Here’s the fifth and last installment of the retro trivia series. I hope you’ve had as much fun with them as I had putting them together. The answers will be listed below. See how you do.
What craze included terms like “handglide” and backslide”?
Whose visit to South Korea in May, 1984, promoted the tightest security in that nations history?
What brand of sweetener did G.D. Searle & Company put on the market in 1983?
The U.S. mining of what nation’s harbors caused a congressional uproar in April, 1984?
What was the name of Jesse Jackson’s hoped for coalition?
What was the bug that caused havoc in California?
Who was shot and killed at the airport in Manila in 1983?
What group in 1981 was compensated $5,000.00 per person for their unusual stint overseas?
Seven people died after popping these cyanide-spiked pills?
In what nation did a Soviet submarine find itself beached in 1981?
BONUS QUESTION
What celebrated figures were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral?
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Answers
Breakdancing, Pope John Paul II, NutraSweet, Nicaragua, The Rainbow Coalition, Mediterranean Fruit Fly, Benigno Aguino, The Iranian Hostages, Extra Strength Tylenol, Sweden, BONUS-Prince Charles & Lady Diana Spencer,
Here is the fourth installment of retro trivia from the decade of the 1970’s. These questions should be a little easier than the last three decades. As always the answers are listed below.
Who was court-martialed in 1971 for atrocities committed in Southeast Asia?
What became the capital of the reunited North and South Vietnam?
What was the name of the Russian spacecraft that linked with an Apollo module in 1975?
In 1974 what building became the tallest in the world?
What woman won the Nobel Prize in 1979?
What nation tried “The Gang of Four”?
Name the senator that presided over the Watergate hearings?
Where was the Queen Elizabeth when it caught fire and sank in 1972?
Who was the first native American to be canonized by the Catholic church?
Name the war hero who quit the Israeli cabinet in 1979?
BONUS QUESTION
What caused Iceland and England to sever diplomatic relations in 1976?
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Answers
Lt. William Calley, Hanoi, Soyuz, The Sears Tower, Mother Teresa, China, Sam Ervin, Hong Kong, Mother Seton, Moshe Dayan, BONUS-Cod Fishing Rights
The 60’s were an interesting and drug filled decade. I lived through it and thoroughly enjoyed almost all of it, How much do you know or remember? Put on your bell bottoms and crappy sandals, drop some acid, and go for a walk on the street to chat with strangers. I dare you!
Lets step back into the 1960’s. As always the answers are listed below.
What was the name of the “doorway” between the divided Berlins?
In what city was the 1968 Democratic Convention held?
Name of the Rockefeller that never returned from New Guinea?
Who were the first astronauts to fly the two-occupant Gemini capsule?
What was the first Apollo mission to carry a color TV camera to the moon?
In what European city was Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin apprehended?
In what area of the Dallas policed station was Lee Harvey Oswald shot by Jack Ruby?
What popular tranquilizer was introduced in 1963?
In 1968 which nation became the fifth to have “the bomb”?
How was the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann put to death?
BONUS QUESTION
What two nations combined to form Tanzania?
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Answers
Checkpoint Charlie, Chicago, Michael, Gus Grissom & John Young, Apollo XII, London, The Garage, Valium, France, He was Hanged, BONUS-Tanganyika & Zanzibar
I’m sitting here looking out the window and watching our first snowfall of 2025. If their estimate proves accurate we’ll have 7-10 inches by morning. From listening to the experts it does appear this may be the start of one helluva bad winter. I’m well prepared with a full can of gas, a working snowblower, and a desire to go play in the snow a little. If you’re in the same predicament then sit back in your warm and comfy chair to enjoy some interesting and varied trivia facts. Here we go . . .
Leonard Skinner was the name of the gym teacher of the boys who went on to form the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. He once told them “You boys will never amount to nothing.” The band’s front man, Ronnie Van Zant, decided to adopt the name but change the spelling, as a joke on his former teacher.
Richard Gere’s middle name is Tiffany.
Goldie Hawn’s career as an actress-comedienne was launched after she was spotted as a dancer in the chorus line on The Andy Griffith Show in 1966.
Keith Moon of the band, The Who, inspired the Muppet drummer Animal.
Under the Motion Picture censorship code, which was effective from 1934 to 1968, a screen kiss could only last 30 seconds before being labeled “indecent.”
In the early episodes of Start Trek, Dr. McCoy’s medical scanner was just an ordinary saltshaker.
The blood in the famous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was in fact Hershey’s chocolate syrup.
A snake has the best heat-detecting equipment in nature. Using the two organs between its eyes and nostrils it can locate a mouse by its body heat at a distance of 15 miles.
