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Trivia Bits Saturday, July 4
Little Letters: Kathryn Dawn Lang likes to spell her name with lower-case letters. Lang is also notable for appearing on the cover of the debut issue of two magazines. One of them was Entertainment Weekly, which was dated Feb. 16, 1990. The other …
Trivia Bits Friday, July 3
Keep Quiet: To hide his Jewish origins, Marcel Mangel changed his name to that of a French Revolution general, François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers. He became Marcel Marceau, the French mime who came to define the art form. His father, a kosher …
Trivia Bits Thursday, July 2
The Ebola virus is named for the Ebola River, in the D.R. Congo, where the virus spread to more than 55 villages in 1976. This probably ruined any tourism industry along the Ebola River. In fact, the Ebola virus is a lot like the Marburg virus, …
Trivia Bits Wednesday, July 1
Happy Canada Day: Our Canadian readers are celebrating Canada Day and probably not reading this column in their papers. Originally, it was called Dominion Day, because Britain promoted some of its colonies to a semi-independent status called …
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Trivia Bits, November 21You may be familiar with the term "runcible spoon" as a spoon-like utensil that has the tines of a fork (aka "spork"), or a spoon with a serrated edge for eating grapefruit or squash. But the term was coined by British poet Edward Lear for his "Owl and the Pussycat." The illustration Lear drew of it depicts a large ladle-like spoon with neither tines nor serration.
What was Life like 50 years ago? November 1958 cover subjects included the recently elected Pope John XXIII and actress Kim Novak, star of the bewitching film "Bell, Book and Candle." In the article "Everybody is Dishonest," lie-detector expert John Reid had this advice to make a lie convincing: "If you must lie, be bold. When Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" first came out in the 1930s, what was the best-selling dwarf doll? A) Dopey B) Sneezy C) Grumpy D) Doc Previous answer: Baseball star Jackie Robinson portrayed himself in the 1950 biopic "The Jackie Robinson Story." TRIVIA FANS: Send the trivia questions you've always wanted answered, or original TriviaBits ideas of your own, with your full name and hometown, to Stan Newman at StanTrivia@aol.com or on a postcard to P.O. Box 69, Massapequa Park, NY 11762. COPYRIGHT 2008 STANLEY NEWMAN DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE
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