307 Unusual Trivia

Marcia Smith 0:00
What state has more ghost towns than any other,

Bob Smith 0:04
and what US billionaire tried to bribe two US presidents with $1 million answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of The Off Ramp with

Speaker 1 0:15
Bob and Marcia Smith.

Bob Smith 0:16
Welcome to the Off Ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity with fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. Well, Marcia, what US billionaire tried to bribe two US presidents with $1 million?

Marcia Smith 0:50
Was it Howard Hughes?

Bob Smith 0:51
That’s exactly right. How did you guess?

Marcia Smith 0:54
I don’t know of many millionaires that go back very far.

Bob Smith 0:57
Howard Hughes, who died in 1976. So what was he trying to bribe presidents to do? I’ll tell you who the presidents were, and you tell me why he tried to bribe them. Okay?

Marcia Smith 1:08
Okay.

Bob Smith 1:08
Lyndon Johnson.

Marcia Smith 1:09
Uh huh.

Bob Smith 1:09
And Richard Nixon.

Marcia Smith 1:11
Okay. He wanted to do something with the Vietnam War.

Bob Smith 1:16
No, no. Something to do with Las Vegas.

Marcia Smith 1:20
Oh, really?

Bob Smith 1:21
Yes.

Marcia Smith 1:21
Wanted some kind of gambling laws lifted.

Bob Smith 1:25
No, it was kind of interesting, because

Marcia Smith 1:27
Prostitution?

Bob Smith 1:27
No, today, you’d say, well, that’s an environmental cause. He wanted them to stop nuclear testing in Nevada. They were still testing in the desert, either above ground or below ground, and he feared the environmental effects of nuclear testing on his Las Vegas investments would diminish. Them also feared tourists and potential residents would stay away, fearing radiation anyway, he failed to lobby the Atomic Energy Commission. He tried to get them to stop the testing. Then he sent his aide, Bob Mayhew, this is 1968, to tell President Lyndon Johnson, if he would stop the nuclear tests immediately, Hughes would give the President a million dollars after he left office.

Marcia Smith 2:07
Oh, boy, he didn’t bite. I take it

Bob Smith 2:09
Well, Mayhew met with Lyndon Johnson, but – and this is an example of a different kind of person than we have in public life today – he said the thought of trying to bribe the President of the United States disgusted me so much, I never brought up the matter.

Marcia Smith 2:22
Good for you.

Bob Smith 2:23
So he didn’t get by with Johnson. Johnson said, No, I’m not gonna do that. And he offered President Nixon a million dollars too. He made the same offer.

Marcia Smith 2:33
Oh, I am not a crook.

Bob Smith 2:34
I’m not a crook, and I’m not gonna stop the testing anyway. Howard Hughes died in 1976 meanwhile, the underground nuclear testing continued until the administration of George Bush senior in 1992 but that’s the US billionaire who tried to bribe two US presidents with a million dollars.

Marcia Smith 2:52
How did Nixon respond?

Bob Smith 2:53
He wouldn’t do it either.

Marcia Smith 2:55
Oh, okay.

Bob Smith 2:55
Nobody took a bribe. Nobody took the money.

Marcia Smith 2:57
All right, what state Bob has more ghost towns than any other state in America.

Bob Smith 3:02
I would say it’s California, or it could be Nevada, one of those places where there was a lot of mining that went on. I’ll say California,

Marcia Smith 3:11
Both good guesses, but it’s neither.

Bob Smith 3:13
All right, I’ll say Montana.

Marcia Smith 3:15
No,

Bob Smith 3:15
Okay, okay, all right. What is it?

Marcia Smith 3:18
It’s Oregon.

Bob Smith 3:20
Oh, really!

Marcia Smith 3:20
They have between 20-to-150 ghost towns throughout the state. Our daughter loves to go to ghost towns.

Bob Smith 3:28
That’s right

Marcia Smith 3:28
That’s a thing of hers.

Bob Smith 3:29
And she lived in Oregon for a while.

