The Big Book of American Trivia
Page 33
1. Anne Rice, author of a series of vampire novels; in 2005, she published Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, and in 2008, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. [Back]
2. George W. Bush [Back]
3. The Living Bible, a paraphrase by Kenneth Taylor and published by Tyndale House [Back]
4. The Ten Commandments; Heston played Moses. [Back]
5. The Gideons [Back]
6. Noah Webster, who published his “corrected” Bible in 1833 [Back]
7. Thomas Jefferson [Back]
8. The Jehovah’s Witnesses [Back]
9. Abraham Lincoln [Back]
10. Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who played a key role in the Supreme Court decision banning Bible reading in public schools; interestingly, her son William became a Christian. [Back]
11. The Geneva Bible, a translation made in 1560; though the King James Version was published in 1611, it was not yet popular when the Pilgrims came to America. [Back]
12. Pittsburgh; they’re in the Rodef Shalom Biblical Botanical Garden. [Back]
13. The New International Version [Back]
14. Christian Science, founded in America by Mary Baker Eddy [Back]
15. The Bay Psalm Book, published in Massachusetts in the 1600s; it consisted of rhyming paraphrases of the Psalms. [Back]
16. Cecil B. DeMille, who directed The Ten Commandments, Samson and Delilah, and The King of Kings [Back]
17. Saint Paul [Back]
18. The Library of Congress [Back]
19. The 1611 publication of the King James Version, the most popular English version [Back]
20. D. L. Moody, founder of the Moody Bible Institute [Back]
21. Post Toasties [Back]
22. Ethan Allen, leader of the famous band the Green Mountain Boys from Vermont; Allen wrote a book, published in 1784, titled Reason the Only Oracle of Man. In it he discussed his religious beliefs, among which was his belief that human reason made a divinely revealed Bible unnecessary. [Back]
23. 1777—significantly, the year after the Declaration of Independence was signed [Back]
24. They are better known as the Oneida Community, founded in Oneida, New York, in 1848 by John Humphrey Noyes. The commune’s practices were highly questionable (to put it mildly), as they practiced communal marriage and various other deeds that put them outside the mainstream of Christianity. [Back]
25. The Ten Commandments; the 1980 decision was that the state of Kentucky (and, thus, any state) could not mandate the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. [Back]
26. William Miller, founder of the Seventh-day Adventists [Back]
27. Massachusetts; the original Puritan settlers in the 1600s wanted the colony to order itself according to biblical principles. [Back]
28. John Jay, who is also famous as one of the authors of The Federalist Papers [Back]
29. William Jennings Bryan, who had served as secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson [Back]
30. None; the Bible does not directly condemn slavery—a fact that slave-holding Christians in the South were much aware of. [Back]
31. Allen (who died in 1971) ordered the removal of the Ten Commandments from New York schools. [Back]
32. The Equal Access Law [Back]
33. The American Bible Society [Back]
34. Reincarnation; people living at that time often referred to it as the “reincarnation Bible.” [Back]
35. Exodus 22:18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” This is not, by the way, the only Bible passage to condemn sorcery and the occult. [Back]
36. It taught the letters of the alphabet by linking each letter to a biblical person or idea. For example, the entry for A reads “In Adam’s fall / We sinned all.” The Z entry reads “Zacchaeus he / Did climb the tree / Our Lord to see.” (Quite a difference from “A is for apple, B is for boy, C is for . . .”) [Back]
37. German, published in Pennsylvania in 1740, when all English-language Bibles were still required to be printed in England [Back]
38. The Hawaiian Islands; he published the Hawaiian translation in 1839. [Back]
39. The American Bible Society, headquartered in New York; there was also, in the Civil War years, a Confederate Bible Society. [Back]
40. Exodus, with its story of the Hebrew slaves being freed from Egypt; Lincoln claimed to be especially influenced by Exodus 6:5: “I [God] have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant.” [Back]
Churches, Cathedrals, Chapels, Shrines // Answers
1. Joel Osteen [Back]
2. The Crystal Cathedral, founded by pastor Robert Schuller [Back]
3. The Salvation Army [Back]
4. Charleston, South Carolina [Back]
5. Louis—as in Louisiana; the king, Louis IX, is also recognized as a saint by the Catholic church, and the cathedral is known as St. Louis Cathedral. It is probably one of the most photographed churches in America. [Back]
6. The Abraham Lincoln family, who attended the church until Lincoln moved to Washington [Back]
7. Peter Marshall, subject of the book and movie A Man Called Peter [Back]
8. A British cannonball, embedded in the church’s wall [Back]
9. Will Rogers [Back]
10. Charleston, South Carolina; the beautiful old church now uses English in the services also. [Back]
11. Philadelphia [Back]
12. John F. Kennedy’s [Back]
13. The Mall of America, which has its own Chapel of Love [Back]
14. Jerry Falwell [Back]
15. Washington, D.C. [Back]
16. Heinz, maker of ketchup, tomato sauce, etc. [Back]
17. Mental; St. Dymphna is the patron saint of people with mental or nervous disorders. [Back]
18. Philadelphia; it was founded in 1769. [Back]
19. The Disciples of Christ [Back]
20. Residents were afraid the highly visible steeple would make an easy target for Yankee cannons. [Back]
21. Peter; the church is called St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, referring to Peter’s imprisonment (Acts 12). [Back]
