Trivia test/Strange but true

TRIVIA TEST

1. MYTHOLOGY: What creatures are combined to form the mythical creature called a centaur?

2. LANGUAGE: What kind of website is named for the Hawaiian word for “quick”?

3. ETIQUETTE: What is the traditional type of gift given on fifth wedding anniversaries?

4. PERSONALITIES: Who was the prince who married actress Rita Hayworth in 1949?

5. RELIGION: Who is the patron saint of sailors?

6. MUSIC: What does the musical direction “sostenuto” mean?

7. TELEVISION: What is the name of the mayor on “The Simpsons”?

8. INVENTIONS: Who invented the artificial heart?

9. LITERATURE: Who wrote “The Armies of the Night,” a nonfiction book about Vietnam protests?

10. ART: Who created the “Vitruvian Man” illustration?

Answers

1. A human being and a horse

2. Wiki

3. Wood

4. Prince Aly Khan

5. St. Brendan

6. Sustained

7. Mayor Joe Quimby

8. Robert Jarvik

9. Norman Mailer

10. Leonardo da Vinci

(c) 2012 King Features Synd., Inc.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

by Samantha Weaver

• It was pioneering British film director and producer Alfred Hitchcock who made the following sage observation: “Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it — as well as contributing to the need for it.”

• The grapefruit is so named not because of any relation to or resemblance to a grape (obviously), but because it hangs from the tree in grapelike clusters.

• Those who study such things say that the three most recognized words in the world are God, Coca-Cola and Titanic.

• Although darts is a traditionally English pub game, there are now more than three times as many darts players in the United States than there are in the United Kingdom.

• Jazz musician Glenn Miller was the recipient of the first gold record ever awarded, for the big-band hit “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”

• The amount of fuel in a jumbo jet single tank would be enough to allow a car to drive around the world — four times.

• If you had visited Peru in the mid-1980s, you could have bought toothpaste with cocaine in it.

• Before he became the celebrated author of such novels as “Pale Fire” and “Lolita,” Vladimir Nabokov was a tennis instructor.

• The longest game in the history of professional baseball was played between the Pawtucket Red Sox and the Rochester Red Wings in April of 1981. It lasted just shy of 8 1/2 hours and ran for an unbelievable 33 innings.

• It’s traditional in Italy for a prospective groom to spend a full year’s earnings on an engagement ring.

***Thought for the Day: “If a rabbit defined intelligence the way man does, then the most intelligent animal would be a rabbit, followed by the animal most willing to obey the commands of a rabbit.” — Robert Brault

(c) 2012 King Features Synd., Inc.