Marcia Smith 3:31
She lived in Oregon, and she has them in Idaho too. Oregon has a long history of boom or bust cycles, and they were driven by gold rushes and railroad expansions, and that’s why they have so many.

Bob Smith 3:43
Interesting!

Marcia Smith 3:44
Boom and bust

Bob Smith 3:45
More there than anywhere else.

Marcia Smith 3:46
Yeah.

Bob Smith 3:46
And of course, once the gold or silver is gone, so is the town, you know, everybody just leaves. All right. Speaking of money, Marcia, we all saw the penny die recently. The last penny was pressed in 2025.

Marcia Smith 4:00
Yeah, a clerk the other day said, No, keep your pennies.

Bob Smith 4:02
Yeah.

Marcia Smith 4:03
Oh geez, that’s sad.

Bob Smith 4:04
The penny, which is one cent, cost too much money to make almost four times its face value. Well, guess what? There’s another coin that could be next. Which one?

Marcia Smith 4:13
Oh, no, not the nickel.

Marcia Smith 4:15
The nickel. Well, that’s ridiculous. Now you got, like, up to nine cents, where you’ll be off.

Bob Smith 4:20
As I said, the penny cost 3.69 cents to make every penny in 2024 the penny died because it was a money loser, and the nickel is too the government spends 13.78 cents to make every nickel, 14 cents to make a five cent coin. So it’s a loss of nine cents per coin. You can understand it’s almost twice the value. And in total numbers, the nickel has been a bigger money loser for the government. The US Mint lost about 18 million making pennies. In 2024 it lost $85 million making nickels. So it is a money loser. And why do they cost more to make? Because they’re larger than Penny. Pennies, and they’re made of costlier stuff, 75% copper, 25% nickel.

Marcia Smith 5:05
Yeah

Bob Smith 5:05
Pennies look like copper, but they were actually made mostly of zinc. Anyway, part of the reason for the problem here is most Americans don’t use the coins anymore, because since the pandemic, everybody’s buying with credit cards and so forth.

Marcia Smith 5:17
Yeah.

Bob Smith 5:17
In fact, they think the typical household today is sitting on 60 to $90 in neglected coins -the average house.

Marcia Smith 5:25
We better take a look around.

Bob Smith 5:26
Well, I’ve got a jar of them over there. I started keeping coins.

Marcia Smith 5:31
All right. Sheldon Cooper, it’s time for fun with flags.

Bob Smith 5:35
Okay!

Marcia Smith 5:36
All right, how many versions Bob of the US National Flag have existed since 1777,

Bob Smith 5:43
oh my goodness, there have been a lot. There were a lot in the earlier days, just George Washington’s time. There were two or three. I would say, now you’re when you’re talking about various flags, it’s because we had to change them as the number of states increased, so we had more stars on them. So I would say there were a bit seven to 10 different flags.

Marcia Smith 6:03
Yeah, that sounds bright, but it’s 27 really? Yeah, 27 different looking flags. And in all America, US America, only one state has a two sided flag.

Bob Smith 6:15
Oh, really, only one state in the United States has a two sided flag. Which one? I don’t know. Which one is it

Speaker 3 6:20
fun with flags, Ohio.

Bob Smith 6:23
Ohio has a two sided flag.

Marcia Smith 6:24
No, it’s Oregon. Again, really? Yeah, it has a giant golden beaver

Bob Smith 6:31
on one side, yeah. And what’s the other side? Front of the beaver on one side, the Bucky beaver teeth and then the hinder on the other side. What is it?

Speaker 4 6:38
The hinder? Yeah, right.

Bob Smith 6:40
Okay, you don’t know. Take it away. All right. All right. Marcia, how did a piece of sheet music forever change the name of a piece of furniture? We were going to buy one of these at one point, and we didn’t. Now, these things have been around for about 400 years, but they’ve only been called what they’re called today for the past 150 years, sofa,

Marcia Smith 7:02
couch, no chair,

Bob Smith 7:05
it keeps time.

