Savvy Minds Entertainment

17/06/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 06/16/24 - 06/22/24:

Thursday marks the 3rd anniversary of our newest federal holiday, Juneteenth, but it has been celebrated long before that. Although President Biden made it an official holiday in 2021, Juneteenth has been observed since the end of the Civil War. In September of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln announced that the Emancipation Proclamation would go into effect on January 1st, 1863. This executive order allowed the freedom of enslaved people, however it was only meant for the ten “rebel” states that opposed the Union during the civil war. Lincoln personally did not support slavery, but politically he was indifferent. The real motive behind the proclamation was to force the end of the war. He stated that he would do anything to “save the Union” even if the abolition of slavery did not occur. Despite the fact that the order began the first day of 1863, followed two years later by the 13th Amendment, the opposing states still supported slavery and many slaves had to either escape or wait to be freed by the Union army. In an effort to avoid the fighting, many Confederate landowners fled to Texas, where it was much safer against invasion than the other southern states. It’s estimated that they brought about 250,000 slaves with them. Due to Texas’ remote location, they were the last state to officially recognize abolition, although there was some opposition in other areas. On June 19th, 1865, General Gordon Granger and about 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston to order that all slaves shall be free. Juneteenth began being celebrated the following year.

This week’s bonus question:

Despite the fact that slavery has been abolished since 1865, this state, due to a historical oversight, didn’t officially ratify the 13th Amendment until February 7th, 2013?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

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07/06/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 06/09/24 - 06/15/24:

I know this week’s topic is probably a mystery that has gnawed at your brain your whole life, but fear not, today I will put your mind at rest. The question is this: Are zebras white with black stripes or black with white stripes? First of all, let me start with another question. Why do zebras have stripes? This has been the subject of scientific debate over the years and multiple theories have been proposed. Are they for camouflage, temperature regulation, or something else? In experiments conducted by researchers, zebras and evenly colored horses were subjected to flies and the results were that the flies landed much more so on the horses than the zebras. This has led to the added theory that the stripes also keep insects away which limits the diseases that can come from these pests. Now back to the original burning question. Scientists have concluded that zebras are black with white stripes. Like all animals, zebras have melanocyte cells. These determine the pigment that gives you the color of your skin and hair. Baby zebras are actually born with brown stripes but darken as they mature. Chemical messengers in zebras regulate what parts of their fur get white or black stripes. Since the white stripes are actually an absence of color, then the skin of the zebra must be black. If the fur of a zebra were removed they would likely be all black.

This week’s bonus question:

Not all zebras are born with stripes. A plains zebra from the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya was born with striped legs and face but has a body covered in polka dots. What is the name of this unique beauty?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

02/06/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 06/02/24 - 06/08/24:

As many of you know, I’m taking a vacation to Mexico these next two weeks, but I’m not going down there to drink pina coladas on the beach, well, not only. Actually I’ll be attending a four-day music festival known as Circus Mexicus in Puerto Penasco AKA Rocky Point. This is going to be such a cool experience that I wanted to tell you about the festival and the man behind it. The man is Roger Clyne. He is a Tucson/Tempe native who had some success in the late 90’s with his band, The Refreshments who then became Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers in 1998. He is considered a rock legend in Arizona, but is not too well-known in the rest of the country. Growing up he had an interest in Mexican music and culture, took ethnography studies in Ensenada and other Spanish immersion classes. As a musician, he really wanted his band to play in Mexico, an idea their record label didn’t agree with. Given the first opportunity, they parted ways with the label and went independent. Roger traveled to Puerto Penasco in order to see what the music scene was like there. There wasn’t one really, but he met a cantina owner who offered to let them play on the rooftop and in October 2000, the first Circus Mexicus took place. That first show only had a crowd of about a hundred people, but it started something. In the first several years, only Roger’s band played, but the crowds continued to grow and in 2002 the entire town ran out of beer. The band would move from bigger venue to bigger venue and eventually played in a dirt lot. Finally in 2009, a newly built venue at Sandy Beach near the resort hotels was built and Circus Mexicus first turned into a multiple-day festival with several bands. The festival has become so popular that it now includes dates in January and has been embraced by the entire town. The bands not only play on the main stage but at several different bars and clubs from morning to night throughout the town. The lineup has grown to 28 bands and attendance is likely over 5,000 people this year. Check out Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers music, good stuff.