In a survey of 80,000 American women it was found that those who drank moderately had only half the heart-attack risk of those who didn’t drink at all.
When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop – including the heart.
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Here’s one of my Fav’s. If your a true fan of the Olympics you’ll love it too.
Nudity was considered perfectly acceptable in ancient Greece, but it was declared indecent if a man revealed an erection.
I thought I’d been fairly consistent in blogging quizzes from almost all of the decades. A few readers (mostly Millennials) claim that I’m biased towards the 90’s because I’m just an out-of-touch “Old Fart”. Well, this old fart will properly respond to those critics (young wise asses) with the first of many 90’s related quizzes. Let’s see just how smart they really are. Here are ten questions that will test these so-called critics and their vast (imagined) knowledge of damn near everything. As always the answers are listed below.
Who succeeded North Korean leader Kim Ill-sung after his death in 1994?
Who is the author of the dystopian novel The Giver?
Which late-night talk-show host was formerly a writer on the Simpsons?
Which push-up bra became famous in the 90s?
What ancient wind instrument featured in the title of the Legend of Zelda Game released in 1998?
What Formula One motor racing resulted in the tragic deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger
Name the 1999 film of the real-life story of Brandon Tenna, for which lead actress Hillary Swank was awarded the Best Actress Academy Award?
What’s spinning dolls were recalled after the manufacturer received more than 100 complaints of injuries?
What was the name of the Spice Girls third and final album?
What classic work of literature is Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones Diary roughly based on?
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One of My Fav’s
For how many days were Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman married?
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Answers
His son Kim Jong-Il, Lois Lowery, Conan O’Brien, The Wonder Bra, Ocarina, 1994 San Merino Grande Prix, Boys Don’t Cry, Sky Dancers, Forever, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Nine (Lucky Dennis)
I like finding information in history that I’ve never heard before. Here are two samples of incidents that apparently are not common knowledge. Enjoy!
HARRY CARAY
We don’t know where or when the “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” seven-inning sing-along began, but one early claim and perhaps the one that popularized it was the result of a prank. In the 1970’s, baseball broadcaster Harry Caray, then a play-by-play announcer for the White Sox, was known to sing along to the song while in the broadcast booth, which was normally with the microphone off. Bill Veeck found out about this and one day unbeknownst to Caray he turned the broadcaster’s microphone on and piped Caray’s rendition to the fans. The fans absolutely loved it, and when Caray moved to the crosstown Chicago Cubs, he kept it going.
FORT SUMTER
Here’s a little tidbit from the Civil War era. Officially, the siege of Fort Sumter had a death toll of just two men, both Union soldiers. But those deaths weren’t at the hands of the Confederacy. Fort Sumter, low on provisions and undermanned, was unable to thwart the Confederate bombardment. Major Robert Anderson, the commander of the fort agreed to surrender after less than two days of bombardment, under the condition that his men be allowed to give a 100-gun salute when lowering the American flag. During that ceremony, some ammunition went off accidentally, killing Pvt. Edward Galloway and Daniel Hough, the only casualties.
This blog is titled Every Useless Thing and I’m feeling today that you all must certainly need a huge dose of useless information. Just when I thought I’ve heard the weirdest s**t possible I just keep finding more and more and more. After all the years of my doing trivia it still amazes me how often I find things that boggle my mind. Let’s see if that will happen to you today.
The waist produced by a single chicken in its lifetime could supply enough electricity to run a 100 watt bulb for five hours.
The odds of being struck by lightning are one in 10 million.
Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
In 1992 convicted killer Robert Alton Harris stated just before entering the gas chamber: “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everyone dances with the Grim Reaper.”
The highest score ever achieved for one word in a Scrabble competition was 392 for the word caziques down two triple-word scores.
Mike Love, Pancho Villa, and Zsa Zsa Gabor were each married nine times.
Groucho Marx ate his first bagel at the age of 81..
Harrison Ford’s first film role was as a bellboy and his only line was “Paging Mr. Ellis”. Ellis was played by James Coburn.
Click Eastwood, Yasser Arafat, Elizabeth Taylor, Patrick Swayze, Sting, Luciana Pavarotti, Rowan Atkinson, and Ted Kennedy all survived plane crashes.
The odds of being killed in a road accident are one in 15,800.
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One of My Favorite Bands
The rock group 3 Dog Night obtained their name from an old Australian saying.“On a freezing night in the outback, a man would need to sleep with one dog to keep warm on a cold night, two dogs on a very cold night and three dogs on the coldest night.”