Speaker 1 7:08
Could it be a clock? A clock? What’s that got to do with sheet music?

Bob Smith 7:12
Well, because of a song, before radio, before TV, before records, CDs and streaming, the only way songs were shared and sold was through sheet music. People had pianos in their homes, and new songs were spread by the sheet music that composers published and sold well in 1876 a piece of sheet music was so popular it changed forever what people called a certain type of popular clock, the tall or long case clocks, which use long pendulums. Now these clocks, six to eight feet tall go back to 1670 and an English clock maker, William Clement, and for 200 years, they were all known as tall case or long case clocks, until 1876 and a song called the grandfather’s clock. I never heard of it. No, no. Nobody has heard of it in this century. Henry Clay work is a man who published a lot of songs in the 19th century. He published that song. It’s a sentimental ballad about a tall pendulum clock that ran perfectly for 90 years the entire life of its owner, and then stopped when the old man died. And this came from a story he was told when he was in England. He was at a hotel. Two brothers had run that hotel before, and the staff told him that this clock had belonged to them, and it kept time well, until each brother’s health started to decline. Then it started keeping poor time interesting, finally stopping at the moment of the last brother’s death. So he worked that into a song called the grandfather’s clock. It was one of the best selling songs of the 19th century. You could still find it on YouTube, being done by children’s choirs and other things. It’s kind of a novelty tune with the Tick Tock and everything. But from that point on, tall clocks have been known as grandfather clocks, even though most people have never heard the song. That just shows you the power of something that’s in pop culture. In this case, it was sheet music. It could have been a song in the 20th century. Could have a record that could have

Marcia Smith 9:07
changed it. Yes, it’s amazing how that sort of sneaks into the culture and it stays forever, and then 100 years later they say, Where the hell did this come from?

Bob Smith 9:15
And then here’s a fact I found. Who do you think actually sketched the first pendulum clock design. This was in the 1600s

Marcia Smith 9:23
it wasn’t our friend, Benjamin Franklin.

Bob Smith 9:24
Was it? No, no 1600s Oh,

Speaker 5 9:26
okay, even before him, Galileo

Bob Smith 9:29
actually sketched the first pendulum clock design, and then the first pendulum clock was patented by Dutch scientist Christian Huggins in 1657 Okay, all right, so there again, grandfather clock. Remember, we were going to buy one of those ones? Yes, and we didn’t. Because how are we going to move this thing around with us? I think it’s what we thought.

Marcia Smith 9:49
I don’t remember why we I don’t think we had the space at the time. I know we did. Actually, we had a big, I don’t know, probably had to do with money. Bob could have been, yeah, okay, Bob, ready for. This. Okay, why do we say that someone with inherited or unearned wealth was born with a silver spoon in their mouth? I always

Bob Smith 10:09
assumed that went back in time to a period where only wealthy people could have tableware that was coated with silver. Other people probably used utensils made of wood or something, you know, correct? Okay, so tell me about it, so you’re on the

Marcia Smith 10:22
right track. Okay? Between the 16th and 18th century, christening gifts from God parents was often a spoon, any kind of spoon, for a child, yeah, oh, okay. Was often a spoon to signify their responsibility for the baby’s nourishment and well being. That was the godparents responsibility. Okay, if we drop dead, you feed it and care for it. If God parents gave a silver spoon, that meant they had big bucks before standardized place settings. People often carried their own spoons with them wherever they went out to eat, yeah,

Bob Smith 10:59
little holsters with the silverware and

Speaker 1 11:01
stuff like that. I just find that so funny. Well, you know, come on over and bring your own fork and, well, you know, think

Bob Smith 11:06
of it this way. People traveling horses and buggies, you know. So they have to carry things with them, and they bring their utensils

Marcia Smith 11:13
for a meal. People brought their own place settings. So the godparents of days gone by would provide the spoon for the new baby, and if you’re lucky, that godparent had a silver spoon. Okay, very good. The phrase is earliest mentioned in literature in 1712 in the translation of Don Quixote. Oh, really, yeah, that’s the first time you hear they were born with a silver spoon in their mind.

