# What is your favorite trivia question (and answer)? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 9, 2013, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028 "2013-07-09T11:04:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/161 "2013-07-18T00:31:19Z")
Who is the only person to receive both the Victoria Cross and the Iron Cross? William [Manley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_George_Nicholas_Manley). The VC was for saving lives during a battle in the Maori Wars; the Iron Cross was for caring for wounded during the Franco-Prussian War. Who is the only person to receive both the Victoria Cross and an Olympic gold medal? Philip [Neame](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Neame). The VC was for defending against a German attack on the Western Front during WW I; the Olympic medal was for shooting in the 1924 Olympics. Who is the only person to receive the Victoria Cross based solely on the recommendation of the enemy, with no allied witnesses? Lloyd [Trigg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Allan_Trigg), pilot of a bomber which attacked a German U-boat during WW II. Trigg’s plane was shot down with no survivors. The U-boat was sunk; survivors were picked up the next day and the CO made the recommendation. Who is the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor? Dr Mary Walker, for medical service during the Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/162 "2013-07-18T08:44:20Z")
If we are talking about an adult male lion, it wins - one almost killed an adult male tiger at the San Francisco Zoo (told me by a keeper of the small cats). The tiger is a sprinter which kills by biting the neck. The mane defeats that technique. The lion fights by standing its ground and using its massive forelegs and claws. In the SF case, by the time they were able to separate them, the tiger was in very poor condition, but they managed to patch it up. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/163 "2013-07-18T11:04:56Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > If we are talking about an adult male lion, it wins - . . . . But are there any citations for this? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Haunted\_Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/94ad74/32.png) [@Haunted\_Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haunted_Pasta)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/164 "2013-07-18T13:16:30Z")
This WAS my favorite question when it was posed to me about 20 years ago, when there were just 100 or so schools playing major college football and it was called Division I and all was right with the world: What four Division I football team names neither end in ‘S’ nor include a color? Nowadays, of course, we have this FBS nonsense, with about 500 conferences and 12,000 schools all playing in the top level of the NCAA. (Also, all popular songs sound the same and there’s all these fancy computers and whatnot and you kids need to get off my lawn.) There are now seven FBS teams that meet this criterion. So, how many of them can you name? (Note: two are essentially the same, differing only by the typographic preferences of their respective schools.) Answer 20 years ago: Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Illinois Fighting Illini, North Carolina State Wolfpack, Navy Midshipmen Additions since then: Nevada Wolf Pack, Umass Minutemen, Marshall Thundering Herd ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/165 "2013-07-18T13:47:41Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > If we are talking about an adult male lion, it wins - one almost killed an adult male tiger at the San Francisco Zoo (told me by a keeper of the small cats). > > The tiger is a sprinter which kills by biting the neck. The mane defeats that technique. > The lion fights by standing its ground and using its massive forelegs and claws. > > In the SF case, by the time they were able to separate them, the tiger was in very poor condition, but they managed to patch it up. The documentation [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_vs_lion) seems to disagree with you rather strongly. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/166 "2013-07-18T14:28:19Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > The tiger is a sprinter which kills by biting the neck. The mane defeats that technique. > The lion fights by standing its ground and using its massive forelegs and claws. …standing its ground against what? Lions hunt the same way tigers do: biting the throat. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/167 "2013-07-18T15:04:36Z")
> [@Haunted\_Pasta](#): > > This WAS my favorite question when it was posed to me about 20 years ago, when there were just 100 or so schools playing major college football and it was called Division I and all was right with the world: > > What four Division I football team names neither end in ‘S’ nor include a color? > > Nowadays, of course, we have this FBS nonsense, with about 500 conferences and 12,000 schools all playing in the top level of the NCAA. (Also, all popular songs sound the same and there’s all these fancy computers and whatnot and you kids need to get off my lawn.) There are now seven FBS teams that meet this criterion. So, how many of them can you name? (Note: two are essentially the same, differing only by the typographic preferences of their respective schools.) > > Answer 20 years ago: Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Illinois Fighting Illini, North Carolina State Wolfpack, Navy Midshipmen > > Additions since then: Nevada Wolf Pack, Umass Minutemen, Marshall Thundering Herd Oh, even years ago, there were more than that: [spoiler] Just for starters, there was the Alabama Crimson Tide, the Tulane Green Wave, the Syracuse Orangemen, the Stanford Cardinal, the Tulsa Golden Hurricane… [/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/168 "2013-07-18T15:06:32Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Oh, even years ago, there were more than that: > > [spoiler] > > Just for starters, there was the Alabama Crimson Tide, the Tulane Green Wave, the Syracuse Orangemen, the Stanford Cardinal, the Tulsa Golden Hurricane… [/spoiler] The question specified no colors. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/169 "2013-07-18T15:22:52Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > If we are talking about an adult male lion, it wins - one almost killed an adult male tiger at the San Francisco Zoo (told me by a keeper of the small cats). > > The tiger is a sprinter which kills by biting the neck. The mane defeats that technique. > The lion fights by standing its ground and using its massive forelegs and claws. > > In the SF case, by the time they were able to separate them, the tiger was in very poor condition, but they managed to patch it up. Can’t the answer be that sometimes the tiger wins and sometimes the lion wins? You can’t make this call by one example. Also, wouldn’t the fighting skill level vary anyway? I’m an adult male human and there are a lot of other adult humans that I can beat up while there are a lot of others that can do the same to me. Finally, IIRC from the Nature series of my youth, don’t adult male lions just sit around swatting flies with their tails while the females hunt and bring back food? Are they really fit enough to fight a tiger that has to hunt regularly? I would think that a lioness would stand a better chance. ETA: :smack: didn’t realize this was the trivia thread. How did we get on this subject anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/170 "2013-07-18T16:54:16Z")
Male lions do fight _each other_. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/171 "2013-07-18T17:00:08Z")
My lord! If only there was some information somewhere about what happens when lions fight tigers. I have no idea where anybody would have collected that information though. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/172 "2013-07-18T17:04:45Z")
One of my favorites is a mere fact that it’s hard to put into question form, so just tossing it out there: OJ Simpson was in a Best Picture-nominated movie. I just shake my head at that fact sometimes, for numerous reasons. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/173 "2013-07-18T17:49:44Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > My lord! If only there was some information somewhere about what happens when lions fight tigers. I have no idea where anybody would have collected that information though. You mean like in post 165? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/174 "2013-07-18T17:54:04Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > You mean like in post 165? No. Something more comprehensive than that. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2013, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/175 "2013-07-18T18:01:51Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > > [@Busy\_Scissors](#): > > > > What is the furthest distance you can get from a road on the UK mainland? > > > > I don’t know the answer for the US but I would guess it is similarly surprising (a road being defined as a tarmac road for the purposes of the question). > > From what I understand, the winner in the contiguous US is a spot in the southwest corner of Yellowstone that’s 22 miles from any road, although I think there’s places in Idaho that are further from a paved road. The spot to which you refer (Hawks Rest) is 28 miles from the nearest road, according to the author of the book _Hawks Rest_, whom I [interviewed](http://garyrobson.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/book-review-hawks-rest-by-gary-ferguson/) about it. That is the farthest from a road that you can be in the lower 48 states. It’s MUCH farther in Alaska. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/176 "2013-07-19T02:03:20Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > One of my favorites is a mere fact that it’s hard to put into question form, so just tossing it out there: > > OJ Simpson was in a Best Picture-nominated movie. > > I just shake my head at that fact sometimes, for numerous reasons. Towering Inferno? ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/177 "2013-07-19T05:53:25Z")
Yeah. There are multiple layers of WTF in just that one fact; it’s sort of amazing, really. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/178 "2013-07-19T05:59:08Z")
OJs part in the movie barely registers on the WTF scale compared to it being nominated for Best Picture. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/179 "2013-07-19T14:30:48Z")
> [@Haunted\_Pasta](#): > > This WAS my favorite question when it was posed to me about 20 years ago, when there were just 100 or so schools playing major college football and it was called Division I and all was right with the world: > > What four Division I football team names neither end in ‘S’ nor include a color? > > Nowadays, of course, we have this FBS nonsense, with about 500 conferences and 12,000 schools all playing in the top level of the NCAA. (Also, all popular songs sound the same and there’s all these fancy computers and whatnot and you kids need to get off my lawn.) There are now seven FBS teams that meet this criterion. So, how many of them can you name? (Note: two are essentially the same, differing only by the typographic preferences of their respective schools.) > > Answer 20 years ago: Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Illinois Fighting Illini, North Carolina State Wolfpack, Navy Midshipmen > > Additions since then: Nevada Wolf Pack, Umass Minutemen, Marshall Thundering Herd If you extend the Division I definition to any Division I sport, the North Dakota Fighting Sioux would be in there too. They’re D1 in hockey, but not in football. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028/180 "2013-07-19T14:49:39Z")
Who did caught the first pass Brett Favre completed in the NFL? Brett Favre [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-trivia-question-and-answer/663028.md?page=10)