I find it a little strange that the minute I blog about the 1980’s my responses go through the roof. I lived through the 80’s and was never all that fascinated by the things that occurred then. People love the crudeness and rudeness of 80’s humor and don’t get me started on the limericks. Through the effing roof. In keeping with reader demands, todays little quiz will test your memories of the 80’s unless you were “stoned” most of the time. I’ll excuse all of you stoners out there just this once. As always, the answers are below.
Operation Able Archer was the codename of _______ that took place in 1983.
_______ was the teacher who died in the Challenger disaster.
What year did the Berlin Wall come tumbling down?
Margaret Thatcher is a member of what British political party?
Muammar Gadhafi was the dictator of what Middle Eastern country?
Mikhail Gorbachev initiated reforms meant to _______ the Soviet Union.
The passenger jet the Soviets shot down in 1983 was from what company?
How many points to did the Dow Jones Industrial Index lose on Black Monday?
What caused the Challenger disaster?
President Reagan ordered the _______ of Libya after a terrorist attack in West Berlin.
Answers
NATO wargames, Christa McAuliffe, 1989, Conservative, Libya, Save, Korean air lines/Korean Air, 508, O-ring failure, Aerial bombing.
I thought I’d try something a little different today. I usually have lists of trivia facts about all sorts of topics and at times they can be interesting, funny, and every so often downright weird. Today’s trivia is a little more on the darker side but still interesting. Here are ten bits of trivia that’ll make you think and possibly shudder a little.
Howard Hughes at times wore empty tissue boxes as shoes. He also blew his nose in his socks.
Napoleon Bonaparte was afraid of cats, but he wasn’t alone: other ailurophobe’s included Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Julius Caesar.
Actress Cybill Shepherd dated Elvis Presley in the early 1970s and once hinted on the Oprah Winfrey show that she had to teach the singer how to perform cunnilingus.
And here are two Osbourne family tidbits. Kelly Osbourne once expressed interest in posing nude for Playboy, but said that her breasts would need “some airbrushing.” Playboy founder Hugh Hefner later replied, “We don’t airbrush to that extent.”
Sharon Osbourne, wife of the late great Ozzy Osbourne, once admitted to sending her own excrement wrapped in Tiffany boxes to several people who criticized her family. When a journalist criticized her teenage children, Jack and Kelly, Ms. Osborne sent a box of excrement with a note that read, “I heard you got an eating disorder. Eat this.“
After his death in 1955, Elbert Einstein’s brain was removed and kept in a jar by Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the pathologist who conducted Einstein’s autopsy. Harvey was later fired from his job at Princeton Hospital for refusing to relinquish the organ.
Once upon a time an Italian stripper suffocated to death after waiting an hour to jump out of a sealed cake at a bachelor party.
The Cannibal Killer, Dorangel Vargas, The Hannibal Lector of the Andes, told the press that he preferred the taste of men to women, and never ate hands, feet, or testicles. “I have standards, you know”, said Vargas.
The FBI estimates that more than half a million pedophiles are online every day.
Television remote controls are the worst carriers of bacteria in hospital rooms; they spread antibiotic resistant Staphylococcus, which contributes to the 90,000 annual deaths from infection acquired in hospitals.
I’ve had the fortune or misfortune to live for almost 8 decades. Each decade had interesting points and just as many that were anything but. The 1950’s and early 1960’s meant very little to me because I was just a kid. Things got much more interesting in the late 1960’s where my real life education began. Free love and marijuana introduced me to a number of interesting things which made my life much more pleasant. The 1970’s introduced me to the work force and a lot of fun disappeared overnight. When the 1980’s arrived things once again became interesting. Todays post is a short quiz concerning the Pop Culture of the 1980’s. Ten questions that should be easy to answer for those of us who survived the decade. Let’s see how you do. As always the answers are below.
1. __________ was one of the musical styles influenced by the 1980’s fashions?
2. The hit show Miami Vice was on what TV network?
3. What year did MTV first go on the air?
4. Other than Levi, what were the cool name-brand jeans in the 80’s?
5. The Afterschool Special appeared on what TV network?
6. __________ was Johnny Carson’s trusty sidekick for entirety of his show?
7. What year did the home video game industry crash?
8. Young people often called their portable cassette players __________ in the 1980’s?
9. __________ and __________ were the star actors on Miami Vice?
10. The Intellivision video game console was made by what company?
Loving the phone!
ANSWERS
Punk; New Wave; Heavy Metal; Rap/Hip Hop; Country, NBC, 1981, Guess, ABC, Ed McMahon, 1983, Boom Box; Ghetto Blaster, Don Johnson & Philip Michael Thomas, Mattel.
(Just for the official record I scored 7 out of 10.)
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