Bob Smith 11:36
And that was a worldwide best seller. It’s one of the top that’s selling books in history, and

Marcia Smith 11:40
that’s when it came into being, okay? 1712, good. All right. Bob, in colonial America, the average American ate approximately six pounds of sugar a year. Wow. How many pounds of sugar did we eat in 2019?

Bob Smith 11:58
How many pounds in 20? Okay, a lot more than six pounds, I’ll bet. Because it’s in processed foods, I’ll say 25 pounds. No, I’ll say 50 pounds of sugar per person. Now you’re

Marcia Smith 12:09
getting closer 57 pounds. And that was 2019 God knows what it is today.

Bob Smith 12:13
That was before the pandemic. People sugared up.

Marcia Smith 12:17
Sugared on up, bring just shut up and bring me a candy bar. Oh, my goodness. Oh, 57 pounds of sugar. Can you imagine what that looks like? You’ve seen the pound of sugar in the closet there, right? Yes, imagine 57 pounds around your belly. I’d like to think you and I don’t get near that.

Bob Smith 12:34
No, I don’t think we do. I think I used to eat a lot more sugar when I was younger, but, oh yeah, we all did. You have so many ramifications from that, not just your health, but your teeth, everything else, yeah, yeah. Everything goes to hell, yeah. All right, I think it’s time for a break, don’t you? Oh, I don’t know when a candy bar, yes, I do. We’ll be back in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith, Okay, we’re back. We did not have any sugar. That’s good. That was smart. We were smart that time.

Marcia Smith 13:02
Just grease and salt.

Bob Smith 13:03
We had nothing. We just took a breath, and we’re back again. Here we are. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We do this each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. After that, it goes on podcast platforms where it is heard all over the world. Yes, we are dedicated to lifelong learning. I think that’s one thing great about this program. We love learning something new every week. And hopefully you as a listener, learn too. You know the term vis a vis usually it’s like comparison, like, how do you feel vis a vis this, this versus this? Where did that come from, and how long has it been around? And did you know that something that moved was once called a visa vie, no,

Speaker 1 13:43
I didn’t know that, okay? And it’s not a Visa card.

Bob Smith 13:46
No, no, this is this, of course, is the expression vis a vis which is V-I-S, dash, a, dash, V-I-S, right?. Where does that come from? Is it French? It is French. It is French. And It first appeared in the 1660s and it literally means face to face. Vis means face. And “a” means to. So you put that between them, it’s vis-a-vis, face to face. Okay, well, guess what? In 1828 a dictionary defined vis a vis as a vehicle. What kind of vehicle it was, a carriage? Oh, of course, a carriage in which people sat face to face. Oh, yeah, so the seats were aligned face to face. So people at that time knew what a visa vie was. It’s one of these vehicles where passengers facing each other, the driver, he’s facing forward, of course, vis a vis was also used to refer to somebody’s dance partner, who’s your vis-a-vis, in the late 18th century, and this is interesting. Do si do that’s a dance. That’s part of square dancing. They say, do-si-do that’s dos a DOS back to back, is what that means. Okay, so that those were interesting, word origin, things which you obviously didn’t but when a dance caller shouts out, dos e dough or dos a doe in French, it’s D, O, S, A. DOS, you’d better turn around for what he really meant was dos a doe, the original French back to back. So that’s where that comes from. But vis-a-vis and do-se-do, both were used in dances. They both come from France.

Marcia Smith 15:10
All right. Thank you, Bob. It’s time

Bob Smith 15:12
for, I’ve got ants in my pants.

Marcia Smith 15:16
I don’t know. It’s time for, aka, also known as, that’s right, the game where I give you a category and you figure out the word I’m looking for.

Bob Smith 15:25
What’s the topic today?

Marcia Smith 15:26
Shades of Blue? Oh, my goodness. So if I said newborn, what color blue Am I looking for?

Bob Smith 15:34
A newborn? Blue? A baby blue?

