Trivia People

Rollie Stichweh runs with the ball during the 1963 Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia. (Image from ForWhatTheyGave.Com)

On this date in 1963, the first instant replay during a sporting event was shown on television.

Here are some things you may not have known about the technology.

The first replay of any type to be shown on television was during a 1955 Hockey Night in Canada broadcast by the CBC. In that instance the network used a quick-turnaround kinescope film replay which aired later in the game. In 1963, Tony Verna of CBS Sports invented a system to allow instant replay of videotaped events. The system was used for the first time during an Army-Navy football game. The first play that was instantly replayed was a touchdown scored by Army’s Rollie Stichweh. The machine, which weighed more than half a ton, was balky and was used for only that single play.

Two years later, CBS debuted an analog disk-storage-based system that allowed for more replays and freeze frames. Instant replay has been credited with increasing the popularity of American Football on television.

In 1986, the National Football League introduced a limited instant replay system for officiating the game. The system originally used an official in the press box who could view the same replays as viewers at home. The early system ran into communication problems and slowed down the game. The experiment was dropped in 1992. A 1998 game between the New York Jets and Seattle Seahawks spurred the reintroduction of replay in 1999. In the game, officials gave New York quarterback Vinny Testaverde a touchdown despite the fact that he was a yard and a half from the goal line. The Seahawks fell one game short of the playoffs that season and the coach, Dennis Erickson, was fired following the season. The current system relies on coaches to challenge questionable calls, and the review of all scoring plays and turnovers.

Replay officiating has since been introduced into most major sports, including basketball, cricket, rugby, auto racing and tennis. Major League Baseball introduced its system in 2008 with the review of home run calls. In 2014, the system was expanded to allow each team’s manager one challenge per game, and a second challenge if the first one resulted in an overturned call.

One sanctioning body which does not allow the use of replay technology is FIFA, which says mistakes by officials are part of a desirable “human element” of the game of soccer.

Our question, Which service academy leads the all-time series between Army and Navy?

Today is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day in the United States. It’s National Cotton Candy Day and International Civil Aviation Day. It’s the birthday of author Willa Cather, musician Tom Waits and basketball legend Larry Bird.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

Burger King logo from 1966 (Image via Logopedia)

On this date in 1954, the first Burger King restaurant opened in Miami, Florida.

Here are some things you may not have known about the fast-food chain.

It was the successor to the failed Insta-Burger King chain of restaurants founded a year earlier in Jacksonville, Florida. The original chain was created after its founders visited the original McDonald’s location in San Bernardino, California. The company was purchased by its Miami franchisees, who dropped “Insta” from the name. In 1967, the owners sold the chain to the Pillsbury Company. During the time it was owned by Pillsbury, the company had little control over its franchisees, which resulted in problems with quality and consistency between outlets.

In 1963, the company expanded outside the continental United States for the first time with a location in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Its first international location opened in Windsor, Ontario in 1969. Its first European location opened in Madrid, Spain in 1975. The only country in which the company operates under a different name is Australia, where it is known as Hungry Jack’s. The name Burger King was already taken by a restaurant in Adelaide.

The company’s signature burger, The Whopper, also produced its share of issues for the company. Because of another restaurant called “Whopper Burger,” Burger King was unable to open any locations near San Antonio, Texas, until 1985.

In 1981 Burger King ran a commercial campaign claiming its burgers were bigger and better than those of McDonald’s. The ads, which featured a young Sarah Michelle Gellar, later of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fame, prompted McDonald’s to sue everyone involved in the ad, including Gellar. As a result, Gellar was prohibited from eating at McDonald’s.

By the early 2000s, Burger King had fallen behind Wendy’s in the battle to be the number-two burger chain in the U.S. behind McDonald’s. It has since passed Wendy’s to reclaim the second spot on the list. Among all fast-food companies it ranks sixth in number of locations in the United States with more than 7,000 outlets.

Our question, which restaurant chain has the most outlets in the United States?

Today is Navy Day in India, and Environment Day in Thailand. It’s unofficially National Cookie Day, National Dice Day and Faux Fur Friday. It’s the birthday of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, Academy Award winning actor Jeff Bridges and Academy Award winning actress Marisa Tomei (that’s not a mistake, look it up).

