Trivia test - Moments in time - Oct. 1, 2009

Trivia

1. GEOGRAPHY: On which of the Japanese islands would you find Mount Fuji?

2. FAMOUS PEOPLE: What did gangster Al Capone die of?

3. MOVIES: What 1980s movie featured characters named Westley, Buttercup and Inigo Montoya?

4. PSYCHOLOGY: What would someone who suffered from chorophobia be afraid of?

5. ANIMAL KINGDOM: What kind of creature is a porbeagle?

6. SCIENCE: What scientist, also known as the father of taxonomy, discovered that some flowers open at certain times each day and can be used to tell time?

7. U.S. PRESIDENTS: How many U.S. states are named after a president?

8. LITERATURE: Who wrote under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll?

9. FOOD & DRINK: What are capers?

10. MUSIC: What does the musical notation “da capo” mean?

Answers

1. Honshu

2. Syphilis

3. “The Princess Bride”

4. Dancing

5. Shark

6. Carolus Linnaeus

7. Only one — Washington

8. Charles Dodgson

9. Pickled flower buds

10. From the beginning

(c) 2009 King Features Synd., Inc.

MOMENTS IN TIME

The History Channel

• On Oct. 13, 1792, the cornerstone is laid for a presidential residence in the newly designated capital city of Washington. The executive mansion soon became known as the “White House” because its white-gray Virginia freestone contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings.

• On Oct. 12, 1915, British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I. When Cavell and others were arrested, she made a full confession and was sentenced to death.

• On Oct. 18, 1922, “Robin Hood,” starring Douglas Fairbanks, opens in Hollywood. As a publicity stunt, Fairbanks had posed atop a New York hotel in costume, with bow and arrow. He and several others shot arrows from the building, and accidentally injured a man when an arrow flew through an open window.

• On Oct. 14, 1947, U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. His X-1 aircraft was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 mph.

• On Oct. 15, 1964, while trying to set a new 1 mile land-speed record, Craig Breedlove inadvertently set another kind of record after he lost control of the Spirit of America jet-powered car on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The vehicle began to skid, taking nearly 6 miles to decelerate from more than 400 mph — the longest skid marks on record.

• On Oct. 16, 1973, Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the Paris Peace Accords. Kissinger accepted, but Tho declined the award until such time as “peace is truly established.”

• On Oct. 17, 1994, taxicab driver Jeremy Levine returned to London, from a round-trip journey to Cape Town, South Africa. Passengers Mark Aylett and Carlos Aresse paid 40,000 pounds, or approximately $65,000, for the 21,691-mile trip, setting a world record for the longest known taxicab ride.

(c) 2009 King Features Synd., Inc.