People With Commonalities Trivia

61. Which coffee-loving German composer wrote the "Coffee Cantata" in 1732?

From Quiz Coffeeholics Anonymous

Answer: Bach

While much of Bach's work was sacred music he did compose a few secular pieces. Among these was the "Coffee Cantata" which is often called a comic opera. The piece was first performed at Zimmerman's Coffee House in Leipzig. Some of the lyrics are as follows: "Mmmm! how sweet the coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses, mellower than muscatel wine. Coffee, coffee I must have, and if someone wishes to give me a treat, ah, then pour me out some coffee!" source of lyrics kaffeeKantate.html;http://www.jsbach.net

From Quiz Common Bond: How Are We Connected?

Answer: Ida Saxton McKinley

Ida McKinley was a lovely but delicate flower of a woman. She never got over the loss of two children in infancy. Her husband was very devoted to her and when he was assassinated she became so ill she could not attend his funeral. She withdrew from public life and became reclusive. She passed away within six years of his death.

From Quiz Blokus Pocus

Answer: Welsh

Merlin first appears in a work by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century. The name "Merlin" (originally Merlinus) was a Latinized translation of the Welsh "Myrddin," who was a traveling bard and is one of the original sources of the Merlin character.

From Quiz Party of Four

Answer: James

The first four presidents of the United States were George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

From Quiz Double Down for Double Fun

Answer: Charlie Chaplin

The usual version of the story holds that it was a contest in Switzerland and that Chaplin placed second or third, but according to Snopes.com, the contest actually took place in San Francisco, and he didn't make the final round. Although Chaplin might not have looked like himself, Bob Hope managed it - he won first place in another Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest.

From Quiz Commonly Bonded

Answer: Mary Stuart

Crowned Queen of Scotland at the age of nine months, Mary married the Dauphin of France at age 16 and was made Queen of France in 1559. She was only Queen of France until December of 1560, when her husband, King Francis II died. Mary's son, James became James I of England and James VI of Scotland. Mary Stuart is also known as Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary Tudor was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII and is also known as "Bloody Mary".

From Quiz Celebrated Souses

Answer: Winston Churchill

Churchill's Conservatives were defeated by Clement Attlee's Labour Party in the 1945 election following WWII, despite Churchill's sterling wartime reputation.

From Quiz To the Joy and Through the Tears

Answer: Oracle

Larry Ellison was born in New York City in 1944. His mother was a 19-year-old single parent and his biological father an Italian-American pilot in the USAF. After Larry had a bout of pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother sent him to Chicago to live with her aunt and uncle, Lillian and Louis Ellison, who adopted him. He was very close to Lilian and dropped out of Illinois University shortly after her death. He had a more difficult relationship with his adoptive father who told him he would never amount to anything. He went to California and spent several years as a computer programmer for various companies. SDL was originally created to do contract programming for other companies, but Larry had bigger ideas inspired by a relational database model developed by Edgar F. Codd. And that's how Oracle began the journey to what it is today. Larry ended up a multi-billionaire and one of the richest people in the world.

From Quiz "There Is No Remedy For Love...

Answer: Katharina von Bora and Martin Luther

Katharina had been placed in an orphanage by her father when she was around about 5 years old, so she could get an education. A bright and intelligent girl, she became interested in the Church reformation that sweeping Europe. It is not known exactly when Luther and von Bora met, but it was Luther who she called when she and a group of like-minded nuns wished to escape their vows and their nunnery. Marriage was the most acceptable way of escaping monastic vows, but Katharina was hard to please. Eventually she narrowed possible husbands down to Luther himself or his friend, Nicholas von Amsdorf. Luther eventually agreed to marry her, and it proved to be an enormous domestic success, as well as a marriage of spiritual minds. Luther nailed his thesis to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517, leading to what is now known as the Protestant Reformation.

From Quiz People with Biblical Names

Answer: Samuel de Champlain (1567-1635), explorer

Samuel de Champlain was a French colonist, navigator, and explorer, He founded Quebec and New France, in July 1608, and in the same year established the French village that became Quebec City. Samuel Adams was a US Founding Father from Massachusetts who became a leader of resistance movement that became the American Revolution. Samuel Colt was a Connecticut-born industrialist who was known for the mass production of revolvers. He also pioneered advertising, celebrity endorsements, and mass marketing of his company's revolvers. William Faulkner called Mark Twain, real name Samuel Clemens, "the father of American literature". He was a humourist and a writer. His two great novels, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), are classics, with the latter often referred to as "The Great American Novel".

From Quiz Isn't He Dead by Now?