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

Cover of Dec. 11, 1967 issue of Time magazine featuring Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the first surgeon to perform a human heart transplant. (Image via Time.com)

On this date in 1967, the first successful heart transplant surgery took place.

Here are some things you may not have known about heart and other organ and tissue transplants.

The first successful tissue transplant was a skin graft from one part of the patient’s body to another in 1823. In 1905 the first successful cornea transplant took place. The first successful organ transplant was a kidney in 1950. In 1954, the first living related kidney transplant took place. 1966 saw the first transplant of a pancreas, followed by a liver transplant and a heart transplant a year later.

The idea of organ transplantation was first made by American medical researcher Simon Flexner in 1907. In 1945, a Soviet scientist transplanted a heart from one frog to another, and from one dog to another; both subjects survived. In 1964, a doctor in Jackson, Mississippi, transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee into a human, who lived only 90 minutes after surgery.

In 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa, Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the first heart transplant on Louis Washkansky. Washkansky died 18 days after the transplant of pneumonia brought on by a weakened immune system. Early on, patients didn’t survive long after surgery, with organ rejection being among the top causes of death. One of the pioneers of the procedure, Dr. Norman Shumway of Stanford Hospital in California, was the only American surgeon to continue performing the surgery after the rough start. He would go on to make several other advances including the use of powerful immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection.

Today more than 3,500 heart transplants are performed each year. The average post-surgical survival period is about 15 years. John McCafferty of England is the longest-surviving heart transplant recipient, having underwent the procedure in October 1982.

Our question, which former vice president of the United States received a heart transplant?

Today is International Day of People with Disabilities. It’s also Doctors’ Day in Cuba and Lawyer’s Day in India. Today is unofficially National Roof Over Your Head Day. It’s the birthday of author Joseph Conrad, singer Maria Callas and musician Ozzy Osbourne.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

An aerial view of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London (Photo by Mark Fosh via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 1697, the current St. Paul’s Cathedral in London was consecrated.

Here are some things you may not have known about the church.

It’s an Anglican cathedral and the seat of the Bishop of London. It’s located in the City of London, which is a small part of the metropolis of London and the center of the country’s banking industry.

The original cathedral was constructed on the same site in 604. It was enlarged several times and burned along with much of the city in 1087.

That church was followed by Old St. Paul’s, which burned in the Great Fire of 1666. To learn more about the Great Fire, download our episode about it at TriviaPeople.com/166.

Christopher Wren was put in charge of designing a new cathedral. The design process took several years and many revisions, but the first stone was laid in June of 1675.

The agreed-upon design featured a large dome, which is still among the highest in the world, and was inspired by Michelangelo’s design of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The substructure is also unusual. Because the area has weak clay soil, the cathedral was built with a crypt under the entire building instead of just a portion as would be the norm. Much of the crypt space is taken up by large columns that support and distribute the weight of the building above. Also, the dome is supported by eight columns, rather than the traditional four, which allows the columns to be more delicate in appearance.

The cathedral dome was completed in 1708, 11 years after services began in the building. Parliament declared the building complete on Christmas 1711.

During World War II, the cathedral was hit by bombs in October 1940 and April 1941. The second bomb exploded with such force that it shifted the dome very slightly.

From 1710 through 1962, St. Paul’s Cathedral was the tallest building in London. The Post Office Tower, now known as the BT Tower was the building that overtook it.

The cathedral remains a working church and holds three to four services a day. It is also the site of special services related to the City of London and the royal family. It was the site of the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981, and the funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Our question, what song from the movie “Mary Poppins” is sung in a scene on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral?

Today is International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. It’s also Armed Forces Day in Cuba and National Day in Laos and the United Arab Emirates. It’s unofficially National Fritters Day, National Mutt Day and Special Education Day. It’s the birthday of actress Julie Harris, tennis player Monica Seles, singer Britney Spears and Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

On this date in 1885, the first Dr Pepper soft drink was served in Waco, Texas.

Here are some things you may not have known about it.

Dr Pepper was created by pharmacist Charles Alderton and sold at Morrison’s Old Corner Drug Store in Waco. The drink was introduced nationally at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. It is said to consist of 23 flavors, but the exact recipe is a trade secret.

