Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers
Read Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
IMPOSSIBLE
QUESTIONS
&
Astounding Answers
By the
Bathroom Readers’
Institute
Bathroom Readers’ Press
Ashland, Oregon
UNCLE JOHN’S
IMPOSSIBLE QUESTIONS
& ASTOUNDING ANSWERS
Copyright © 2011 by the Bathroom Readers’ Press (a division of Portable Press). All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. “Bathroom Reader” and “Bathroom Readers’ Institute” are registered trademarks of Baker & Taylor. All rights reserved.
For information, write:
The Bathroom Readers’ Institute, P.O. Box 1117, Ashland, OR 97520
www.bathroomreader.com
•
888-488-4642
Cover design by Michael Brunsfeld, San Rafael, CA
(
[email protected]
)
Escher duckie pattern by Rob Davis (
[email protected]
)
eISBN: 978-1-60710-676-0
E-Book edition: September 2012
THANK YOU!
The Bathroom Readers’ Institute sincerely
thanks the people whose advice and
assistance made this book possible
.
Gordon Javna
Jay Newman
Amy Miller
Jack Mingo
Michael Kerr
Brian Boone
Jeff Altemus
Angela Kern
Claire Breen
Melinda Allman
Kim Griswell
John Dollison
Thom Little
Michael Brunsfeld
Rob Davis
Mustard Press
Monica Maestas
JoAnn Padgett
Amy Ly
Annie Lam
Ginger Winters
Jennifer Frederick
Sydney Stanley
R.R. Donnelley,
who always do
the impossible
Publishers Group West
Raincoast Books
Jack Barry
Art Fleming
Loaf Newman
Madison
(the radio star, not the
mermaid from
Splash
)
Question Mark &
the Mysterians
Eddie Deezen
Thomas Crapper
O
kay, we lied.
Now that we’ve got your attention, we should let you know that not all of the questions in
Impossible Questions
are necessarily “impossible.” As Uncle John’s mom used to tell him, nothing’s impossible. And some readers might be familiar with a few of these astounding answers. But unless you happen to be 1) ________ (
Jeopardy
!’s all-time highest earner), 2) ________ (the brilliant scientist/violinist who bequeathed the rights to his name to a foreign university), or 3) ________ (the book publisher whom party guests always find annoying), most of these questions will probably stump you.
How do we know? Because most of them stumped us. And that’s why we wrote this book—because the writers at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute are always trying to stump each other with weird and obscure trivia questions, so now we’re letting you in on the fun.
Here’s how we do it at the BRI: We find little-known aspects of well-known information and turn them into Q&A’s. For example, most people know that the Pilgrims boarded the
Mayflower
in 1620 and sailed to the New World, but how many people know what the ship
smelled
like? Another example: You probably know that an airplane was the first
machine
to break the sound barrier, but what was the first man-made
object
that surpassed the speed of sound? Here’s one more: What do you have 100 more of now than you did when you were a baby? You’ll
find the answers to these and hundreds more in the pages of this book.
In the making of
Impossible Questions
, we did what we’ve been doing in
Bathroom Readers
for 25 years: Telling brief stories that will inform, surprise, and entertain you. Bonus: When you’re done reading, you can stump
your
friends!
So have fun.
And as aways,
Go with the Flow!
—Uncle John and the BRI staff
p.s. We’re already gathering ideas for
Impossible Questions 2,
so if you think
you
can stump Uncle John, send your questions and answers to us by logging on to
www.bathroomreader.com
.
Answers to the three blanks on the previous page:
1) Brad Rutter, with total earnings of $3,370,102.
(Ken Jennings holds the record for most consecutive wins—74.)
2) Albert Einstein. He left his name to Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, who trademarked it and reportedly makes
$10 million from licensing fees annually
.
3) Uncle John
.
Everything has to begin somewhere. So let’s get started!
When
Kleinkinderbeschäftigungsanstalt
didn’t catch on, its inventor changed its name to…what?
Al, Alf, Charles, Henry, and John are better known by their last name. What is it?
German educator Friedrich Froebel changed it to
Kindergarten
, which means “children’s garden.” His original term,
Kleinkinderbeschäftigungsanstalt
, meant “institute of care, playing, and activity for small children.” The idea dates to 1837, when Froebel opened the first Kindergarten in Germany as a way to prepare children for later grades. Froebel believed young kids learned faster if they participated in educational activities, so his innovative curriculum combined artwork and play with formal instruction. Froebel’s idea was so good that his “children’s gardens” are still going strong today.
Ringling. The five original Ringling brothers—Al, Alf, Charles, Henry, and John—formed a traveling performance troupe in 1884 and were soon outgrossing all the other small circuses in the midwestern United States. Advertising themselves as “Ringling Bros. United Monster Shows, Great Double Circus, Royal European Menagerie, Museum, Caravan, and Congress of Trained Animals,” they became so successful that in 1907 they bought out their biggest competitor—Barnum & Bailey—to create what they called the “Greatest Show on Earth.” There were seven Ringling brothers in all—the five who founded the circus, and two who joined later, Gus and Otto. (They also had a sister named Ida.)
What well-known maker of fun stuff began as the Schwarzschild & Sulzberger meat-packing company? (And what does it have to do with Tom Hanks?)
19th-century stage actress Sarah Bernhardt popularized what women’s fashion item? (And what does it have to do with Harrison Ford?)
In 1915 an executive named Thomas E. Wilson was tasked by a division of Schwarzschild & Sulzberger, a meat-packing company, to solve a problem: Find a way to sell useless byproducts from their slaughterhouses (lips, intestines, and so on) that couldn’t be made into sausage or pet food. When Wilson arrived, the plant was already using sheep intestines to make surgical sutures and violin strings, but the excess animal parts were piling up. So what did he do to turn it around? He focused on sporting goods and changed the name to Wilson. His first big contract: the Chicago Cubs.
Wilson Sporting Goods has since changed hands several times. In 2000 the company achieved Hollywood immortality when one of its volleyballs co-starred alongside Tom Hanks in
Cast Away
.