Marcia Smith 15:36
That’s it. Okay. All right. How about am? Am?

Speaker 6 15:40
Morning, 12am.

Marcia Smith 15:42
12am, Midnight Blue. That’s right. Kansas City player, what kind of blue Am I looking for? Casey blue. No, it’s a it’s what are they? What’s their team

Bob Smith 15:52
called the Kansas City Royals. Royal Blue.

Marcia Smith 15:55
Okay, that’s it. Royal Blue. Very good. I didn’t think you get that jewelry store, a jewelry store, famous jewelry store. What blue Am I looking for? Tiffany blue. That’s it. Yes. I don’t know that blue.

Bob Smith 16:07
It’s kind of a light blue

Marcia Smith 16:08
shade on their box. Yes, Tiffany, that’s Tiffany blue. I didn’t know that. Yeah, okay, all right, fresh snow. What’s the color? Blue snow?

Bob Smith 16:18
Blue, blue snow. I don’t know that way.

Marcia Smith 16:21
What is skiers call a fresh layer of snow,

Bob Smith 16:24
powder. That’s powder blue.

Marcia Smith 16:25
That’s it. Okay, all right. Cloud location.

Bob Smith 16:30
Cloud location,

Marcia Smith 16:31
the color I’m looking for, sky blue. That’s it. And finally, Frank, or Atlantic, Atlantic? What’s the ocean blue?

Bob Smith 16:39
That’s it. Can’t believe

Marcia Smith 16:42
that. So there you go.

Bob Smith 16:46
I got some questions here about the original 13 us colonies, and this is one of the most interesting one, I think, which colony declared independence from England and from another state?

Marcia Smith 16:57
Oh, yeah, not one of the Virginia’s.

Bob Smith 17:02
No, no, it’s New England, okay,

Speaker 7 17:04
was it and it wasn’t Maine, let

Bob Smith 17:07
me repeat the question, what colony declared independence from England and from another state? Yes, here’s a hint. It was the first to declare independence,

Marcia Smith 17:15
all right, wasn’t Massachusetts? No, it wasn’t. It. Was it Rhode Island?

Bob Smith 17:20
No, it was Delaware. Okay. Although initially governed as part of Pennsylvania, it established its own legislature in 1704 and then in 1776 it declared independence, not just from Britain, but also from Pennsylvania, making it the first colony to break away formally, and the only one to break away from a state and Great Britain at the same time, Delaware was also the first state to ratify the US Constitution in 1787, okay, so a lot of firsts.

Marcia Smith 17:48
How many presidents, Bob, did Helen Keller meet in her 80 years of life? Oh, that’s a

Bob Smith 17:54
good one. That’s a good question. How many presidents did Helen Keller meet? You know, I just read recently, she was very much associated with Alexander Graham Bell, so it was that time period. So I say the late 19th, early 20th century. So I’ll say she met with William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and one more, the guy from Ohio who had the big scandal of her Teapot Dome. I forget I say four presidents. How many 13? Oh, my God,

Marcia Smith 18:22
really, the more you learn about Helen Keller’s life, the more remarkable it

Speaker 8 18:27
seems, 13 US presidents.

Marcia Smith 18:29
She knew she was the first deaf and blind person in the US to earn a college degree. Wow. She co founded the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920 know that and met every president from the time she was seven years old until her death. So she must have been 87 when she died. The 13 leaders in question were Grover, Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard, Taft, Woodrow, Wilson, Warren G, Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert, Hoover, Franklin D, Roosevelt, Harry S, Truman, Dwight D, Eisenhower, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson, wow.

Bob Smith 19:03
From Grover, Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson, that’s amazing. I would

Marcia Smith 19:06
have never guessed that. Holy cow, that’s incredible. LBJ gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor in 1964 at the ceremony, he described her as an example of courage to all mankind, who devoted her life to illuminating the dark world of the blind

Bob Smith 19:28
and the handicapped. That touched you, didn’t it? Yeah, yeah. Well, that is an amazing person, absolutely, all right. Marcia, what colony was named after the original inhabitants? And you mentioned this colony earlier. You thought it was the first one that went to war against Great Britain, but it wasn’t. Most of the colonies were named after kings and queens. So what US colony was named after the original inhabitants, a tribe, a tribe.