The name Dr Pepper is the source of considerable controversy for those who care about such things. Some say the name is in reference to pepsin, an enzyme which is said to have been an original ingredient. Others believe it may have been named after an actual doctor by the name of Pepper. Regardless, in the 1950s, the period was dropped from the abbreviation for doctor, so the official name is “Dr Pepper”.

In 1962, the company introduced Dietetic Dr Pepper, which sold poorly because of the belief that the drink was for diabetics. Sales increased after the name was changed to Sugar Free Dr Pepper in 1966. In 1987, the name was changed again to Diet Dr Pepper. Several other flavors have since been introduced.

Dr Pepper is the fifth best selling soft drink in the United States. It’s the best selling product not made by Coca-Cola or Pepsi.

Our question, which of the following ranks below Dr Pepper in sales: Sprite, Mountain Dew or Diet Coke?

Today is World AIDS Day. It’s National Day in Burma and Romania. Unofficially, it’s National Pie Day, National Eat a Red Apple Day and National Day of Giving. It’s the birthday of comedians Woody Allen, Richard Pryor and Sarah Silverman.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

“Thriller” album cover (Image via Epic Records)

On this date in 1982, Epic Records released Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Here are some things you may not have known about the best-selling album of all time.

Jackson was unhappy with the reception his previous album, “Off the Wall” received in 1979. He believed it should have won the Grammy for Record of the Year and set about making an album that would leave no doubt about his abilities as a performer.

Originally 30 songs were considered for the album, nine of which were chosen. Seven of the nine songs were released as singles; only “Baby Be Mine” and “The Lady in My Life” were not singles.

Recording started on April 14, 1982, with “The Girl is Mine,” a duet with Paul McCartney. That song, along with three others were written by Jackson. He also wrote “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” Beat It,” and “Billie Jean.”

“The Girl is Mine” was the first single released from the album, but didn’t perform well. It was followed by “Billie Jean,” which propelled the album to the top of the chart. “Beat It” followed about a month later, with “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” “Human Nature,” P.Y.T” and the title track released over the next year.

The song “Thriller” was written by Rod Temperton, who had written several hits for Jackson, including “Rock With You,” and “Off the Wall.” Early titles  for the song included “Starlight,” “Starlight Sun,” and “Midnight Man.” The end of the song features a spoken-word portion by actor Vincent Price. Price’s contribution was recorded in just two takes.

In December 1983, a 14-minute music video directed by John Landis was released, which features a now-classic scene of Jackson leading a mob of dancing zombies.

The album went on to win eight Grammy awards, and has sold an estimated 68 million copies worldwide. Rolling Stone magazine ranked it as the 20th greatest album of all time and it has been included in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry as a culturally significant recording.

Our question, on the cover of “Thriller,” what kind of animal is Jackson posing with?

Today is Independence Day in Barbados, National Day in Benin and St. Andrew’s Day in Scotland. It’s National Mousse Day, but we’re not sure if it’s supposed to honor the dessert or the hair product, so let’s celebrate both. It’s the birthday of Mark Twain, Winston Churchill and Dick Clark.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

Photo of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio from the cover of the January 1954 issue of Now magazine (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Today is the 101st anniversary of the birth of baseball Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio.

Here are a few things you may not have known about the Yankee Clipper.

DiMaggio was born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio in Martinez, California, in 1914. He was the eighth of nine children. His father was a fisherman, who moved from Sicily in 1898, followed shortly by his wife and oldest daughter. One year after Joe was born, the family moved to the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco. Joe turned to baseball as a way to avoid cleaning his father’s fishing boat. His father, who didn’t care for the game, would call him “lazy” and “good for nothing.” When his father finally gave up on keeping his son from playing baseball, Joe lost interest in the game. Later, he began taking the game more seriously after his brother Vince was signed by the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League.

Joe DiMaggio was signed by the Seals and made his professional debut on Oct. 1, 1932. The next season he hit safely in a league-record 61 consecutive games. The next year, he tore ligaments in his knee while stepping from a jitney cab. Despite the injury, the New York Yankees purchased his contract, but let him stay with the Seals for the 1935 season. In 1935, DiMaggio  hit .398 with 34 home runs and 154 runs batted in. The team won the league title and DiMaggio was named the PCL’s Most Valuable Player.

