Trivia Thursday

My birthday is tomorrow, and while I’m not usually one to make a big fuss over my birthday (especially as I get older!), with this crazy lockdown, we have to seize every chance we get to be happy and celebrate. So when I had to come up with this week’s Thursday Trivia, I figured “why not?”  I did take pity on all of you readers though. I was originally going to have both the trivia questions and the story be birthday-focused, but instead just went with the trivia questions themselves. And because today’s post is a bit late getting published, I figured I would throw in a few bonus questions, so instead of the normal 10 questions, you get 14. And no, I did not pick 14 questions because my birthday is on the 14th. That is just a coincidence. I promise.

As usual the trivia questions will be listed with a short story below which has the answers hidden within it. Some answers are obvious while others might be harder to figure out. The answers are posted with in the comment section. Do you think you can find all the answers?

Please feel free to leave comment and let us know how you did.

Ready…. Set… Go…. Have Fun

The Questions

  1. This is the most celebrated birthday in the world.
  2. In the time between birthdays, your hair will grow by ____ centimetres.
  3. In the time between birthdays, there will have been 50,000 of these around the world.
  4. In the time between birthdays, this will have grown by 76,570,430 across the world.
  5. This month accounts for 9% of all births, the most of any month.
  6. The Happy Birthday song is rarely sung on TV because a _______ on the song means studios must pay a licensing fee. The owners of the song make about $2million every year!
  7. Don’t give this item as a birthday gift in China. It’s bad luck!
  8. The ancient ______s believed that the smoke from blown-out candles lifted prayers and wishes to the gods. That’s why we have candles on our cakes today!
  9. Birthday celebrations evolved over time. The first society we have record of celebrating birthdays are the ancient ______.
  10. Early Christians didn’t celebrate birthdays, as they viewed it as pagan. In the middle ages, they instead celebrated these venerable figures that they were frequently named after. Eventually, it evolved into celebrating individual birthdays.
  11. The Happy Birthday song was originally created by these two sisters in 1893. It was originally called Good Morning to All. The words have changed, but the melody is the same.
  12. In this country, a newborn is considered age 1. Thus, a 1-year-old in the West, as well as most other parts of the world, would be aged 2 years in that country.
  13. More babies are born on this day of the week than any other.
  14. The fewest number of babies are born on this day of the week.

The Story

The Last Day of School

Charlotte looked at the clock for the thousandth time in two minutes. The day was going so slow! The teacher was droning on about something. What it was, Charlotte couldn’t tell. She was focused more on the clock and all the plans she and her friends had for the summer. If only the silly thing would move faster, they could get on with the good times! Just 10 minutes left before her summer fun could begin.

“What are you doing on your summer vacation, Charlotte?” Mrs. Roman asked. Apparently, that was what she had been talking about – everyone’s summer plans – because now it was Charlotte’s turn. Even though she was caught off guard by the question, she was able to answer quickly.

“Tuesday, we are going to the beach. Next Sunday, we will be having a picnic with our church in the park. It will be lots of fun – they will have lots of games and stuff. I’m going to have a pool party in July for my birthday. And in August, my family rents a cottage for a week up in Muskoka. My whole family goes; my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and cousins, and of course my family.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun things you will be doing. What about you Jacob?” Mrs. Roman continued down the line.

“I’m gonna be TikTok famous!” Jacob declared. “Either that or I will get famous by streaming Among Us and COD and stuff on Twitch and YouTube!”

The teacher tried to look enthusiastic, but eventually gave up and instead said “That sounds interesting and I’m so glad you are enthusiastic about it, but it’s all Greek to me!” Some of the kids understood what that meant while others just looked puzzled. But with only four minutes of school left, no one was going to ask Mrs. Roman to explain.

Bobby Moore did pipe up though. “Make sure you get your videos copyrighted or whatever. You don’t want someone else making money off your videos! Trust me, my uncle is a lawyer.” The class laughed.

Charlotte stole a glance at the clock again. 4 minutes! She tried not to squirm in her seat. She wasn’t like her little sister who, according to Grandma, had the patience of a saint. She tried to pay attention to what all her friends were telling the class going to be doing this summer, but she was only partially listening. She did manage to hear that Mandy was going to volunteer at an animal shelter, Li was going to visit her family in China, Evan was gong to play soccer, and Trevor was just going to sit by the pool all summer. Dan said something that made the class laugh, but Charlotte missed it as she watched the second hand slowly work its way around.

As the seconds ticked slowly by, more and more students, and eventually Mrs. Roman all stared at the clock.

Three… Two… One…

Students were bolting out of their seats before the bell even started to ring. Mrs. Roman was yelling at everyone to slow down and be careful and have a safe summer and that she would see them in September. No one really heard as they all raced for the door.

It looked like a stampede and shook the room like an earthquake! It was crazy. And Charlotte was in the thick of it.

Eventually (it felt like eventually, but was probably only a few seconds), the logjam at the door cleared and she was able to make her way to her locker.

Mildred and Patty Hill, twin sisters and friends of Charlotte’s, fought their way through the entire school population it seemed like to get over to Charlotte’s locker. Patty tugged on Charlotte’s arm to get her attention and asked, “Will we be invited to your pool party?”

“Of course,” Charlotte responded. “I’m going to invite everyone. The whole class. A girl only turns 12 once!”

Mildred giggled, “You will have so many presents, it will look like Christmas Day!”

“That’s the plan!” Charlotte laughed. The three girls linked arms and skipped out of the school to enjoy their summer vacation.

1 Response
  1. wallaceburgadultactivitycentre

    The Answers:
    1. Christmas Day
    2. 12 centimetres
    3. Earthquakes
    4. Population
    5. August
    6. Copyright
    7. Clock
    8. Greeks
    9. Romans
    10. Saints
    11. Mildred and Patty Hill
    12. China
    13. Tuesday
    14. Sunday

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