Trivia People

Today is April First and here are some things you may not know about April Fools’ Day.

1. Boston University professor Joseph Boskin traced the tradition to the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine.

2. A group of court jesters jokingly said they could do the emperor’s job better than the real emperor. Afterward, a court jester named Kugel was made king for a day and declared that April First should be a day of absurdity and frivolity.

3. This explanation probably doesn’t make any sense, because it was an April Fools’ hoax pulled by Professor Boskin on a reporter from The Associated Press in 1983.

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.

March 31, 1985, was the date of the World Wrestling Federation’s first Wrestlemania, held at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Here are three things you might not know about the first Wrestlemania:

1. The theme song for the event was an instrumental version of “Easy Lover” by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins.

2. The main event was filled with special guests. Former New York Yankee player and manager Billy Martin was the ring announcer, Muhammad Ali was the referee, while Liberace was the guest timekeeper.

3. More than a million fans watched the event via closed-circuit television, a record for that time.

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 March 30, 1939, the character of Batman made his debut in Detective Comics.

Here are three things you might not know about the creation of Batman:

1. Bob Kane was originally credited as the sole creator of Batman. Later Bill Finger would be posthumously credited as co-creating the character with Kane.

2. A copy of Detective Comics issue number 27, in which Batman debuted, sold for $1,075,000 in 2010.

3. Batman’s real name of Bruce Wayne was inspired by Scottish king Robert the Bruce and by American Revolutionary War general “Mad” Anthony Wayne.

About the Trivia Minute:

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.

March 29th marks the 70th anniversary of the final German V-1 attack against Great Britain during World War II.

Here are three things you might not have known about the German V-1 attacks against Great Britain:

One: The unmanned aerial bombs were launched from the French and Dutch coasts starting one week after Allied Forces stormed the beaches of Normandy on D Day.

Two: The Luftwaffe lost 77 aircraft as a result of V-1s that malfunctioned on launch.

Three: The last V-1 launched at Great Britain landed in a field near Datchworth, England.

For more:

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.

President Jimmy Carter, second from right, tours the control room of the No. 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., with, from left,, Harold Denton, Pennsylvania Gov. Dick Thornburgh, and James Floyd, supervisor of TMI-2 operations, on April 1, 1979. (US Government photo via Wikipedia)

 

 March 28th marks the 36th anniversary of the partial meltdown of one of the reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.

Here are three things you may not have known about the Three Mile Island accident:

One: Property damage and cleanup cost nearly $3.5 billion. The cleanup process took 14 years.

Two: There is another reactor at Three Mile Island that continues to run today.

Three: The accident rated as a five on International Nuclear Event Scale, which runs from zero to seven.

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.

Mary Mallon, foreground, in a hospital bed. Mallon was forcibly quarantined as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever from 1907 to 1910 and then again from 1915 until her death in 1938. (New York American photo via Wikipedia)

Mary Mallon, also known as Typhoid Mary, was quarantined on March 27, 1915.

Here are a few things you might not know about Typhoid Mary, the first person identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever:

One: She worked as a cook for eight families in New York before her first quarantine, seven of the families had outbreaks of typhoid fever while she worked there. Following that quarantine, she returned to work as a cook and infected dozens more people.

Two: She admitted to poor hand-washing hygiene. In addition to refusing to wash her hands, she refused to stop working as a cook and changed her name at least once to continue working.

Three: She spent the last 23 of her life in quarantine on North Brother Island, located in the East River between The Bronx and Rikers Island. She died in 1935, six years after suffering a paralyzing stroke. An autopsy found she had live typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder.

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.

Sandra Day O’Connor, right, is sworn in as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court by Chief Justice Warren Burger, left, as her husband, John, watches on Sept. 25, 1981 in Washington. (US National Archives photo via Wikipedia)

March 26th marks the 85th birthday of former United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female jurist appointed to that position.

Here are three things you might not know about Sandra Day O’Connor.

One: She grew up on a cattle ranch near El Paso, Texas before attending Stanford University and earning her bachelor’s and law degree. While at Stanford, she briefly dated classmate William Rehnquist, who would go on to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Two: She was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and confirmed by the Senate on a 99-0 vote.

Third: The federal courthouse in Phoenix, Arizona is named after her, and she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2009.

For more:

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.

March 25th is the 73rd birthday of Aretha Franklin.

Here are a few things you might not know about the Queen of Soul.

First, among those helping to care for Franklin and her siblings following the death of her mother when she was nine years old, was the gospel singing legend Mahalia Jackson.

Second, Aretha Franklin has had 100 songs reach Billboard’s R&B charts, and 20 R&B number ones.

Third, She was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and was selected by Rolling Stone magazine as the greatest singer of all time.

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.

March 24 is the 115th anniversary of the groundbreaking of what would become the New York City subway system.

Here are a few facts about the New York Subway you might not have known.

First: Despite its name, 40 percent of the subway system is not underground.

Second: At one point there were three subway systems operating in New York City.

The privately owned Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit company (known as BMT) and Interborough Rapid Transit Company (known as IRT), and the city-owned Independent Subway System. The city bought the privately owned companies in 1940.

Third: The total length of the system is 232 miles, making it the fourth-longest metro system in the world.

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 March 23,1775, Patrick Henry gave his famous “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech to the Virginia Convention, arguing to arm the militia to fight against the British.

Here are a few things you may not have known about Patrick Henry.

• He had 17 children with two wives, the first of which died after they had been married for 21 years.

• No firsthand account exists of his famous speech. The first written text of the speech appeared 18 years after Henry’s death.

• Henry helped found Hampden-Sydney College, which is an alma mater of the ninth president of the United States, William Henry Harrison.

Follow us on twitter (@triviapodcast), Facebook (www.facebook.com/triviapodcast) or our website (www.triviapeople.com)

Also, if you’re enjoying the show, please consider supporting it through Patreon.com (patreon.com/triviapodcast).