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1.
The best way to become an infamous murderer is to evade capture. The second best is to have a rhyming verse written about you. What (alleged) murderer is the subject of the verse
______ took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.? |
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| 2.
No quiz about infamy could possibly fail to include the Nazis, so here's the obligatory Nazi question: What infamous sign arched over the main gate to the Auchwitz Concentration Camp? |
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| 3.
In the 1970's, a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, achieved infamy because it was heavily contaminated with toxic waste. The city had been told that toxic waste had been dumped on the site, but insisted on buying the land anyway. Eventually, construction breached the containment around the waste and toxic chemicals flowed into the neighborhood, resulting in birth defects and cancer. What was the ironic name of the neighborhood? |
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| 4.
Back in the late 1970's, film companies let directors pursue their visions (if you're a director) or run amok (if you're a studio executive). One movie, though, is infamous for not only being expensive and awful, but destroying the company that produced it. The story is this: the director, Michael Cimino, submitted a script to United Artists in 1971. They shelved the project. Then Cimino won two Oscars (Best Director and Best Picture) for "The Deer Hunter." So, in 1979 they reconsidered. Cimino proceeded to spend $40 million making what was supposed to be a $11.6 million dollar film. He shot 220 hours of footage, spent $40 million, and ultimately submitted a 5 hour (!) movie, which the studio forced him to cut to 3 hours. And it was terrible. It earned approximately $3.5 million at the box office. The loss of 37 million 1979-1980 dollars spelled the end of United Artists as an independent studio. What's the name of the movie with which Cimino destroyed a 61 year-old studio and his own reputation? |
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| 5.
It's amazing how many infamous things happened in the 1970's. In 1978, 913 members of "People's Temple" committed mass suicide. "People's Temple" originated in Indiana, moved to San Francisco, and then relocated to Guyana, where a minister who had been an asset to the community gradually degenerated into a paranoid maniac. The method of suicide chosen by the cult was a deadly punch, which was infamously associated with "Kool-Aid," leading to expressions like "I didn't drink the Kool-Aid" to indicate resistance to nutty authority. Anyway, what was the nickname of the compound where most of the suicides took place and which will be forever infamous in the powdered-beverage industry? |
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| 6.
There's an apocryphal story about an elderly Jew reading an antisemitic tract in a shtetl. When they asked him why he was reading such trash, he answered that he enjoyed reading about how powerful he was. In 1903, a book appeared in the Russian Empire that purported to be an internal document from the Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. The book was revealed to be a hoax eighteen years later, but that hasn't stopped people (including Henry Ford, but that's a whole 'nother story) from believing that it's real and that it provides strong evidence for the supposed "worldwide Jewish conspiracy". What's the title of this infamous hoax? |
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| 7.
In 1865, Abraham Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address, in which he advocated "... malice toward none, charity for all." Less than six weeks later, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Booth, of course, achieved infamy by his act; not only was he the first presidential assassin, he managed to ensure a difficult Reconstruction. Anyway, before Booth became infamous, he was moderately famous in his chosen profession. What was Booth's profession? |
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| 8.
I think it's too cynical to believe that car manufacturers would sell a manifestly unsafe car. On the other hand, I think that if you believe that they make sure every car is as safe as it could possibly be, then you're simply not paying attention. One car like this became infamous due to the first chapter of Ralph Nader's book "Unsafe at Any Speed." What car earned infamy for its tendency to crash under certain circumstances? |
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| 9.
This one has something for everyone. On February 1, 2004, the Carolina Panthers played the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVIII. The half-time show featured, among other acts, a performance by Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. At the end of the act, Timberlake yanked off a part of Jackson's costume, resulting in the exposure of most of Jackson's right breast (well, all of it except the nipple). The breast was visible for 9/16ths of a second, but that was enough to ignite a firestorm of controversy, recrimination, and general hoopla. There are lots of reason for this incident's infamy, but the ones that leap to mind are 1) the exposure of the breast, 2) the tremendous overreaction by people (lawsuits were filed), 3) the fact that you can show graphic violence but not a woman's breast on American Television, 4) the fact that something interesting happened during the Super Bowl half-time show, which is something I avoid watching, so I missed it, and 5) the lame excuse offered by the show's producers. This question concerns number 5. What is the infamous expression coined for the inadvertent display of "naughty" bits? |
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| 10.
As always, when I write a quiz based on an Author Challenge, I can't be certain what prompted the challenge. But, I believe the most famous use of the word "infamy" in American History is in a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which he said a certain date would "live in infamy." President Roosevelt was, of course, referring to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. What date will "live in infamy?" |
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