IN CELEBRATION OF TRIVIA DAY!

Debbie D.47 CommentsEntertainment, From the Archives, Games

HAPPY NEW YEAR!2021, Bitmoji

It’s gotta be better than the last one, right??!

**I’m trying to regain the blogging mojo but am taking it slow.
For now, it’s one post a week, on Mondays.**

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Did you know that today, January 4, is TRIVIA DAY?

Trivia Day, January 4th

triv·i·a
/ˈtrivēə/
noun
plural noun: trivia

details, considerations, or pieces of information of little importance or value.
“we fill our days with meaningless trivia”

synonyms: minutiae, minor details, petty detail, niceties, technicalities, trivialities, trifles, trumpery, nonessentials, ephemera

Origin
early 20th century: from modern Latin, plural of trivium ‘place where three roads meet,’ influenced in sense by trivial.

According to holidayinsights.com, “Robert L. Birch, Grand PunScorpion of the Puns Corps, created this day to raise our awareness of the significance of trivia in the development of human curiosity, science, and fun.”

Further, the world-famous game, Trivial Pursuit is thought to have sparked people’s fascination with trivia and competing to see who knows more odd facts about geography, history, art, science, sports and entertainment.

Who invented Trivial Pursuit? Read on!

Camada smiley gif

Trivial Pursuit was first created in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1979 by two men named Chris Haney and Scott Abbott, who had become frustrated to find pieces of their Scrabble game had gone missing, thus inspiring them to create their own game.

With John Haney and Ed Werner’s help, they completed development of the game, which was released in 1981. Trivial Pursuit became an almost instant hit and worldwide phenomenon.

Trivial Pursuit board game
Pratyeka [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Did You Know…

…the term factoid, which is now used as a synonym of trivia, originally referred to a
piece of unreliable information that is accepted as a fact because it is repeated very often?

…the country Brazil was named after the Brazil nut, and not the other way around?

…a man named Fredric Baur invented the Pringles can,
and when he died in 2008, his ashes were buried in one?

…in 2006, over 2 billion people lived on less than $2 a day?

…Cuba is the only Caribbean Island with a railway?

Interesting, Bitmoji

Do you have any fun factoids to share?

Looking forward to your comments!

Debbie's signature

original publication date

Coming up Monday, Jan. 11:

WHEN YOU CAN'T GO TO EUROPE, PART IV

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47 thoughts on “IN CELEBRATION OF TRIVIA DAY!”

      1. I had to back off somewhat, Debbie. I stopped hosting my weekly prompt because it became too time consuming. Now, I have more time to write poetry and read blogs.

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  2. Welcome back, Debbie! As you probably know, I love trivia! I did know about the origins of one of my favorite games 😉 Hard to believe they need a railway with all those cool vintage cars in Cuba. Did you know the Cuban hummingbird (Zun zun) is the smallest bird in the world? I read that the government owns all restaurants in Cuba; something to ponder as so many here in America have been forced out of business due to lockdowns. Good luck with weekly posts! It sounds like a pleasant start to every week 😉

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    1. Thanks, diedre. I’m trying to get back into blogging, but life keeps getting in the way. I figure one post a week is doable, considering it used to be two or three. That always led to burnout…Ah yes, the vintage cars (with no rust on them!) in Cuba are cool. I did know about the restaurants, but not the hummingbird. This pandemic has caused so much grief for so many! ? Wishing you (and all of us!) a better 2021.

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  3. Honestly, I always read that Trivial Pursuit was created by 2 Canadians in Niagara On The Lake and they drew the basic premise on the back of a napkin. I never read that it was in Montreal. I like these little factoids.

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    1. Interesting, Birgit! I used the Wikipedia version of events, but did some research and found this:

      One of their first moves was to bring John Haney into the business. He was a former professional hockey player in Europe and was working at the Shaw Festival at Niagara on the Lake. Mr. Haney, along with his brother Chris, and Mr. Abbott started compiling the first list of 6,000 questions.

      This is the whole article: https://www.csmonitor.com/1984/0821/082146.html

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    1. Happy New Year, Myke! Vanilla ice cream and french fries are always popular (but not together, I’d say). 😀 Thanks for sharing those interesting factoids.

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  7. Hi Debby – good to see you back … lots of trivia … my post to a point was one of those – just a cheery welcome to 2021 … take care and see you again soon – Happy New Year – Hilary

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  9. Welcome back! I think a few people took a little break during the holidays. Some have gone on extended breaks. It’s been several years since I’ve played any trivia board games, but several times a week you can hear The Cute One say ‘Quick! Name this tune and artist!” Admittedly, he’s much better at that than I am.

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    1. Thanks for the welcome back, Mary! ☺ Truth be told, my blogging mojo disappeared many months ago. Hoping to regain it this year, but we’ll see how it goes… Musical trivia can be really tough; so many times you know the artist or the song, but not both. Happy New Year to you!

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  11. Love this game. We’ve had some fairly heated games over the years. It’s so competitive! We’re big Jeopardy fans too and Trivia Crack on our phones. – Did you know that the shell of a cashew is poisonous? And it actually grows a fruit that hangs from the bottom of the shell. The fruit is given to animals. The liquid inside the shell that surrounds the cashew is poisonous. It’s worth looking up. 🙂

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    1. Nice to see a fellow Trivia fan! ☺ Thanks for sharing that interesting info about cashews! I had no idea and will absolutely read more about it.

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  13. Yeah! She’s back! Happy New Year, Debbie! That game used to drive me nuts! Hated it! OMFG! Maybe I was just dumb back then, but I’d rather play Candy Land! 🙂 Nothing wrong with taking it slow and at your pace. It’s your blog, do what you want. We’ll always be here! Muwah! xo

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    1. Thanks for the warm welcome back, Bren! 🙂 It’s great to see you back in the Blogosphere too. My head is full of useless information, so I always did well with Trivial Pursuit. 😀 Here’s hoping I can keep up with one post a week! ?