This week’s bonus question:

Roger Clyne’s previous band, The Refreshments, were known for their single, “Banditos” but made their money for recording the theme song to this animated TV show?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

26/05/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 05/26/24 - 06/01/24:

A couple of weeks ago I had a round that used state abbreviations to create words, but how exactly did these two-letter designations come into existence? Before I get into that, comedian Gary Gulman has a hilarious skit that he performed on Conan regarding this very topic, so if you want a good laugh check it out. The real story goes like this. Despite the fact that the postal service came into existence nearly a year before the United States became united, it wasn’t until 1831 that they began to use abbreviations for the states. Most of the 24 states that existed at that time still use the same two letters today, but over the next four decades, new states were added to the union and by 1874, the two letter abbreviations were abandoned and each state or territory had its own random designation of two to six letters. This helped the post office avoid confusion within their mail service. Over the next 90 years a few changes were made, i.e. Mississippi became MS while Michigan adopted MI. In 1963, however, there was a new addition that was implemented called the Zone Improvement Plan that forced a change in the state abbreviations. Yes, the zip code came along. At the time, most addressing equipment had a maximum of 23 characters including spaces that could be used on the address line, so the postal service reverted back to the two letter notations to correct the issue. This system has remained virtually unchanged to this day (foreshadowing).

This week’s bonus question:

Since 1963, only one modification has been made to the state abbreviations. In 1969, this state’s two-letter code was changed to avoid confusion with a Canadian province?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

18/05/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 05/19/24 - 05/25/24:

I always like to research topics that have a bit of mystery behind them, particularly when it involves numbers, like the “33” on the bottles of Rolling Rock. Apparently, there is no definitive answer to that one so instead I’m delving into the meaning behind Heinz 57. Bottles of their ketchup have “57 varieties” printed on the label but what does that actually mean? Founder Henry J. Heinz started making different food products with his brothers as far back as 1869 and eventually bought them out. In 1896 while in New York City, he saw an advertisement on a subway that promoted “21 types of shoes”. He liked the odd number as a marketing strategy and decided to come up with his own number. It would make sense that 57 would represent the number of products that his company was creating but it wasn’t. By that time, the Heinz company was producing over 60 different items, so why “57”? He chose it based on his (5) and his wife’s (7) favorite numbers. He also felt that 7 had mystical qualities that reached people of all ages. 57 became so synonymous with the company that they introduced a steak sauce in 1940. Today the company manufactures several thousand products on six continents and in over 200 countries and territories.

This week’s bonus question:

Although bottles of ketchup are the only ones that have “57 varieties” printed on them now, this was the first product to carry the “57” slogan back in 1896? (Hint: Not pickles)

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

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13/05/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 05/12/24 - 05/18/24:

People ask me how I come up with my rounds, questions and bonus topics and it's pretty random, but this week I can tell you I got the bonus topic from watching People Puzzler on the Game Show Network. One of the answers was “crop circles”, so here we go. First of all, let's put all the conspiracy theory stuff, extraterrestrial origin stories (sorry big hair guy from Ancient Aliens) and other nonsense to rest. The first mention of odd field patterns dates back to the 17th century and more followed over the next several hundred years. It wasn’t until the 1950’s and 60’s when UFO sightings were at their heyday that these patterns were linked to alien spacecraft. None of these, however, were supported with photographic evidence. The appearance of crop circles escalated in the late 70’s which led to many theories on how they were created, including an increased opinion that UFO’s were the source. In 1991, two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, came forth and claimed to have created over 200 crop circles since 1978 and that they were the sole creators of all crop circles until 1987. They simply used a central anchor point, a rope and a plank to flatten the crop to make the circles. Still popular to this day, the formation of crop circles has become much more elaborate and complex than those of old.