Answer: 133

A British merchant ship set sail from Cape Town in November of 1942. One of the seaman on board was Poon Lim. A few hundred miles off the South American cost, the ship, the Benlomond, was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat. Poon Lim was the sole survivor. The Chinese seaman got aboard one of the ship's rafts and clung to life for 133 days. His source of clean water was a water tank he miraculously found floating in the wreckage. Eventually, however, he lost his water, and at one point, he resorted to catching a bird and drinking its blood. Lim was rescued by fishermen off the coast of Brazil, and found to be horribly sunburned, 30 pounds lighter than when he set out, and a bit sick to his stomach after all the raw fish he'd eaten.

From Quiz Against My Religion

Answer: Leah Remini

Leah Remini joined the Church of Scientology as a child when her mother joined. She was taken to join the paramilitary organization called the Sea Organization which separated parents from children and where children are put to work. In 2013 she left and has been very critical of many of the policies. She has talked about the inability to ask questions and the fact that she can no longer have contact with current members. She co-produced and hosted a documentary called "Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath" and released a book about her experiences. She claims that she was bullied, blackballed and underwent thought modification until she finally left. In order for her to have contact with her family, they had to leave as well.

From Quiz Great Depression

Answer: Black dog

Churchill often experienced months-long episodes in which he spent most of his time in bed, had little energy or appetite, and had difficulty concentrating. On the other hand, when he was feeling well, he was noted for his prodigious energy and productivity, and needed little sleep. The term "black dog" has been attributed to the Roman poet Horace and has been used as a metaphor for depression ever since. There is an Australian mental health organisation called the Black Dog Institute. Their logo consists of a hand making the "V for Victory" sign, made famous by Churchill, which casts a shadow in the form of a dog's head. Their website explains that this is a metaphor indicating that depression can lie in the background even when one is feeling victorious, and yet also symbolises that "the positive is more powerful than the negative."

From Quiz Not Today Your Majesty

Answer: Alan Rickman

Rickman also brilliantly played Hans Gruber in 1988s "Die Hard", Harry in "Love Actually"(2003) and voiced the caterpillar in "Alice Through The Looking Glass"(2016). Rickman was offered both an OBE and a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) but declined on both occasions without making his reasons public, though many think it was in protest over the lack of Conservative party funding for the arts and for theatres.

From Quiz A Wing and a Prayer

Answer: Babe Ruth

Born in 1895 in the Pigtown neighbourhood of Baltimore, Babe Ruth was sent at the age of 7 to a Catholic reformatory and orphanage, where he stayed for 12 years. He rarely attended classes and spent much of his time wandering in the dockyards, drinking alcohol and chewing tobacco. Everything changed when a monk by the name of Brother Matthias took him under his wing and became a father figure to him, encouraging him to put his energy into baseball. He was nicknamed 'The Bambino' and 'The Sultan of Swat', and his professional career spanned 22 seasons.

From Quiz Men and Women of Iron

Answer: Cal Ripken, Jr.

The modern era baseball "Iron Man" is none other than Cal Ripken, Jr. Cal Ripken, Jr., and his brother Bill Ripken followed their father Cal Ripken, Sr., into the world of baseball. Cal Ripken, Sr., was a player in the Baltimore Orioles farm system in the 1950's. He later went on to become a coach (and even later a manager for the team) working under Earl Weaver for the Baltimore Orioles. When Weaver retired for the second (and final) time, Cal Ripken, Sr., got the job as the manager of the Baltimore Orioles. Ripken Sr. was the manager when Ripken Jr. broke one part of his own amazing streaks - consecutive innings played. While establishing the record for games played, he had been building an unbelievable record of consecutive innings played in those games. That consecutive innings streak was over 8,200 innings (depending on whose count is used). The next closest consecutive innings streak had been established nearly 100 years before that streak ended. That particular streak, by George Pinkney was over 5,100 innings in length (again depending on who is counting).

From Quiz It's Not Dennis Day

Answer: Leon Day

Day's quiet off-the-field manner was quite a contrast to Satchel Paige's flamboyance. After falling one vote short of induction into Cooperstown in 1993, he was inducted in 1995 by the veterans committee, just six days before passing away at age 78.

From Quiz Downside Up

Answer: He was cremated

John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool, England in 1940, and was murdered in Manhattan, New York in 1980. After his death, there was no funeral, he was cremated and his ashes scattered in Central Park. Later the Strawberry Fields memorial was built in Central Park in remembrance. The twelve million dollars earned by his estate in 2016 was from music sales and the Cirque du Soleil theatrical production "Love" which uses the music of "The Beatles".

From Quiz Do You Write Right... ?

Answer: George W. Bush

Some say George W. Bush had more things to worry about than being right-handed. Five of the previous seven presidents had been a southpaw or ambidextrous.

