Question 1

Mistletoe is hung as a romantic Christmas tradition — but what does mistletoe actually do to the trees it grows on?

Accepted Answer

It slowly kills them by stealing water and nutrients as a parasite. Mistletoe is a hemiparasite — it drills root-like structures called haustoria into a host tree's branches to steal water and minerals. A heavy infestation can weaken or eventually kill a tree. The Norse and Celtic traditions that made it 'sacred' had no idea they were celebrating a plant that was quietly strangling its host.

Question 2

The board game Scrabble was invented during the Great Depression — but it sat unsold for nearly 20 years before one lucky break made it famous. What finally made it a bestseller in the early 1950s?

Accepted Answer

The president of Macy's discovered it on vacation and ordered it for his stores. Jack Straus, president of Macy's department store, played Scrabble on vacation and loved it so much he ordered it for all his stores immediately. That single purchase order transformed Scrabble from an obscure curiosity into a national sensation almost overnight.

Question 3

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 roughly doubled the size of the United States in a single deal. From which country did President Thomas Jefferson buy this enormous territory?

Accepted Answer

France. Napoleon Bonaparte, desperate for funds to finance his European wars, sold the Louisiana Territory — about 828,000 square miles — to the United States for roughly $15 million, or less than 3 cents per acre. Jefferson had originally only hoped to buy the city of New Orleans.

Question 4

Which country standardized the metric system's base unit of length, the metre, by defining it as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator — then embedded the reference in a platinum bar kept in a vault?

Accepted Answer

France. Revolutionary France introduced the provisional metre in 1793 based on a geodetic survey of the Paris meridian, later forging a master pure platinum bar. This was replaced in 1889 by the platinum-iridium 'International Prototype Metre,' which remained the definitive legal standard until 1960, when it was replaced by a wavelength of krypton-86 light.

Question 5

Which iconic movie monster was originally going to be shown much more on screen, but technical problems with the mechanical prop accidentally made the film scarier?

Accepted Answer

The shark in Jaws. The mechanical shark in Jaws kept breaking down, forcing Spielberg to suggest the shark without showing it — creating far more suspense than planned. The film became one of the highest-grossing movies ever made largely because of that accidental restraint.

July 22, 2026 Trivia

1. Mistletoe is hung as a romantic Christmas tradition — but what does mistletoe actually do to the trees it grows on?

2. The board game Scrabble was invented during the Great Depression — but it sat unsold for nearly 20 years before one lucky break made it famous. What finally made it a bestseller in the early 1950s?

3. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 roughly doubled the size of the United States in a single deal. From which country did President Thomas Jefferson buy this enormous territory?

4. Which country standardized the metric system's base unit of length, the metre, by defining it as one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator — then embedded the reference in a platinum bar kept in a vault?

5. Which iconic movie monster was originally going to be shown much more on screen, but technical problems with the mechanical prop accidentally made the film scarier?