This week’s bonus question:

Although crop circles became predominant in the late ‘70’s and '80's, they actually appeared in this 1974 sci-fi film?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

06/05/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 05/05/24 - 05/11/24:

May 5th as we all know is a faux American holiday designed to promote tequila or other Mexican-related alcohol and food, kind of. In the 1960’s, the U.S. began to commemorate the defeat of European invaders and it’s still a day for the celebration of culture and heritage despite the drinking aspect. In Mexico, however, it’s a whole different day. A long-time falsehood had many people believe that May 5th was the Mexican independence day, but that occurs on September 16th. Cinco de Mayo actually celebrates the 1862 Battle of Puebla in which the Mexican army defeated France during the Second Franco-Mexican War. The war began in 1861, when France invaded to collect debt and the Mexican military were forced to retreat to the city of Puebla. President Benito Juarez sent reinforcements and the smaller group were able to repel the French troops. Although not a significant battle in the war it was an inspirational victory that prompted Juarez to decree Cinco de Mayo a holiday on May 9th. The French would eventually take over the city the following year and the war would go on until 1867 when France withdrew its troops. Mexico would continue to battle amongst themselves until 1871. Because of the insignificance of the Battle of Puebla, Cinco De Mayo was never made a national holiday and is surprisingly not widely celebrated outside of the city of Puebla. In the city itself, it is observed with parades and military reenactments, much different than the U.S.

This week’s bonus question:

He was the Emperor of the French during the Second Franco-Mexican War?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

29/04/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 04/28/24 - 05/04/24:

Recently I had a question about the border between the African countries of Senegal and The Gambia. The reason I chose those two was based on the unique border that they share. The story goes back to the 17th century when France and Britain began carving up West Africa for themselves, boosted by the slave trade and the natural resources market. There were only a few rivers on the west coast that allowed adequate travel to the inland. France controlled the Senegal River to the north and Britain controlled the Gambia River to the south as declared in the Treaty of Versailles. France later made a power play to control more of the area and began to claim land south towards The Gambia. This forced Britain to name the area around the Gambia River as a protectorate. This eventually led to an 1889 agreement that set the boundaries between Senegal and The Gambia. The British were given roughly ten miles on the northern and southern sides of the Gambia River and the eastern border was defined as the last navigable place on the river. The Gambia is very narrow, the widest point at around 31 miles and only about 300 miles inland making it the smallest African nation on the mainland. The French-controlled Senegal, however, was allowed all the land surrounding The Gambia which formed a border that encircled the smaller country except on the western side which was the Atlantic Ocean. Senegal achieved independence in 1959, followed by The Gambia in 1965.

This week’s bonus question:

Prior to their independence, the Gambian prime minister, Dawda Jawara, requested that the name should officially be “The Gambia” to differentiate it from what?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

22/04/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 04/21/24 - 04/27/24:

My favorite chips came back on the market recently, Lay’s Crispy Taco, and if you’ve not had them, all I can tell you is try them. Tastes like a homemade taco complete with lettuce and tomato. That led me to wonder how they come up with these clearly artificial flavors. First of all, what is the difference between natural flavors and artificial. Natural flavors contain at least a portion of the original food, i.e. onion powder and fruit juices, but have additives to make them taste more authentic, although sometimes they’re even more unhealthy than artificial flavors. Now, artificial flavors, as its name applies, do not contain any natural product in them. They are created solely in a laboratory, but how? In a brief history, scientists in the 1800’s accidently stumbled upon certain chemical compounds such as synthetic esters that could evoke “sensory resemblances”, which first led to artificially flavored candies. The story of how grape flavoring was discovered is interesting. An Indianapolis creator of different flavor extracts was riding a streetcar when he smelled a woman’s perfume that resembled Concord grapes. He researched the perfume’s breakdown and found the ester, methyl anthranilate, which occurs naturally in North American grapes. He was able to recreate it artificially and the grape flavor was born. In 1908, Kikunae Ikeda, the man who coined the term “umami”, outside of the original four basic tastes, created MSG. This food additive was widely used, particularly during WWII since many food additives were made in Germany at the time. It got a bad rap in the late ‘60’s and fell into decline. Artificial flavoring is a much cheaper form than using natural flavors and they even created a new “fruit”, blue raspberry. OK, maybe not the healthiest ingredients, but those Crispy Taco chips are delicious!

