If You See Something, Slay Something Quiz

Answer: USA

Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel on August 6, 1926, at a time when people believed that women lacked the strength and endurance for such a feat. She proved them wrong by crossing it in 14 hours and 31 minutes. Italian swimmer Enrique Tiraboschi held the men's record at that time, which clocked in at 16 hours and 33 minutes.

Answer: Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan was devastated when his coach put him on the junior varsity team. Instead of quitting, he used the setback as motivation. He was easily the star of the JV squad and moved up to the varsity team the following year. He was so dominant in his professional career that he was also part of the Gold medal winning "Dream Team" in the 1992 Olympics.

Answer: Marie Curie

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win twice, and the first to win in two separate fields. Talk about crushing it! She and her husband, Pierre, were buried in lead-lined coffins to shield against residual radiation from her remains. Her notebooks are also kept in lead boxes, and one must sign a waiver and wear protective gloves to view them.

Answer: "Rocky" (1976)

Sylvester Stallone was offered $350,000 for his screenplay, but he stood firm, insisting on playing the lead role. Although the producers wanted an established star, they reduced their budget to minimize the risk of hiring an unknown actor. "Rocky" was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won three, including Best Picture.

Answer: Harry Potter

Twelve publishers turned her down, but she never gave up. Her luck finally turned when Bloomsbury Publishing's chairman, Nigel Newton, took the manuscript home and his eight year old daughter read it and requested more.

Answer: Grandma Moses

Grandma Moses was a totally self-taught artist. She loved to paint landscapes and scenes that reminded her of her youth and purposely left out modern objects such as light poles and tractors. Discovered when an art collector saw her work hanging in a store window, he bought them all and helped her get exhibited. She continued painting until just a few months before her death at age 101.

Answer: Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton (1946-2026) began writing songs at the age of five. The first, "Little Tiny Tasseltop" was about a corncob doll her mother made. While she couldn't read or wriite yet, her mother wrote down the lyrics as Dolly sang them. She began singing at age ten on local radio and TV stations.

She moved to Nashville the day after she graduated from high school to officially chase her dream. Inspired by her father's illiteracy, Dolly founded "Dolly Parton's Imagination Library", a program that sends free books to children every month.

Answer: Alexander Fleming

In World War I, Alexander Fleming served in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He witnessed many soldiers dying not just from their wounds, but also from uncontrollable infections. It became his mission to find a way to combat them. It was during this ongoing research that he made his famous accidental discovery.

Answer: The Seven Summits

Junko Tabei, a pioneering Japanese mountaineer, made history as the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 16, 1975. She conquered the Seven Summits, the highest peaks on all seven continents, in 1992.

Answer: Google

In 1995, Larry Page and Sergey Brin met as college students at Stanford University in California. They partnered up the next year with the mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.". They started working in their dorms, but soon moved their office to a friend's garage. Google was officially launched in 1998. They have launched several Google related programs, such as Google Maps and Gmail.

"Google" is officially included in the dictionary, not only as the website, but as a verb as well, meaning "to search the internet". It is very common to hear people tell others to "Google it" when they want to know something. Somehow, I just can't imagine hearing anyone say, "Yahoo it".