I'm going to reprint (without permission), today's easy items from the February 29th entry in Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac (easy only, buy the book if you want to see the medium and hard items for February 29th). These questions illustrate how the book is put together. After quoting a fact or event surrounding a particular calendar date. Ken devises a set of questions that plays off of that theme. To set up February 29th's easy questions Ken makes mention of the first use in 45BC of a Leap Day in the Julian Calendar (though it was on February 24th, and it lasted 48 hours instead of the standard 24).
Answers are in "INVISO-TEXT" at the end of this post.
"LEAPER COLONY"
1. Who ordered the disastrous "Great Leap Forward" in 1958?
2. What did Scott Bakula typically say after "leaping" into a new host on TV's Quantum Leap?
3. In 1991, who finally broke Bob Beamon's decades-old long jump record?
4. What kind of fixed-object parachute jumping takes its name from the four categories of such jumps?
5. What is a whale's leap out of the water called?
6. What video game character was originally given the name Jumpman? (XWL's note: and no, the answer is not "Jumpman", even though that was a pretty good game, back in the day, and beware, the answer to Ken's question is found at the link)
7. Mark Twain's "Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was named for what famous orator?
8. One Giant Leap was the first biography ever written of whom?
9. What state motto of Virginia shout as he jumped fromLincoln's box to the stage of Fords' Theatre?
10. The "leap from the lion's head" is the final challenge in what 1989 movie?
Highlight below for answers
1. Mao Tse-tung (XWL's note, part II: though I prefer to call him Mousie Dung)
2. "Oh, boy"
3. Mike Powell
4. BASE jumping (building, antenna, span, earth)
5. Breaching or lunging
6. Mario
7. Daniel Webster
8. Neil Armstrong
9. "Sic semper tyrannis"
10. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Highlight above for answers
29 February 2008
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2 comments:
not bad, I missed 3, 7, 8. Should;ve been able to guess 8.
Back around '88 I jumped out of a plane a few times. Hanging around a jumpzone is a fun time. Where I jumped they were extremely serious and safety conscious and as soon as the last plane took off they'd light the bonfire and tap the keg. In the video room they showed tapes of illegal jumps. There was a great BASE jumping tape that including a segment on parachute packing. To emphasize how dangerous this was it was filmed in a cemetary,
I didn't know 2,3 and 4 (was never a fan of Quantum Leap).
BASE Jumping always seemed like one of those, 'young white guys with a serious deathwish' sports.
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