22. Baltimore, Maryland [Back]
23. Santa Fe, New Mexico [Back]
24. Grand Teton [Back]
25. Lutheran; it is known as the Old Swedes church. [Back]
26. St. John’s Church; many presidents have attended services there. [Back]
27. Philadelphia; actually, Quakers don’t have churches—they have “meeting houses.” This one is the Arch Street Meeting House. [Back]
28. St. Patrick’s [Back]
29. Norway; the Lutheran church is a replica of a Norwegian stave church. [Back]
30. Christopher Columbus; it was dismantled and brought to the U.S. in 1909. It has several items that belonged to Columbus. [Back]
31. Presbyterian [Back]
32. Valley Forge; the chapel has Pews of the Patriots. [Back]
33. New Bedford, Massachusetts [Back]
34. St. John the Divine, an Episcopal cathedral [Back]
35. Abraham Lincoln, who attended—but never actually joined—the church [Back]
36. The National Cathedral [Back]
37. News that he must evacuate Richmond, due to the approach of Union troops; in effect, the message was, “The war’s over, Mr. President.” [Back]
38. Willow Creek Community Church; the church’s main site in South Barrington, Illinois, seats more than seven thousand people and has high-definition, fourteen feet by twenty-four feet LED screens. [Back]
Religious Notables // Answers
1. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in southern California [Back]
2. Pope Benedict XVI [Back]
3. Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino’s as well as Ave Maria University in Naples; Monaghan’s religious convictions led some groups to boycott Domino’s. He sold the company in 1998 for $1 billion. [Back]
4. Oberlin, in Ohio [Back]
5. William Penn, later a leader of the Quakers and
founder of Pennsylvania [Back]
6. Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas [Back]
7. The Great Awakening, which swept through all the colonies, particularly New England [Back]
8. Billy Sunday [Back]
9. Norman Vincent Peale [Back]
10. D. L. Moody, who founded Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute [Back]
11. Jerry Falwell [Back]
12. Pat Robertson [Back]
13. Joyce Meyer [Back]
14. Campus Crusade for Christ [Back]
15. The Potter’s House [Back]
16. J. C. Penney, a minister’s son and very devout man [Back]
17. Oral Roberts [Back]
18. Delaware, which later came under English control [Back]
19. Preaching; Ryman, a riverboat manufacturer, constructed a suitable auditorium for Sam Jones, his favorite evangelist. [Back]
20. Boston; Whitefield was one of the most acclaimed preachers in the Great Awakening. [Back]
21. James Robison [Back]
22. He and his wife were killed by Native Americans. [Back]
23. The Living Bible [Back]
24. Barack Obama [Back]
25. The Vineyard Fellowship [Back]
January // Answers
1. Tony Blair, former British prime minister [Back]
2. Ozzie and Harriet [Back]
3. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church [Back]
4. Minnesota [Back]
5. Iran, Iraq, and North Korea [Back]
6. Andrew Wyeth [Back]
7. Michael Jackson [Back]
8. Primary Colors; it was later revealed that columnist Joe Klein had written it. [Back]
9. California [Back]
10. Hillary Clinton [Back]
11. Jack LaLanne [Back]
12. Michelle Obama, on being asked what she was proudest of in her children [Back]
13. The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951 [Back]
14. Tennis [Back]
15. Mark McGwire [Back]
16. Yahoo! [Back]
17. Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s [Back]
February // Answers
1. Rahm Emanuel, who had been Obama’s chief of staff [Back]
2. The former Soviet Union; Hanssen was given a life sentence. [Back]
3. Bill Gates of Microsoft [Back]
4. Jeopardy; the IBM computer was named Watson. [Back]
5. Ronald Reagan Airport [Back]
6. Chuck Jones [Back]
7. Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone [Back]
8. Waylon Jennings [Back]
9. Monica Lewinsky; many TV stations refused to run the ads she appeared in. [Back]
10. Paul Harvey [Back]
11. O. J. Simpson [Back]
12. John Ashcroft, attorney general [Back]
13. Dale Earnhardt [Back]
14. The Passion of the Christ, directed by Mel Gibson [Back]
15. YouTube [Back]
16. Fred Rogers, better known as “Mister Rogers” [Back]
March // Answers
1. Elizabeth Taylor [Back]
2. Monica Lewinsky [Back]
3. Mission: Impossible [Back]
4. The iPad 2 [Back]
5. Al Gore [Back]
6. She was the first woman to run for the office of vice president (1988). [Back]
7. “Do” (born Marshall Applewhite) and his cult, known as Heaven’s Gate, committed mass suicide. [Back]
8. John Edwards; Hunter was his mistress and was accused of being a home wrecker. [Back]
9. Stevie Wonder [Back]
10. Mike Tyson, who went on to fight again [Back]
11. The police beating of Rodney King [Back]
12. Legoland [Back]
13. Pee Wee King [Back]
14. How to Train Your Dragon [Back]
15. Sean Hannity [Back]
16. Milton Berle [Back]
17. Kids Say the Darndest Things [Back]
18. Merlin Olsen [Back]
April // Answers
1. The king of Saudi Arabia [Back]
2. Taco Bell; it was an April Fool’s joke. [Back]
3. John Forsythe [Back]
4. Pontiac [Back]
5. Pope Benedict XVI [Back]
6. Virginia Tech, where a student killed thirty-two others before committing suicide [Back]
7. Toyota, thanks to recalls of some popular models [Back]
8. Don Imus [Back]
9. Oliver Stone [Back]
10. They killed a teacher and twelve fellow students in the Columbine High School massacre. [Back]
11. Charlton Heston [Back]
12. Clash of the Titans [Back]
13. The Da Vinci Code [Back]
14. Weakest [Back]
15. Evolution [Back]
16. Human cloning [Back]
17. Buzz Aldrin [Back]
18. The Cross and the Switchblade [Back]
May // Answers
1. Jimmy Carter [Back]
2. Susan Lucci of All My Children [Back]
3. Sam Snead [Back]
4. Osama bin Laden [Back]
5. George W. Bush [Back]
6. Frasier [Back]