What's Your Number? Trivia Quiz

Answer: 13

The traditional explanation is that before accurate scales, bakers produced 13 of a product, such as loaves, so that they would not be underweight on selling a dozen, 12. In England in the 13th Century, bakers faced severe, and often violent punishment, for selling underweight products.

Answer: 666

As with so many things, this is disputed in some quarters. The number is said to come from the Book of Revelation Chapter 13 verses 17 and 18. Some contend that the number was wrongly transcribed and that the proper number is 616.
In the King James version the verses are translated in this way:
"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

Answer: 1,000

"But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles
To fall down at your door."
The Proclaimers were the identical Scottish twins Craig and Charlie Reid who were born in Leith in 1962. Their first single to chart was "Letter From America", which was a UK Number 3 in 1987. A year later, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" only made Number 11 in the UK, but was Number 3 in the USA. In 2001, "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" became a UK Number One when the twins sang a 'tweaked' version along with the comedian Peter Kay and a video comprising a host of Britain's best-known TV stars and personalities to raise money for charity.

Answer: 1,728

You had better be careful carrying all those eggs, for a great gross is a dozen gross (12x144).
(Quick joke: A man walks into a shop and asks for a loaf of bread. "Brown or white" asks the shop assistant. "Doesn't matter", says our hero "I've got my bike outside")

Answer: 999

The emergency number 999 was set up in the 1930s after a disastrous fire in which lives were lost because a witness trying to report the fire could not get through to the operator. As with a number of other countries, 112 on a mobile (cell) phone will also get you through to the emergency operator.

The number gets you through to the police, fire service, ambulance service and coast guard.

Answer: 4

Didn't we all learn it at Sunday School? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges...
In some places it was taught to a little tune that Splash still remembers his mother singing.
The first five books of the Bible are also known as the Pentateuch.

Answer: 7

It is said that Cúchulainn, 'The Hound of Ulster', had seven fingers on each hand and seven toes on each foot. Also sometimes known as Setanta, it is said Cúchulainn killed a dog with his bare hands as a child and as a youth defended the Province of Ulster against enemy armies.

Answer: 8

In Mandarin, the word for eight sounds like the word for prosper. So auspicious is the number regarded, that the 2008 Beijing Olympics were timed to begin at eight minutes and eight seconds past 8pm on the eighth day of the eighth month.
Four, five and six, by contrast, are considered unlucky numbers.

Answer: 99

Nena's original version in German, "99 Luftballons", was a 1983 Number One in West Germany and reached Number 2 on the US Billboard charts. An English version, "99 Red Balloons", was also a hit. (It is not a direct translation).

Answer: 80

Manfred von Richthofen was the supreme air ace of the First World War and was credited with shooting down 80 allied aircraft. The early days of aerial combat in WWI were amateurish ones, with opposing airmen using pistols to shoot at each other. Things had moved on by the time the Red Baron was in his supremacy, and he often flew with a "Flying Circus", a huge gathering of German aircraft that aimed to overwhelm any that the British, French, and later Americans, sent up.
Accounts of his death on April 21st 1918 are unclear. Some say he was shot down during a dogfight, others that he was hit by ground fire. He was accorded a full military funeral by the British.
("After the turn of the century/In the clear blue skies over Germany" is from the song 'Snoopy Versus The Red Baron', which was a hit for The Royal Guardsmen in 1966).

Answer: 266

If any Biggles fans answered 287, hang your heads in shame: 287 was the number of Biggles's rival, Mahoney. (They also flew SE5 aircraft when everyone knew Sopwith Camels were superior). James Bigglesworth was the fictional creation of Captain Johns, a pilot himself. Generations of British boys grew up with the exploits of Biggles and his friends, telling tales of derring-do in two world wars and a host of adventures worldwide.

By the1960s, Biggles began to fall out of favour with the chattering classes, who accused him of being racist and demeaning to woman and non-British nationalities. Tosh and piffle all true Biggles fans would say.

Answer: 11

On July 20, 1969, the Lunar module Eagle landed and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon.

Answer: 54

"There's a hold up in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights.
There's a traffic jam in Harlem
That's backed up to Jackson Heights.
There's a scout troupe short a child,
Kruschev's due at Idlewild
Car 54, Where Are You? "
The police sitcom "Car 54, Where Are You?" was filmed in New York City ran from 1961 to 1963.

Answer: 61

"Highway 61 Revisited" was released by Dylan in 1965 and came to be regarded as one of the best of his early albums. At the time, Dylan was moving from folkie to rocker and for all but one of the tracks was backed by a rock band. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine listed "Highway 61 Revisited" at Number 4 in "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

Answer: 109

Kennedy had been keen to get involved in the war and as Lieutenant (JG) was put in command of PT 109. On August 1st, 1943, a number of PT boats took part in an unsuccessful raid on Japanese shipping. Later, as PT 109 lay in wait for other enemy ships, she was run down and cut in two by the destroyer Amagiri. Kennedy, an expert swimmer, helped the surviving members of his crew make it through a four-hour swim in shark-infested waters to reach an island. The exploits of PT109 were made into a movie, with Cliff Robertson playing Kennedy.

A song, partly quoted in the question, was also written about the events.