From Quiz Mother Died Today

Answer: Edward VII

Edward VII was named Prince of Wales shortly after his birth in 1841. As the eldest son of Victoria and Albert he became king upon her death in 1901. He ruled until 1910.

From Quiz Just Say No

Answer: Sinead O'Connor

O'Connor's second album, "I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got" (1990) made her an international star and led to four Grammy nominations for Best Album, Best Song ("Nothing Compares 2 U"), Best Female Vocalist, and Best Alternative Album. As a protest against what she called the extreme commercialism of the Grammy Awards, she did not attend the award ceremony and she declined her award for Best Alternative Album. "Nothing Compares 2 U" (written by Prince) was a worldwide hit, reaching Number One on the Billboard Top Pop 40 Hits chart. {O'Connor performed bald.]

From Quiz Missing But Not Forgotten

Answer: "Le Petit Prince" / "The Little Prince"

While Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's book, "Le Petit Prince" / "The Little Prince", is known worldwide, his real passion was aviation. He earned his pilot's wings in 1922 and went on to serve with the French Air Force, both in France and North Africa. In 1926, he helped pioneer postal flights in France, North Africa and Argentina. He survived multiple crashes, including once in the Libyan desert while trying to break a speed record. In 1943 he returned to the air to fly with the Free French Air Force. At the time, he was considered too old to be flying the new planes, and his role was limited to reconnaissance flights. On 31 July 1944, he set off for a mission from which he did not return. In 1998, a silver identity bracelet believed to be his was found off the coast of France, near Marseilles. Two years later, a diver found nearby the partial remnants of the same model plane Exupéry had been flying that last night. It was later confirmed to have been his.

From Quiz The Ampersand Connection

Answer: Clarence Thomas & Anita Hill

Anyone still remember Clarence Thomas quoted as saying "Who has put pubic hair on my Coke"? It came to light in 1991 when Thomas was nominated by George Bush I for the supreme court, despite Thomas' extremely short tenure as a judge. An FBI interview with attorney and academic Anita Hill was leaked to the press. It seems, in 1981, Hill became adviser to Thomas who was working as Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. He then became Chairman of the EEOC in 1982 and took Hill with him. Hill later publicly testified that he had sexually harassed her; there were back-up witnesses, but we know how this story ended.

From Quiz Contemporaries

Answer: Louisa May Alcott

Bronson Alcott was a teacher, writer, philosopher, abolitionist, advocate for women's rights, and vegan. Alcott, Hawthorne, and Thoreau belonged briefly to a commune called Brooke Farm, which was founded to carry out their utopian ideals. Hawthorne visited but did not approve; his "Blithedale Romance" is a fictionalized account of the experiment. Louisa May Alcott is most famous for writing "Little Women." Two of the sequels ("Little Men" and "Jo's Boys") describe life at Plumfield, the school founded by Jo March and her husband. Plumfield embodies many of the educational ideas of Bronson Alcott.

From Quiz Among the Living

Answer: Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor, born on March 26, 1930, was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981 and served until she retired in 2006. Justice Ginsberg was appointed by Clinton in 1993, Kagan by Obama in 2010, and Sotomayor by Obama in 2009 (all three were still on the Court on November 1, 2015).

From Quiz Jewish Celebrities

Answer: Sigmund Freud

Two of his students went on to create their own schools of psychology were Alfred Adler and Viktor Frankl. Frankl went on to write the world famous bestseller, "Man's Search for Meaning". Although while working in entertainment Goldwin and Goodman could touch people's souls, they were of course not psychologists. Cy Young was one of the greatest pitchers in major league baseball history and has the award for best pitcher named for him.

From Quiz Is It On The Left Or On The Right?

Answer: James Hook

James Hook is the Captain of the brig "Jolly Roger." His only fears are the sight of his own blood and the crocodile who has relentlessly pursued him since eating the hand that Peter Pan cut off. Smee is Hook's Bo'sun. Teach is the real name of the pirate Blackbeard. I invented Horatio Hook.

From Quiz Ten People Fade to Black

Answer: Sri Lanka

In addition to her two ambassadorships, she also served as the US representative to the UN General Assembly and Chief of Protocol for the United States. Shirley Temple was one of the most popular movie stars of the 1930s.

From Quiz You Ain't No Halifax Girl

Answer: Gold rushing in California, circumnavigating the earth and qualifying as a lawyer in New York.

Augustus Wade Dwight attended Yale from 1851, but was unable to afford to complete his degree. To raise funds he tried gold rushing in California, where he continued to study law. He then took a ship to the Hawaiian islands and then another to China, from where he eventually made his way back to the USA. Eventually, he settled down as a lawyer in New York, though he joined the Union Army in 1862 as a captain. He was singled out in memorial speeches at Gettysburg as "the one to whom the efficiency of [his] regiment was so largely due".

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