Alnico

Alnico is an alloy, usually used in magnets, made up of and named for aluminum, nickel, and cobalt. Iron, copper, and titanium are also used.

Nellie Tayloe Ross

Nellie Tayloe Ross was the United States' first female governor, elected in Wyoming in 1922. She was ushered in after the death of her husband vacated the post.

The Compact Disc was pioneered by Philips Electronics, working with Sony, but using Philips' technology from as far back as 1977. The CD was introduced in 1982 and was 74 minutes long because that was the longest recording of Beethoven's Ninth in Sony's vaults.

The Constitutions of Clarendon were a set of legislative procedures passed by Henry II of England in 1164, meant to restrict ecclesiastical privileges and curb the power of the Church in England. Archbishop Thomas Becket's repudiation of them led to the rift between him and king and ultimately his murder.

MacKenzie River

The MacKenzie River is the longest in Canada. Located within the Northwest Territories, it is 1080 miles long. It originates at the Great Slave Lake and was formerly named Disappointment River because it did not lead to Alaska. What cheery names these Canucks have, eh?

Eric Drummond, Earl of Perth, was a Scottish statesman who became the first Secretary General of the League of Nations in 1920.

7 Up was introduced in 1929 by Charles Leiper Grigg under the incredibly catchy name of "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda." Why didn't he keep that winner?

The Hunter region, sometimes called Hunter Valley, is an area in New South Wales, north of Sydney, famous for its vineyards and wine.

A manometer is a device that measures pressure, usually air against liquid. (A barometer is a type of manometer; it measures atmospheric pressure.)

Vanitas painting

Vanitas is a style of painting popular in the Netherlands and Flanders in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was marked by heavy symbolism of death, such as skulls, rotten fruit, watches, and so on.

Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels was Hitler's Minister of Propaganda. After Hitler's suicide, he tried to arrange a ceasefire with the soviets, then gave morphine and cyanide to his children, then killed his wife and himself.

The Cadaver Synod, held in Rome in 897, was the posthumous trial of Pope Formosus by his successor, Stephen VI. The dead pope was found guilty, but possibly he lacked adequate representation.

Nolan Bushnell is an American electrical engineer and entrepreneur who founded Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant chain. He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the video game industry. He is sometimes credited with inventing the first video game, because he oversaw the invention of Pong.

Hard water contains minerals, typically calcium (limestone and chalk) and magnesium (dolomite).

The liver bird is the symbol of Liverpool. Its name rhymes with "diver." Its species is not certain, but is generally regarded to be a cormorant.

Nathuram Godse was the Hindu radical who killed Mohandas Gandhi on January 30, 1848. He was an RSS activist who ran a radical newspaper.

Robert Walpole is generally termed the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, even though the office was not so defined at the time. He governed from 1721 to 1742, making his the longest administration ever.

Count Paris, a kinsman of Prince Escalus in 'Romeo & Juliet,' is the suitor who pursues Juliet before Romeo. He is killed by Romeo in Act V.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton and Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 1999, he is worth billions.

Pius IX

Pius IX was the longest-reigning pope in history, from 1846 to 1878, nearly 32 years. He is best known for establishing the Immaculate Conception as dogma.

Prague ('Praha' in Czech) is known as "the mother of cities," "city of a hundred spires," and "the golden city" or just "Golden Prague."

RenderMan is a digital imaging software used by Pixar to create realistic imagery in movies such as 'Jurassic Park,' 'The Incredibles,' 'Forrest Gump,' and many others.

A quasar is generally held to be the compact halo of matter surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy.

Most Oscar nominations

Meryl Streep is the actor with the most Oscar nominations, 21 in all. But Katharine Hepburn is the actor with the most wins (1933, 1967, 1968, 1981); Streep has only won twice.

Doha is the capital and largest city of Qatar. Its name is derived from the Arabic for "big tree." Those Qataris sure have a lot of dough, ha!

"The House of Flowers" (Kuća cveća) is the name of the mausoleum in Belgrade, Serbia, where Josip Tito is buried.

Asoka was an Indian emperor of the 3rd century BC, often called one of India's greatest rulers. He embraced Buddhism after witnessing slaughter in wars in Kalinga.

First manned flight

Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first manned heavier-than-air flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Bully for them, says TR!

Guangzhou is the pinyin form of the city formerly called Canton, the capital of Guangdong province in southeast China.

Eiffel 65 was an Italian electronic pop group, best known for their worldwide #1 hit "Blue (Da Ba Dee)."