The Trivia Corner

Brought to you by Bell’s Reach for the Top

By Jenn Che
Published Friday, April 29, 2011

Brought to you by Bell’s Reach for the Top

By Jennifer Che

Here in Ottawa, we seem to be playing Whack- A-Mole with the first signs of summer. Enjoy every toasty, sunny day you can. The next one is liable to be full of freezing rain.

But, as Oscar Wilde says so pithily, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Let us all be optimistic in looking forward to those warm days, starting with trivia about summer.

  1. We’ve all heard of tomatoes being fruits, but did you know that watermelon is really a vegetable?

  2. On that subject, strawberries are part of the rose family.

  3. Mosquitoes have been plaguing this planet for 30 million years.

  4. The first bathing suits for women were made in the early 1800s. For the sake of propriety, they were made with heavy woolen bloomers to weigh the suit down.

  5. You can tell the temperature (in Fahrenheit) by counting the number of times a cricket chirps in 15 seconds. Just add 37 to whatever number you reach.

  6. Frank Epperson invented the popsicle at the tender age of 11.
  7. The word barbecue comes from the Arawak word barbakoa, meaning “frame of sticks.”

  8. Although origins are somewhat uncertain, ice cream is believed to have been invented in China around 2000BC.

  9. Summer solstice usually occurs on June 21st for the northern hemisphere, and occasionally occurs on the 22nd.

  10. Air conditioning was first used in 1911, by the Folies-Bergere theatre in NYC.