From Earth 2U, Exploring Geography
(Smithsonian Institution)
The most powerful winds on Earth come from...
A)
Tornadoes.
Yes.
Tornadoes blow.
B)
Hurricanes.
No.
They're big, but not the biggest.
C)
Ethel Merman.
She had great lungs. But not twister strength lungs.
From the Holocaust Memorial Museum of
Skopje, Macedonia
After Spain and Portugal expelled all Jews in 1492, the Ottoman
Sultan Bayezid II...
A)
Welcomed the fleeing Jews to his Muslim realm.
Yes.
He supposedly ordered local city rulers not to be "wicked enough
to refuse entry to Jews.”
B)
Arranged safe transit across his lands to Poland.
No.
Poland didn't really want the Jews either.
C)
Asked them to bring some whitefish salad.
No.
(Which is why he's not known as Bayezid the Great.)
From "Baseball as America," National
Baseball Hall of Fame
Baseball was invented by...
A)
Ethel Merman.
No...but
she could really belt, "Take me out to the Ball Game."
B)
Abner Doubleday.
Alas,
no. Good story, bad history.
C)
Nobody in particular.
Yes.
It evolved gradually from earlier games.
From "Revolution, The First 2,000
Years of Computing"
The Computer History Museum
In 1964, IBM transformed computing by marketing...
A)
A smart machine.
No.
It was the engineers who were smart.
B)
A dumb machine.
Yes.
IBM's System/360 introduced versatile "dumb" computers, a blank
slate that could be programmed for almost any task (like today's
computers) instead of machines that were hard wired for a
particular operation.
C)
A blue machine.
Do
you have anything to match the drapes?
From A Living Memorial to the
Holocaust/
Museum of Jewish Heritage
Kohlrabi is...
A)
A prayer of mourning.
Oy.
Not "Kol Nidre," kohlrabi.
B)
A really hip religious leader.
Gevalt.
Not "cool rabbi," kohlrabi.
C)
A turnip-like vegetable.
(Try
it. You'll like it.)
From the Columbus, Indiana Visitors
Center
The world-class designers who made Columbus, Indiana famous as
an architectural gem included...
A)
Eero Saarinen.
Sorry. Wrong Finn.
B)
Eliel Saarinen.
Spiffy (as they say in Finnish). Yes—Eero's dad.
C)
Ethel Merman.
You can build on a beltway, but not belt a building.
From The Sant Ocean Hall at the
Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural History
Polar bears don't dine on penguins because...
A)
Penguins taste terrible.
They're not yummy, but early polar explorers ate them.
B)
They're too busy listening to Ethel Merman.
If only...
C)
They can't catch them.
Yes, because polar bears and penguins live on opposite ends of
the Earth.
From The Harley-Davidson Museum
A "social attachment" for 1903 motorbikes was...
A) Bikers' slang for their girlfriends.
Do bikers have girlfriends?.
B)
Bikers' slang for Ethel Merman.
No. But only because they didn't think of that.
C)
A nice wicker chair.
Yes, essentially a wicker chair on wheels that bikers
attached for passengers.
From The Franklin Institute
If you're going to walk across hot coals...
A) Bring marshmallows.
No. You won't stay long enough to toast 'em.
B)
Panic.
Yes. Fear makes you sweat, and sweaty feet
are what make the stunt safe. The evaporation
keeps your tootsies cool.
C)
Don't wear wool or cotton socks.
Wrong answer, but nonetheless sound advice.
From Copia, The American Center for
Wine, Food, and the Arts
Wine bars were invented in...
A)
The Roman Empire.
Correct.
Which is probably why all roads led there.
B)
Medieval Spain.
No.
But the Spanish improved it with tapas.
C)
Brooklyn.
No,
but you'll never get them to admit it.
From “Numbers in Nature,” a film at
Chicago’s Museum of
Science and Industry
Evolution is biased towards...
A)
Ethel Merman.
No.
She was simply a happy accident.
B)
Increasing size and complexity.
No.
Sometimes, smaller and simpler is better.
C)
Whatever works.
Yes.
Evolution is the acme of the trial-and-error method.
From Mohonk Preserve Visitors Center
The call of the tufted titmouse doesn't
sound like...
A) "Peter, Peter, Peter."
No. It does sound like that.
B)
"Here, here, here."
No. It can sound like that too.
C)
Ethel Merman
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