It's National Trivia Day!

I love trivia. I love remembering and recalling facts. It helps make conversations interesting as spark debates about whether a piece of information is correct or not. According to National Day Calendar.com, today is National Trivia Day. Trivia day is a great day to share all of these facts that almost nobody knows, making this day a fun and interesting one to spend with friends or family. Although in my opinion, sharing trivia any day is a great time to have fun with family and friends. Here’s a little history about trivia as well as my favorite board game and my favorite TV game show.

The word trivia is plural for trivium which is Latin for a place where three roads meet. During the Middle Ages, trivium comprised of the first three divisions of the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric and logic. They were considered to be less important than arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Trivia is information that is matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential. In the 1960s, college students and others began to informally trade questions and answers about the popular culture of their youth. After writing trivia columns, Columbia University students, Ed Goodgold and Dan Carlinsky, created the earliest inter-collegiate quiz bowls that tested cultural significant but virtually useless information. They would later write the first book on trivia in 1966. Trivia has come to refer to obscure or arcane information. Here are a few trivia facts:

• While many believe Hydrox cookies are an Oreo knock-off, Hydrox actually came first in 1908. Oreos were first introduced in 1912.
• Forty is the only number whose letters are in alphabetical order
• The most shoplifted food item in the US is candy. In Europe, it’s cheese.
• The Pledge of Allegiance was used as part of a plan to sell flags to schools

My favorite board game is Trivial Pursuit. I own four versions of the game: the 20^th anniversary edition, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and a team edition. I also own a video game version for the PS2. The game was first created in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1979 by Chris Haney and Scott Abbott. The game consists of general knowledge and popular culture questions in subjects as geography, entertainment, history, arts & literature, science & nature, and sports & leisure. The game became extremely popular by 1984 and continues its popularity as it has spawned different editions like the ones I mentioned earlier.  The creators of the game faced a few lawsuits over copyrights. In October 1984, Fred L. Worth, author of The Trivia Encyclopedia and other trivia books, filed a $300 million lawsuit in which he claimed that a quarter of the questions in the Genus edition were taken from his book. Haney and Abbott acknowledged that they used Worth’s books for questions; however, no one can claim copyright over facts. The courts agreed.

My favorite TV game show is Jeopardy! First created by Merv Griffin, it debuted on NBC on March 30, 1964 and ran until January 3, 1975 with Art Fleming as host. Its current format premiered on September 10, 1984 with Alex Trebek as its host. I know many people are familiar with Jeopardy! It is quiz competition in which clues are given in the form of an answer and the contestants must respond in the form of a question. For example, in a category of The White House, an answer would read “He was the second U.S. President to live in the first White House.” The correct response would be “Who was Thomas Jefferson?” According to Merv Griffin, his wife, Jillian, came up with the idea that the answers would be presented and the contestants had to come up with the question. She noted that there had not been a successful question and answer show since the quiz show scandals of the 1950s. She suggested changing it up. The game hosts yearly tournaments for Champions, teens, kids, and teachers even a Celebrity edition in which contestants play for their favorite charities.

In conclusion, I love trivia. Some of my fondest memories is watching Jeopardy! with my grandmother and she urged me to try out for the game. Even now as I watch with my husband, he tells me I have to get on the show. Although, getting on the show is a very difficult process, I don’t think I’d do very well. It’s one thing to give responses on the safety of your couch, it’s another to go on national television. Maybe one day I will; but for now enjoy National Trivia Day and discover tidbits of information you may have not known before.