If They Made a Movie ... Trivia Quiz

Answer: Repo Man

Gutenberg's press was seized by his creditor Johann Fust in 1456. He would go on to perfect several advanced techniques and train a new generation of printers.

Answer: The Burning Bed

Hus was burned at the stake at the Council of Constance in 1415. His movement survived in the organization of the Bohemian Brethren, however, and he is cited as a major inspiration for Martin Luther and other Protestant leaders in the tumultuous sixteenth-century Reformation.

Answer: Night of the Johnstown Flood

Chiang dynamited the dikes holding back the Yellow River, flooding the valley. Not only was this tactic ineffective, it also signaled a breach of the traditional Chinese leaders' obligation to maintain the dikes at all costs, contributing to Chiang's eventual fall from power to the Maoist Communists in 1949.

Answer: Free Willy

Morrison was charged with indecent exposure for his behavior that night and was eventually found guilty of a misdemeanor. He never did serve his sentence, owing to his death on July 3, 1971.

Answer: The Informer

"Easy Eddie" O'Hare testified against Al Capone in the gangster's tax evasion trial in return for an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis for his son. Eddie was later gunned down in the street for his effort, while Edward Jr., commonly known as "Butch", went on to single-handedly save an aircraft carrier as a fighter pilot in the Pacific theater during World War II.

The airport known as Orchard Depot was renamed O'Hare International to honor the younger O'Hare in 1949.

Answer: The Great Escape

Dillinger escaped from prison using a false gun made of wood. He would eventually be shot in front of Chicago's Biograph theater on July 22, 1934.

Answer: Pretty Baby

Chambers had appeared as a young mother holding a baby in a campaign for "Ivory Snow" detergent. Viewers of "Behind the Green Door" will certainly question that product's claim of being "99.44% pure".

Answer: Hugo the Hippo

Yes, Washington's dentures were made of Hippopotamus ivory, not wood as is commonly thought. Though they were badly discolored by Washington's food, they served him well for many years.

For more information on Washington's teeth (or lack thereof), please consult the following sites:

http://www.goodteeth.com/gwteeth.htm
http://www.bentonnews.net/Features/teeth.htm

Answer: The Cannonball Run

Cannon fire posed a problem to premodern understandings of physics. Since there was no apparent force "pushing" the cannonball through space, fifteenth-century thinkers concocted elaborate hypotheses about air itself moving around the cannonball and transporting it to its destination. This quandary culminated with Newton's description of inertia.

According to legend, Galileo dropped cannonballs of vastly different sizes from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to demonstrate that light objects fall just as fast as heavy objects. Modern historians contend that this experiment never actually took place (Galileo actually used incline planes), but the principle is the same.

Answer: Once Upon a Time in the West

After Truman lost traditional Democratic states in the then "solid South" to Segregationist "Dixiecrat" Strom Thurmond, Dewey appeared to hold a commanding lead after precincts in the eastern states closed. This led the "Chicago Daily Tribune" to print its famous presumptive headline: "Dewey Defeats Truman". (In fairness to the "Tribune", many of its more experienced workers were on strike at the time, leaving the paper vulnerable to just such a mistake.) When Truman went to sleep that evening in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, he had resigned himself to defeat.

As returns came in from the Western states, however, the Truman cause rallied, and the President won with 303 electoral votes, compared to 189 for Dewey and 39 for Thurmond. Triffids, it seems, did not play a major role in this election.