Author: Evelyn Beresford

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Which famous composer had 20 children, including five boys named after him?” …Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bach is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. In 1706, he married his cousin Maria Barbara Bach. The couple had seven children together, 4 of whom survived to adulthood. Maria died in 1720 while Bach was traveling with Prince Leopold. The following year, Bach married a singer named Anna Magdalena Wülcken. They had thirteen children, more than half of them died as children. Bach…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Which candy was invented by a former Hershey’s employee?” H. B. Reese, was a dairy farmer that worked for the Hershey company. Intrigued by the chocolate business, he quit his job and asked Milton Hershey for permission to start his own candy company. Hershey said yes under the stipulation that all of his chocolate had to come from Hershey. Reese’s named his candy “Penny Cups” because the cost was only one cent at the time. He later changed the name to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. After his death in 1956, Reese’s six sons took over…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “What movie starred the current host of “The Tonight Show”?” …In 1998, Jimmy Fallon joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, fulfilling a lifelong dream. In 2004 he announced during the “Weekend Update” section that he was leaving the show. Fallon attempted to transition into feature films, and paired up with Drew Barrymore for the baseball-themed romantic comedy Fever Pitch in 2005. The film underwhelmed at the box office and received mild reviews. Although his big-screen career stalled, the comedian found success as the new host of the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on February…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Who is generally considered the founder of Memorial Day?” …Memorial Day honors all American soldiers who died in defense of the nation. One man, General John A. Logan, deserves much of the credit for the establishment of Memorial Day as a national holiday. Following the Civil War, Logan was instrumental in the founding of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans group comprised of former Union Army soldiers, and served as the group’s national commander. On March 3, 1868, Logan issued General Order No. 11, which called for a national day of remembrance for…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Which one of the four railroads in Monopoly was not a real railroad?” The railroads in the game of Monopoly are the Pennsylvania Railroad, Reading Railroad, B & O Railroad, and Short Line. Of these four monopoly properties, only three of them were real railroads. Short Line was not a real railroad. The Short Line was named after the Shore Fast Line, a streetcar line rather than a railroad. Charles and Olive Todd, who taught the game to Charles Darrow, its eventual patentee, shortened the name on their board to Short Line. The B &…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Which country is granted the right to be Europe’s sole producer of feta cheese?” …Only Greek feta can be labelled feta under EU law, which defines it as a brined cheese made in Greece from sheep milk, sometime mixed with up to 30 percent of goat’s milk. Feta cheese is considered the “white gold” of Greece’s economy. The country produces about 120,000 tons of feta every year, while the total domestic production of sheep and goat milk is about 1.1 million tons annually. In 2013, the EU struck a deal with Canada in which feta…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Which company launched the first iPhone?” The first iPhone definitely looked a bit different from current models. That’s because Apple’s smartphone was not the first iPhone. The day after Apple’s iPhone was announced, Cisco sued Apple for calling its product the iPhone. It turns out that iPhone was already a registered Cisco trademark. The Cisco “iPhone” was a dual-mode cordless VoIP network phone. Cisco’s iPhone launched 22 days before Apple’s iPhone was announced. In the end, the two companies settled the trademark lawsuit, with both companies keeping rights to the iPhone name. Step 2 : Answer…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “The brother of which of actor recorded a top 10 Billboard hit in the 1980s?” Frank Stallone Jr. is the younger brother of Sylvester Stallone and wrote music for many of his movies. His song “Far from Over”, which appeared in the 1983 film Staying Alive and was also featured in the film’s soundtrack, peaked at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100, for which he received Golden Globe and Grammy nominations. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special. Frank…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Cruciverbalist is a 14-letter word for people who enjoy which hobby?” …A cruciverbalists is someone that constructs or enjoys solving crosswords puzzles. Arthur Wynne was a Liverpool journalist that invented the first crossword puzzle. It was published in The New York World on this day in 1913. His puzzle was first called a “Word-Cross” and was designed as a diamond shape. A few weeks after the first “Word-Cross” appeared, the name of the puzzle was changed to “Cross-Word” as a result of a typesetting error. Although Wynne’s invention was initially greeted with skepticism, by the…

Step 1 : Introduction to the question “Which actor’s birth name is Harvey Yeary?” Lee Majors was born in 1939 as Harvey Lee Yeary. He is best known for his roles as Heath Barkley in the 1960s television series The Big Valley, Colonel Steve Austin in 1970s series The Six Million Dollar Man, and Colt Seavers in the series The Fall Guy. He changed his name to Lee Majors as a tribute to his childhood hero Johnny Majors, a football player and future coach for the University of Tennessee. Majors has been married four times, including a high-profile marriage to the late…