Actually, Q9 is a special case. Nearly all the information necessary to fully answer the question has been posted (and is relevant), but no one’s put it together yet. Hint: It’s important to know that there were two Newhart shows.
Sorry for the delay in posting answers. First of all Peter Morris is the winner. Peter, please get me contact info (pmessage should work).
Answers, with brief explanations:
- Looking for tsunami, Hawai’i (location of tsunami museum near Hilo and organized tsunami warning system), seiche (one of which killled people in Chicago
in the 1950s).
One person got part credit here.
- Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance were the shortstop, 2nd baseman, and first baseman of the Chicago Cubs in 1910, and were a talented double play combination. Their play inspired an example of that rarest of literary forms, the famous sports poem. (Tinker to Evers to Chance, a.k.a Baseball’s Sad Lexicon.) See Baseball's Sad Lexicon - Wikipedia Chance was the first baseman, and could be said to be “on first”.
Who’s On First is an Abbott and Costello routine.
“First Base”, “Second Base” etc. are also slang terms for various levels of sexual success on a particular occasion.
See Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos
Also Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Daahboard Light
Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart owned a casino operation as part of his Cafe in Casablanca. One of the earliest times we saw through his ungenerous tough guy image when when he helped a young Bulgarian refugee escape the clutches of police official Capt. Renault, who sought sexual favors from her in exchange for the exit visas that she and her husband could not afford. When she asked Rick if Renault was honest (thereby letting Rick know what was going on), Rick reacted by fixing his own roulette wheel to ensure that the Bulgarians won enough money to enable the wife to avoid needing to get “past second” with Renault.
More than one person picked up parts of this, but no one got it all.
- (Lady) Jennie and (Lord) Randolph Churchill were the parents of P.M. Winston Churchill. According to most accounts, Lady Jennie had many lovers, although there’s no evidence that she had the kinks mentioned in the question, which are instead a reference to the supposed statement of Winston (who once served as First Lord of the Admiralty) that the only Royal Navy traditions were “rum, sodomy and the lash”. (Flor de Cana is a well-regarded Nicaraguan brand of rum.) “The Pogues” is the name of an Irish band with a tune entitled Rum Sodomy and the Lash.
A few picked up on the Churchill reference and got part credit.
4. Correctly answered. Reference to famous proximate cause case of Palsgraf v. Long Island Railway (1928) written by Justice Benjamin Cardozo, and known to every law student.
- All three graduated from Maine South High School in Park Ridge, Illinois. Ray is Ray Ozzie. See Ray Ozzie - Wikipedia. The others appear to have been Park Ridge residents, but graduated from another high school.
(probably the only question that almost certainly required a search engine.)
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Main reference is to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as has been explained.
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Philip K. Dick and Bladerunner, as has been explained.
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James Bond/Major Boothroyd = Q/Ian Fleming/Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as has been explained.
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People got so, so close to full credit on this one. Most of all of the action in these shows, with the exception of St. Elsewhere, took place in Chicago. True, the later BN vehicle Newhart supposedly took place at an inn in Vermont, but the final episode revealed that it was all a dream that Dr. Bob Hartley (a character played by BN in the earlier Bob Newhart Show) had while sleeping in his Chicago bed. (The St Elsewhere reference was meant as a hint, as that was another “it was all a dream” surprise ending.)
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Initial Illinois state capital was Kaskaskia. A series of MIssissippi River floods and a course change washed the town away in the 1800s, and the site and buildings of the old town are under the river or, (more accurately) were long ago washed downstream and out of state. (The point on the map where the town was located and where the river flows today is technically still in Illinois, as are/were a town memorial east of the river, and a newer settlement site west of the river, where some old Kaskaskia refugees moved.)
(more)
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1811 New Madrid earthquake, as has been explained. Such a powerful quake today in the same location would be devastating today (and perhaps 800 years ago, when Kaskaskia was the site of what was probably the largest Native merican city in what is now the United States), but caused little damage in 1811, as the area was far less populated.
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Oubliette (I would have accepted 2-3 roughly contemporaneous games) on the PLATO computer network based at the University of Illinois in Urbana. PLATO used an orange plasma panel display. In the late 1970s, PLATO’s multiuser games could be played at sites in many U.S. states and other countries. Today, they can be found at www.cyber1.org.
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Horatio Hornblower references, as has been explained. No one picked up on the reference to another story by the same author, The African Queen.
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(British author) Enid Blyton references, as has been explained. (This was meant as compensation for the overly Amero-centric nature of many of the other questions.)
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Shakespeare/Richard III era noblemen’s badges references have been explained. A much later film reference to badges that stink was not explained.
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Full credit required some discussion of Dorothy Parker, who used variants on all of these statements.
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U.S. Grant, as has been explained. (Jesse James fought for the Confederacy, before his more famous exploits).
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References were to writings of J.D. Fitzgerald, as has been explained. Little Brain was John. Great Brain was Tom. Their elder brother was Sweyn. Mom ( at least in the lesser known, more autobiographically accurate adult writings) was a Mormon.
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Easy if you knew it, un-Googleable if you didn’t (because of the widely varied meanings of the words “lead” and “high”). Lead shot was commonly made by dropping molten lead from the top of tall shot towers. (As it fell, the molten lead naturally cooled into spheres usable for shot.)
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Solar radiation, as has been explained.
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Dual reference. One has been explained (Constantinople, the Hagia Sofia) and one (1492 fall of Grenada, the Alhambra) was not.
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Same. One reference (30 Years War, Swedish king Gustav Adolphus saving the Protestant German states from the Hapsburg/Austrian empire) was explained. The other (Polish king Jan Sobieski breaking the Ottoman/Turkish seige of Vienna in 1683) was not.
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The trait is the ability of an adult to secrete lactase, as has been explained. (People make and consume a lot of dairy products in Wisconsin.)
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Reference was to Greek legend of Circe.
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Answered both by by Peter Morris (here, once in this thread) and various long-suffering GQ contributors (on many, many occasions).
Congrats again to Peter Morris, who can take one Challenge off his list.
No, 88. He goes eight years between birthdays at one point. 
Please give the prize in my name to the book fairy program..
Sounds like a good choice. Will do.
Realized I forgot Q26 – Emperor Claudius invaded Britain in the year 43 A.D. The current HBO series Rome features most of his recent ancestors, including grandparents Mark Antony, Octavia and Livia. (and, most recently, a possible appearance by his mother, Antonia.) Actress Sian Phillips gave a stellar performance as the older Livia in the later series I, Claudius.