In 1936, he debuted with the Yankees and helped lead the team to a World Series championship. The Yankees won the next three championships as well, and DiMaggio was selected as the American League MVP in 1939.

On May 15, 1941, DiMaggio went 1-for-4 against the Chicago White Sox. 41 games later, he broke George Sisler’s modern record for consecutive games with a hit. Three games later, he passed Wee Willie Keeler’s all-time record set in 1897. The streak would eventually reach 56 games before ending on July 17. The day after, he started a 16-game hitting streak, hitting safely in 72 of 73 games. The Yankees went 41-13-2 during the streak. He earned his second American League MVP award that season.

He missed three seasons from 1943 through 1945 while serving in the Army Air Forces during World War II. He spent most of the war as a physical education instructor, rising to the rank of sergeant. He went from making $3,500 a month to $21 a month in the Army. He was discharged in 1945 after suffering from chronic stomach ulcers. While he was serving, his parents, who were not yet American citizens were classified as “enemy aliens” and were not allowed to travel more than five miles from their home without a permit.

DiMaggio returned in 1946 and won his final MVP award in 1947. He retired after the 1951 season. When he retired he ranked fifth in carer homer runs. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955 in his third year of eligibility.

In 1954 he met and married Marilyn Monroe. An argument following the filming of the skirt-blowing scene in Monroe’s movie “The Seven Year Itch,” led to their divorce less than a year later. After Monroe’s marriage to playwright Arthur Miller failed, DiMaggio and Monroe became friends again. According to a biography, DiMaggio was intending to ask Monroe to remarry him when she was found dead on August 5, 1962. For the next 20 years, he had six red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week. He never talked about her publicly again.

In 1999, DiMaggio died of lung cancer in Hollywood, Florida. He was 84.

Our question, who has the longest major-league hitting streak since DiMaggio’s 56-...

An FBI artist sketch of the man who called himself “Dan Cooper” and hijacked a flight between Portland, Ore., and Seattle in 1971 (Image via U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation)

On this date in 1971, a man using the alias Dan Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.

Here are some things you may not have known about D.B. Cooper.

On November 24, 1971, the day before Thanksgiving, a man identifying himself as Dan Cooper purchased a one-way ticket on an afternoon flight from Portland to Seattle. The ticket cost $20.

In the air, Cooper passed a note to a flight attendant, who figured he was passing her his phone number. She put the note, unread, into her purse. Cooper then told her to look at the note and told her he had a bomb.

Cooper demanded $200,000 in “negotiable American currency,” four parachutes and that the plane be refueled upon landing in Seattle. The plane circled Seattle for two hours while authorities fulfilled the demands.

Once the demands were met, the plane landed and moved to a well-lit, but remote part of the tarmac. A Northwest Orient employee delivered the cash and parachutes. About two hours after it landed, the plane took off again with an intended destination of Mexico City. Cooper demanded that the plane be flown at its minimum speed and at no more than 10,000 feet. He also wanted the landing gear down, the wing flaps lowered 15 degrees and the cabin unpressurized. He also had the flight crew lock themselves in the cockpit.

Twenty minutes after, Cooper opened the aft staircase. At 8:13 p.m., It’s believed he jumped from the plane into the dark, rainy wilderness of Southwest Washington state near the Lewis River.

The FBI  and sheriff’s deputies searched the area around Lake Merwin near Mount St. Helens. The searches came up empty. The search continued after the spring thaw, but once again, nothing was found.

In 1978, a deer hunter found a instruction placard for lowering the stairs on a 727 about 13 miles east of Castle Rock, Washington. Two years later an eight-year-old boy found three bundles of the ransom cash along the Columbia River nine miles downstream of Vancouver, Washington. No further evidence has been found. From the start, FBI investigators have assumed that Cooper did not survive the jump. The conditions were so bad that if the jump didn’t kill him, he wouldn’t have survived long on the ground without assistance.

Our question, Northwest Orient Airlines is now known as what?

Listen to the podcast to find out the answer.

Today is unofficially National Sardines Day. It’s the birthday of artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, mobster Lucky Luciano, and basketball legend Oscar Robertson.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

Harpo Marx

Today is the 127th anniversary of the birth of Harpo Marx, the second-oldest of the Marx Brothers comedy troupe.