Speaker 9 19:55
Yeah, okay, it’s where the Mayflower landed, Plymouth Rock in. Yeah, but where is that? Massachusetts, absolutely.

Bob Smith 20:03
And the colony’s name honors the Massachusetts tribe, derived from the Algonquin word Massad chusetts. It translates to great hill, small place. Is that what it means?

Marcia Smith 20:15
That’s what it means. I love the origin words of states, yeah.

Bob Smith 20:18
All right, so that’s a nice tribute to the original inhabitants. Okay, I got another one for you. Okay, in Massachusetts, we know about the Salem witch trials, right? What other state, what other colony of the original 13 had witch trials as well?

Marcia Smith 20:34
Besides Massachusetts, yes, besides Massachusetts, I’ll say Connecticut.

Bob Smith 20:39
No, tell me, Virginia, yeah, they had witch trials in the South. I always thought they only happened in Salem, but Virginia had about two dozen witch trials between 1626, and 1730 including the infamous case of grace Sherwood. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, maybe the witch of Pungo does. Oh sure, convicted of witchcraft and spent several years in jail. Fortunately, she was released. She was not executed. And of course, we all think, well, the Salem witch trials, that’s another stain on America’s history. Well, there were more witches burned at the stake in Europe than anywhere else. Is that, right? Oh, yeah, there were 1000s of women died in witch trials in Europe.

Speaker 10 21:17
God, it’s always women. It’s always women.

Bob Smith 21:19
Yeah, such troublemakers. Oh, I’m sorry, it’s a

Speaker 11 21:23
way to thin the herd.

Marcia Smith 21:26
Okay. Time four, where in the world? Oh, boy, I’ve got cities. Three clues for each city. I’ve got answers. All right. Clue one, croissants originated from this city, not from Paris.

Bob Smith 21:38
Okay, the croissants originally came from? Was it Vienna, Austria?

Speaker 1 21:43
Oh, God, you got it right? Isn’t it aced it in one bit?

Bob Smith 21:46
Well, I knew that one of those things, danishes or croissants, came from a different country than where we think they were, so I didn’t know that. So Viennese bakers bake the first croissants.

Speaker 1 21:56
Okay, okay, all right. Clue one, nicknamed The Rose City. The Rose City?

Bob Smith 22:04
Would this be Amsterdam?

Marcia Smith 22:06
No clue. Two, this city is portrayed in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Bob Smith 22:13
Hmm, is it Asia or Africa?

Marcia Smith 22:16
Somewhere more Middle East.

Bob Smith 22:18
Oh, okay, so this was considered the city of the rose Damascus, Syria.

Marcia Smith 22:23
No clue three, this is Jordan’s most visited place.

Speaker 12 22:28
Oh, is this Amman? No. Oh, where is it? Petra?

Bob Smith 22:32
Oh, Petra. Have you heard of Petra? Yes, that’s the city made out of stone carved

Marcia Smith 22:37
into the stones. It’s called the Rose City in the southwestern desert country of Jordan, and it’s the most visited tourist attraction and a major archeological historical treasure.

Bob Smith 22:48
Now that city was much more than just what’s carved into stone. It was a huge city, from what I understand, a great trading area.

Marcia Smith 22:56
Okay, last one, okay, where in the world? This is the largest city in the Arab world, the largest

Bob Smith 23:03
city in the Arab world, right? I don’t know if this is considered an Arab city. I will say Alexandria, Egypt.