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  14. I loved Trivial Pursuit and still have the original game set, along with my Scrabble set and a very old Monopoly game. Interesting facts that you posted. One blog post a week. Wonder if I could commit to that, lol.

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    1. Scrabble and Monopoly were lots of fun, too. 🙂 I figure putting it in writing will help me keep to some sort of regular blogging schedule. Don’t hold me to it, though! 😉

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  16. My excuse for not remembering important things has always been that my brain is full of trivia. Of course, at the moment I can’t think of anything to share.

    Love,
    Janie

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  17. Hi Debbie!
    How did I not know there was a special day for Trivia? I’m really slippin’.
    According to Mentalfloss.com: In 2006 an Australian man tried to sell New Zealand on ebay. The price rose to $3000.00 before ebay shut it down 😉 Personally, I’m surprised you don’t see more of this. For instance, I wonder just how much I could have raised for my little brother, that time I was mad at him 🙂
    If indeed 2500 left-handed people per year die from using equipment made for right-handers – I am one lucky person!

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    1. Happy new year, diedre! You sure found some good bits of trivia. Thanks! 😀 The last one is especially intriguing. I’d love to know what equipment is made for right-handers and how did the left-handers die? Hmmm… Be careful out there!

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  18. Well, I didn’t know that it was trivia day- I’ll bet the only reason for that is because I hit here first instead of a certain FtWayne bloggy friend of mine’s blog (he does the national day calendar every weekday on his posts)….

    And of your DYKs, the only one I get partial credit on is the Pringles guy, who I knew died, but not how he was stored.

    Or did I? It is a factoid, after all…

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    1. Cool idea to blog about all the national days! You don’t run out of material. 🙂 As for the Pringles guy, I don’t think a whole person’s ashes would fit in one of those cans, but, who am I to question a factoid? 😀 Thanks for coming by and Happy New year!

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  19. Howdy, DEBBIE ~
    I did not know today is “Trivia Day”. And that’s not a bad trivia question in itself: “What date is Trivia Day?”

    I was always a huge fan of various board games. Chess was easily my favorite, but I’ve played most of the famous board games at one time or another (and sometimes many, many times) including ‘Trivia Pursuit’.

    Growing up, my whole family used to love playing a board game called ‘All-Star Baseball’, which we always called “Spin-The-Dial”. We’d pick our baseball teams and play entire seasons that went on for months. Such a fun memory. I miss those years.

    Much later, a group of friends / co-workers at UCLA started getting together to play ‘Pictionary’, which was a lot of fun. There were four of us: Lonnie, Ralph, “The Countess” (my then-girlfriend), and myself, The very first time we gathered to play, my buddy Lonnie and I insisted on being a team. Ralph and The Countess strongly objected because Lonnie and I both had some artistic talent and everyone knew we could draw better than the others could.

    But Lonnie and I got to team up. And so The Countess teamed up with Ralph.

    Well, Lonnie and I would get so caught up in putting too much detail in our drawings which just wasted time and we’d always lose. (Lesson learned: Drawing ability can actually be a drawback to winning at ‘Pictionary’).

    Meanwhile, The Countess and Ralph had some bizarre, Twilight Zone-ish sixth sense that operated between them. I’ve never seen anything like that since. When it came to ‘Pictionary’, they were ridiculously good (read: psychic), and if I didn’t know better, I’d think they must have been cheating, but I know they weren’t.

    Examples: Ralph would start to draw a male stick figure. He wouldn’t even be finished making the full stick figure before The Countess would yell out, “The Man Of La Mancha!” Right. WTH?!

    It worked the other way, too. The Countess would put two little pencil dots on a piece of paper and Ralph would yell out, “The Solar System!” Right. WTF?!

    After just a couple games, Lonnie and I could see that this magic The Countess and Ralph had was no fluke at all, and then it was HE & I who were insisting that Ralph and The Countess couldn’t be a team anymore. Ha!-Ha! The complaint had gotten turned around 180 degrees.

    ~ D-FensDogG @ STMcC Presents ‘BATTLE OF THE BANDS’

    Reply

    1. Hi Stephen; I enjoyed your Pictionary story and can see where too much attention to detail would be a drawback in that game. 😀 Has anyone ever told you (I’m sure they have!) that you’re great at reminiscing and should write your memoirs? Thanks for coming by and sharing that entertaining anecdote. Sorry for the late response. Cheers!

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        1. And I meant it! 🙂 Memoirs are kind of my specialty and I think you have a charming anecdotal style. See you on Tuesday with a drastically different BOTB. Trying to shake that “blowout” curse. 😀

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    1. Yes, I think every day is designated as something in particular. For instance, I’m writing this on Mon., Jan. 7, which is “Bobblehead Day”, “Tempura Day” and “Thank God It’s Monday Day”. 😀 Thanks for dropping in and Happy New Year!

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  21. I am, without a doubt, the world’s worst at playing Trivial Pursuit, which is unfortunate, because when it was new, my enthusiasm level was high.

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  22. Okay, the Pringles guy… Eeww. Now every time I pass a can of Pringles I’ll think about ashes.. I did not know any of these factoids nor that today was trivia day. I will say that our family can get into some serious Trivial Pursuit because all of us think we know everything.. Turns out, I’m usually the winner with all of my useless knowledge. 🙂

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    1. Sorry to have spoiled your Pringles experience, Mimi! 😀 Trivial Pursuit is a great game for “Know It Alls”, something I’ve been accused of a few times. Thanks for coming by!

      Reply