This week’s bonus question:

The artificial banana flavoring we have today may have more closely resembled the bananas of old. What chemical compound gives us the current flavor?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

15/04/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 04/14/24 - 04/20/24:

Went down a rabbit hole this week, which I do a lot, decided to write about cryonics, not cryogenics. In the beginning of this journey, I didn’t know there was a difference, but they are definitely not the same thing as the Cryogenic Society of America made it very clear on their website. Cryogenics deals with the transportation and storage usually of large quantities of frozen food, which is frankly, kind of boring, but cryonics is the preservation and storage of the human body, way more interesting. Cryogenics got its start in 1877 when liquid oxygen was discovered, which offered up many different possible applications over the decades. Human cryopreservation wasn’t presented until 1954 when scientists were able to successfully freeze s***m which was later used to inseminate three women. The idea of freezing a human was proposed in 1962 and four years later the first attempt was made, albeit just as an experiment. The body that was used was a woman who had died several months earlier. The following year, professor James Hiram Bedford became the first person to volunteer to undergo the procedure and is still preserved to this day. The process works this way. Upon passing, a response team will quickly prepare the body for transport by supplying the brain with blood and oxygen, putting the body on ice and injecting it with an anticoagulant. After arriving at the cryonics laboratory, the first step is to remove the body’s water to eliminate ice crystals that would damage the cells. Then a type of “antifreeze” called a cryoprotectant replaces the water in a process called vitrification. The body is laid on a bed of dry ice to bring the temperature down to -202 degrees F, and then placed upside down in a vat of liquid nitrogen. The cost for such a radical procedure can be up to $200,000 and about $400 a year. A more frugal option is to just have your head frozen in hopes of it finding a body in the future. About 500 people in the world are currently in cryosleep. Contrary to a popular myth, Walt Disney did not have his body frozen, but was cremated shortly after his death. Baseball legend, Ted Williams, did however. His head was removed from his body and they are kept in separate storage units. There is no way to tell yet if cryopreservation will be a successful endeavor, so this practice has many detractors in the scientific world.

This week’s bonus question:

The only company in the U.S. that currently performs cryopreservation is this Scottsdale, AZ laboratory?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

07/04/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 04/07/24 - 04/13/24:

Every once in a while, my friend Ryan AKA Bean sends me little interesting tidbits of trivia. He has finally sent me something that I thought was worthy of a bonus topic, but a broken clock is right twice a day, am I right, people? Just kidding, pal, thank you! Anyway, let’s get to Aeschylus. Aeschylus was a Greek playwright who was considered the “Father of Tragedies”, which is a very appropriate title considering how he died (just a little foreshadowing there). He was born in Eleusis near Athens, and worked at a vineyard in his youth. According to legend, however, he was visited in a dream by the god of wine and theater, Dionysus, who told him to focus his life on writing tragedies. His first performance occurred in 499 B.C. when he was 26. A few years later, he was called into military service during the Persian Wars, fighting in both the Battle of Marathon and later, the Battle of Salamis, an era of his life that would influence his works. After his war service, he returned to his writing and won the City Dionysia in 484 B.C. (kinda like a rap battle for playwrights). He fell into disfavor with the cult of Demeter, of which he had been a member, for telling some of their secrets onstage. He was acquitted due to his military service, nearly stoned to death as a result, but went on to become a very successful playwright for the remainder of his life. Now, to the heart of this story, the death of Aeschylus. As the story goes, the Oracle predicted that Aeschylus would die either by a house falling on him or by being hit in the head with an object. Due to this, he decided he would remain outside as much as possible. The fateful day arrived when, in his due diligence to remain safe in his outdoor haven, an eagle flying overhead was looking to begin his meal which happened to be a tortoise that he held in his talons. In order to eat said tortoise, the eagle had to dash it on a rock to break it open. It just so happened that 67-year-old Aeschylus’s bald head looked surprisingly like a rock and the eagle let loose of the tortoise with such amazing accuracy that it struck the intended target which killed poor Aeschylus. The Father of Tragedies title makes sense now.