Here are some things you may not have known about Harpo and his brothers.

Adolph Marx was born in New York, and grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was the third son of Sam and Minnie Marx, their first child, Manfred, didn’t survive infancy. Leonard, better known as Chico was born in 1887, Harpo followed a year later. Groucho Marx, whose birth name was Julius Henry Marx as born about two years after Harpo, followed by Gummo in 1892 and Zeppo in 1901.

The brothers were the nephews of vaudeville star Al Shean. Groucho was the first to begin performing in 1905 as a singer. He was joined by Gummo two years later and Harpo in 1910. They stumbled into comedy during a 1912 performance in Texas when their musical performance was interrupted by a runaway mule outside the theater. When the audience returned, Groucho began insulting the audience, who found the remarks hilarious. Their act gradually evolved to become predominantly comedy-based. Both Harpo and Groucho say that their characters were created by their uncle. Groucho wore a greasepaint mustache; Harpo became known as the silent brother wearing a red wig and carrying a horn, while Chico used a phony Italian accent and Zeppo played the straight man.

Harpo’s name came from the fact that he played the harp, along with several other instruments. In Groucho’s autobiography, he said that Harpo adopted his silent character because he was’t very good at remembering his lines. The only time Harpo spoke on screen was in the movie “Too Many Kisses,” but appropriately, it was a silent film and his line appeared in print on the screen. The first film to be released featuring the Marx Brothers was “The Cocoanuts” in 1929. The last to feature the four brothers together was “Duck Soup” in 1933. After that film, Zeppo stopped performing. Groucho, Chico and Harpo went on to make 10 more movies together, including “A Night at the Opera,” “A Day at the Races” and “At the Circus.”

Harpo married actress Susan Fleming in 1936. They adopted four children. Harpo Marx died on September 28, 1964. He was 75.

Our question, what were the names of the two warring countries in “Duck Soup”?

Today is Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan and St. George’s Day in the nation of Georgia. In the United States it’s National Cashew Day and National Espresso Day. It’s the birthday of former U.S. president Franklin Pierce, outlaw Billy the Kid and actor Boris Karloff.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.

Alan Freed on a Topps trading card in 1957. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 1959, disc jockey Alan Freed, who popularized the term “rock and roll,” was fired by New York’s WABC for his part in what came to be known as the payola scandal.

Here are some things you may not have known about Freed, payola and the early days of rock and roll.

Freed started in radio while a student at Ohio State University. He worked as a DJ on Armed Forces Radio during World War II. In 1945, he began a show on WAKR in Akron, Ohio, playing hot jazz and popular music. In 1951, Freed moved to WJW in Cleveland, where he hosted a midnight show featuring rhythm and blues music called “The Moondog House.”

In March 1952, he organized the first rock and roll concert, called “The Moondog Coronation Ball” at Cleveland Arena. The concert, which was to feature black and white performers on the same stage, was controversial at the time. Due to a printing error and counterfeit tickets, about 20,000 people tried to squeeze into the 10,000-seat arena. After the first song, the local fire marshal put an end to the show. The event made Freed one of the most influential DJs in the nation.

Two years later, he moved to WINS in New York and eventually made his way to WABC. In 1959, it was alleged that Freed participated in a pay-for-play scheme known as payola. At the time DJs controlled what was played on stations and record companies were willing to pay them in exchange for airtime. According to congressional testimony by a Chicago DJ, the price could be as much $22,000 per record. Freed refused to participate in the hearings and was fired by WABC. After that, DJs were largely stripped of the ability to choose what to play, and payola became a misdemeanor offense. That didn’t stop the practice, however. In 2005, Sony was fined $10 million for improper promotional practices with several radio companies.

Freed went on to work at a small station in Santa Monica, California, before a short stint in Miami. He returned to Los Angeles in 1964. He died a year later of illnesses related to alcoholism. He was 43.

Our question, what was the first rock and roll song to hit No. 1 on the U.S. charts?

Today is Universal Children’s Day and Transgender Day of Remembrance. In the United States it’s National Peanut Butter Fudge Day and National Absurdity Day. It’s the birthday of astronomer Edwin Hubble, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, musician Duane Allman and Vice President Joe Biden.

Links

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or our website.

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com

Please rate the show on iTunes by clicking here.