Marcia Smith 23:12
Clue two, okay, one of the world’s oldest universities can be found here, hmm,

Bob Smith 23:18
okay, what’s clue three,

Marcia Smith 23:20
this is the home of the Great Pyramid of Giza. Oh, so it’s Cairo, yeah. Oh, no kidding, yeah. There you go. Well, you didn’t do too terrible,

Bob Smith 23:28
not too bad. No, stumbled. There a little at the end. All right, okay, Marcia, you ever heard of Pedro Cabral? Pedro cabal today, he’s a little known Portuguese explorer, but what major feat did he achieve in 1500 He’s the first person in the world to ever do this, and we don’t even know his name today. No, I don’t. Pedro Cabral, what did he achieve?

Marcia Smith 23:53
Something with water

Bob Smith 23:55
and boats. Well, yeah, water and boats, yes, okay, okay. He became the first person to set foot on four continents. Oh, wow. First person. He was a Portuguese nobleman, military commander, navigator and explorer. He set sail for India in 1500 but he started by going west and he discovered Brazil, and swung back and went to the east. He was European. So Europe was one continent. He stood on second he discovered Brazil and the South American coast. He stopped at Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. So that’s continent number three, and then he landed in India. So why isn’t he more well known? I don’t know. Well, there’s a couple of reasons. Number one, sometimes it’s important to play nice, and he was, he couldn’t. He wasn’t easy to get along with. He had a reputation for being proud, rigid and just a little too aware of his noble birth. He shoved it in people’s faces on his trip to India when a trading post in Calcutt was attacked, he didn’t negotiate. He said, Fine, burn it to the ground. So he ordered a massive bombardment. Major battles ensued. They lost ship. Dollars. So when he came back, the king passed him over for the next expedition, and he protested so loudly, the king said, You better retire. So he retired permanently. Never heard from again. There’s no records of what happened to him.

Speaker 13 25:13
See, when you’re a big butt,

Bob Smith 25:15
yeah, when you’re a big jerk, that’s what he was. And another part of the problem was nobody really valued Brazil at the time, they didn’t realize what a mineral rich place it was. Eventually, the country of Brazil made him a national hero, but long after he died, and another thing he also was pretty much obscured by Vasco da Gama. Da Gama could also be brutal and arrogant and ruthless, but he was politically savvy and he cultivated good allies, and he didn’t make enemies with the king. Don’t make enemies with the king. That’s not

Speaker 14 25:45
a good thing to do. It’s a lot of stupidity

Bob Smith 25:47
out there. Anyway. That’s Pedro Cabral, the first person to set foot on four continents in world history. All right, totally forgotten.

Speaker 15 25:53
Do you know where you’ll find mount Kennedy?

Bob Smith 25:56
Bob, Mount Kennedy. Now I don’t know where mount Kennedy. Is is it in New Hampshire somewhere? Nope. Is it in the United States? No, okay. Where is it?

Marcia Smith 26:06
It’s in Canada’s Yukon Territory, named in honor of US President John F Kennedy in 1964 Wow. It was the highest unclimbed mountain at the time, and its first ascent was in 1965 led by Jim Whittaker, and included Robert F Kennedy, John’s brother.

Bob Smith 26:25
I thought that Robert F Kennedy had something to do with a mountain or something, and

Marcia Smith 26:28
he placed a memorial to his brother on the summit. I totally forgot about that. First ones to climb it.

Bob Smith 26:35
Do you have a thought for the day?

Marcia Smith 26:36
Yes, I do. Here’s one by Albert Einstein, okay, logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

Speaker 16 26:45
Well, there’s a good one that’s a good one.

Marcia Smith 26:47
And Terry Pratchett, the author, said, stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.

Bob Smith 26:56
That’s true, all right. Well, those are good thoughts for the day, and that’s that’s it for this time. Thanks for joining us today. If you’d like to participate, or if you have a trivia question you’d like to use to stump one or both of us, you can go to our website, the off ramp, dot show, go to the menu, and then scroll down to contact us, and you can give us information, and you’ll

Marcia Smith 27:16
find over 300 of our shows there, from the beginning right up to

Bob Smith 27:20
this one. That’s right. That’s absolutely right. Thanks for listening. I’m Bob Smith. I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again when we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia here on the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin, visit us on the web at the offramp. Dot show.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai