Category: Brain Teasers

Trivia: Which planet was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006?

Earth
Saturn
Mercury
Pluto

The correct answer is Pluto

So why is this answer correct? : Pluto was discovered in 1930, becoming the ninth planet in the solar system. However, in 2006, the International Astronomical Union relegated the celestial body to dwarf planet status. While Pluto orbits the sun like other planets, it also shares its orbit with objects in the Kuiper Belt, which ultimately disqualified it from full planetary status.

Which one of the following was the first U.S. President to visit Moscow while in office?

Harry Truman
Dwight Eisenhower
John Kennedy
Lyndon Johnson
Richard Nixon

The correct answer is Richard Nixon

Which one of the following Cold War events occurred first?

Rosenberg executions
Soviets explode their first atomic bomb
Korean War begins
Berlin Blockade begins
Warsaw Pact formed

The correct answer is Berlin Blockade begins

During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, who was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations who produced photos showing Cuba’s missile installations?

Edward Stettinius
Adlai Stevenson
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr
James Wadsworth
Arthur Goldberg

The correct answer is Adlai Stevenson

Trivia: Which of these inventors was NOT involved with telephones?

Thomas Edison
Samuel Morse
Guglielmo Marconi
Elisha Gray

The correct answer is Samuel Morse

So why is this answer correct? : Thomas Edison improved on Bell’s original telephone transmitter, Guglielmo Marconi introduced a wireless telephone in 1915, and Elisha Gray created a telephone prototype in 1876 (in fact some believe he’s the true inventor of the device). Samuel Morse, on the other hand, was the inventor of the telegraph — the technology the telephone largely replaced. Morse died four years before Bell’s famous 1876 inaugural phone.

Trivia: What company designed the world’s first cell phone?

Apple
Motorola
Honeywell
U.S. military

The correct answer is Motorola

So why is this answer correct? : Engineer Martin Cooper made the first-ever cell phone call during a Motorola press conference for the DynaTAC phone on April 3, 1973. It took another decade before Motorola finally released the DynaTAC 8000x to customers. You could only talk for 35 minutes before the battery died, and it cost about $4,000, but the age of cell phones had arrived.

Trivia: What company revealed the world’s first smartphone in 1992?

Apple
IBM
Samsung
Compaq

The correct answer is IBM

So why is this answer correct? : IBM is best known as the PC king of the 1980s, but the company also had a go at the burgeoning smartphone market 15 years before the release of the iPhone. In 1992, IBM revealed the Simon, a phone with a digital touchscreen, built-in programs, and third-party apps. In fact, the Simon was so ahead of its time, it predated the word “smartphone,” which wasn’t coined until 1995.

Trivia: Who placed the first transcontinental phone call?

Woodrow Wilson
The mayor of San Francisco
Alexander Graham Bell
The president of AT&T

The correct answer is Alexander Graham Bell

So why is this answer correct? : In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson held the first-ever phone conversation, separated only two miles apart. Thirty-eight years later, those same two inventors held another landmark phone conversation — only this time they were separated by an entire continent. Bell was in New York City, Watson was in San Francisco, and some 3,400 miles of telephone wire stretched between them.

Trivia: What does “AT&T” stand for?

American Telephone and Telegraph
Allied Telephone and Telecom
American Television and Telephone
Aerial Technology and Telephone

The correct answer is American Telephone and Telegraph

So why is this answer correct? : The invention of the telephone led to the foundation of the American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) company. A year after revealing his invention in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell established the Bell Telephone Company, and after a series of reorganizations and patent lawsuits, Bell established AT&T in 1885. The company remains the largest telecommunications company by revenue today.

Trivia: What phone manufacturer was founded as a paper mill in 1865?

Samsung
Motorola
Nokia
Ericsson

The correct answer is Nokia

So why is this answer correct? : In the 1990s and 2000s, Nokia — named for the Finnish town and river — was a giant in the mobile phone industry, but the company actually began as a paper mill in southern Finland 1865. It wasn’t until a merger with three other companies in 1967 that the company began making electronics equipment. Nokia has only been a telecommunications company for 30 years in its more than 150-year history.