brigham Young University, worked with computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton to develop a word processing program for use by the city of Orem, Utah and its minicomputer system. Bastian and Ashton retained the rights to the program and formed Satellite Systems International in 1979 to sell the software.

The company was renamed WordPerfect Corporation in 1982, and the software became one of the most popular of its kind during the pre-Windows era of DOS. WordPerfect was sold to Novell in 1994, then sold to Corel in 1996.

Answer: True

Located in the northern sector of the state near the border with Vermont, Mount Marcy has an elevation of 5,343 feet (1,629 meters), making it one of the higher points in the United States east of the Mississippi River. It is also the highest of the so-called Adirondack High Peaks - a group of 46 mountains originally believed to all be at least 4,000 feet in elevation. Geologist Ebenezer Emmons led the first recorded ascent up the mountain in 1837.

The mountain's namesake served as New York's governor from 1833 through 1838. Prior to that, William L. March represented New York in the U.S. Senate from 1831 to 1833. Later, he served as Secretary of War under James K. Polk and as Secretary of State under Franklin Pierce.

Answer: True

Before inventing the gas mask and securing a patent for a traffic signal that was one of the forerunners of the modern traffic signals, Garrett A. Morgan came about his first invention quite by accident. While running a tailoring shop in Cleveland in the early 20th century, Morgan noticed that the needles in the sewing machines moved so fast that they needed a lubricant to prevent them from scorching the fabrics.

He discovered that the oil he created to polish and lubricate the needles also straightened dog hair. Morgan then tried the oil on his own hair and eventually sold it as a human-hair straightener.

The business was lucrative, but Morgan never rested on its success.

Answer: False

Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution lays out three requirements for a person to be a member of the House - that he or she must be 25 years of age; that he or she have been a U.S. citizen for seven years; and that he or she lives in the state that he or she intends to represent in the House. Unlike the president, who by Constitution must be a native U.S. citizen, a member of the House can be a naturalized U.S. citizen. Members of the House of Representative are elected to two-year terms.

Answer: False

The second smallest state in the Union in terms of land area, Delaware is comprised of just three counties - Kent (seated at the state capital, Dover), New Castle (seated at the state's most populous city, Wilmington) and Sussex (seated at Georgetown). Sussex, the southernmost of the three counties, is the largest in terms of land area, at 938 square miles (2,429 square kilometers).

The other counties listed here do exist in other states. Bibb County can be found in central Georgia and is seated at Macon. Caldwell County, in western North Carolina, is seated at Lenoir. And Harrison County, on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, is one of at least two counties in that state where two cities function as county seats. Biloxi and Gulfport are the seats of Harrison County.

Answer: False

The coefficient of friction is denoted by the lower-case Greek letter mu. The coefficient may be used to ratio of friction between two bodies at rest (static friction, or mu-sub-s) or two bodies in motion (kinetic friction, or mu-sub-k). The value of the coefficient is determined by experimentation - it cannot be determined through calculation - and it can be influenced by variables like temperature, velocity and, of course, the properties of the two items in contact.

Answer: True

Most of the 65 deaths resulting from the Sylmar Earthquake, which struck the San Fernando Valley just after 6 AM on February 9, 1971, occurred at two different hospitals in the region - the Veterans Administration hospital in San Fernando and Olive View Hospital in Sylmar.

The quake, which registered 6.6 on the Richter scale, also destroyed freeway interchanges linking Interstate 5 to California highways 14 (Antelope Valley Freeway) and 210 (Foothill Freeway). In all, the region suffered half a billion dollars in damage.

Answer: False

Before starting his own marketing information firm in 1968, James David Power III worked in a number of jobs, including serving as a financial analyst for Ford and as a marketing consultant for General Motors. J.D. Power and Associates is well known for the customer satisfaction surveys that it conducts and the awards it confers on members of various industries, most notably the automotive industry.

In April, 2005, Power sold his firm to McGraw-Hill.

Answer: True

Dane County, one of Wisconsin's 72 counties, is named for Nathan Dane, a legislator who represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and helped draft the Northwest Ordinance, from which Wisconsin was carved. Only Milwaukee County, where the metropolis of Milwaukee is seated, has more people than Dane County. Madison, Wisconsin's capital, is also the state's second most populous city and, most notably, is home to the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin system.

Answer: False

Benny Parsons entered his first-ever car race in an unusual way. According to his bio at the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America's website, Parsons was working in a Detroit service station in 1963 when a truck pulling a race car pulled in for gas. The people in the truck invited Parsons along to see that night's race at a nearby short track. When the car's regular driver didn't show, Parsons got behind the wheel himself.

During his career, Parsons won back-to-back ARCA championships (1968 and 1969) and was NASCAR's Winston Cup champion in 1973, despite winning only one race the entire season. After retiring from racing, he became a sought-after television commentator, working on ESPN, NBC and TNT, as well as on WCNC-TV, the NBC affiliate serving Charlotte, North Carolina.

The fact that Parsons quit smoking in 1978 did not save him from the scourge of lung cancer, which ultimately cost him his life. He died at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, while still being treated for the disease.

Answer: True

Like rivals ABC and NBC, CBS has used a variety of slogans and jingles to promote its programming over the years. In the early 1980s, the resurgence of the network's ratings and the beginning of the Space Shuttle era inspired the networks "Reach for the Stars" campaign. Later in the decade, with hits like "Dallas" and "The Dukes of Hazzard" leading the way, CBS shifted to "We've Got the Touch". Stars of CBS shows were regularly featured in the promos, and local CBS affiliates could also take advantage of the motifs to promote their own programming.