This week’s bonus question:

Of the 80-90 tragedies that Aeschylus purportedly wrote, only how many survive today?

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01/04/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 03/31/24 - 04/06/24:

I was having a conversation with someone the other day about the naming of America and while I know who it was named after, I never realized why it was named after him. If you remember your history (or one of my old trivia questions), you know this to be Italian merchant, Amerigo Vespucci. Born in Florence, Italy, he eventually made his way to Seville, Spain where he worked for rich merchant, Gianotto Berardi, who is believed to have financed the first voyage of Christopher Columbus. After Berardi’s death, Vespucci was executor to his will and continued to supply ships to the West Indies, including Columbus’s third voyage in 1498. Vespucci himself went on two well-documented voyages between 1499 and 1502, one for Spain and the other for Portugal. They traveled to the Caribbean and down the coast of Brazil. Historians are not sure what role he played on these voyages, he was not part of the crew, but it may have been as a representative of the other investors. He wrote several letters describing the voyages and sent one to the Medici that claimed that the land they had reached was a new continent. Another letter was reportedly sent to the leader of the Florentine Republic, Piero Soderini, which stated that Vespucci had landed on the mainland of what would become South America in 1497, prior to Columbus landing there. This letter, although fake, was widely published in 1505. German cartographers, Martin Waldseemuller and Mathias Ringmann obtained a copy of it, along with several maps of the land masses around the world. Waldseemuller created a world map that included the “New World” which named the land in honor of Amerigo. Ringmann wrote “Introduction to Cosmography” that accompanied the map and gave praise to the alleged work of Vespucci. It wasn’t until 1513 that the Soderini letter was found to be a sham and Waldseemuller tried to have it renamed, but by then, the name America had stuck.

This week’s bonus question:

In an attempt to reverse the naming error of America, Martin Waldseemuller created a new map in 1513 that changed the name of America to what (Looking for the English or Italian name, not the really long Latin name)?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point

25/03/2024

Bonus topic for the week of 03/24/24 - 03/30/24:

I had dinner at an Italian restaurant on Friday night and that inspired me to write a question regarding a menu item. Upon researching different dishes I decided that a bonus topic would be a better idea based on what I found. First of all, Gianni’s Ristorante Italiano in Everett has great food and a very chill ambiance, free plug for them. On their menu is Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, which includes tomato sauce, olives, capers, garlic and red pepper. The interesting thing about this dish is not the ingredients, but the name, Puttanesca. Puttanesca translates to English as “in the style of the w***e”. There are multiple theories about how this pasta dish got its name. The basic recipe for this has been around for at a least a couple of centuries, but it wasn’t named Puttanesca until the mid-20th century. One theory is that because it’s an easy dish to put together, prostitutes would often make it to limit their time between clients, a sound business decision. A second story goes that housewives would cook this so they could spend more time with their illicit affairs while their husbands were at work Another is that the Italian word “puttana” which means w***e comes from the Latin word ”putida” which means stinky. The fact that it’s made with garlic could certainly justify the theory. Whatever the truth may be, it's still a tasty dish.

This week’s bonus question:

The first reference to “Alla Puttanesca” in print was found in this 1961 novel?

Bring your answer to this week’s trivia for a bonus point