Holiday Trivia for Valentine's Day

Question One: Which of the following did not take place on February 14th? (Sorry, Jeff!  My bad!)
   a)  James Cook was killed by the natives of the Sandwich Islands (1779).
    b)  Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd, and addressed the Illinois state legislature for the first time (1843).
    c)  Oregon was admitted as the 33rd U.S. state (1859), and Arizona as the 48th state (1912).
    d)  Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray each applied for a patent for the telephone (1876).

Question Two:  Which of the following technological milestones did not take place on this day in history?
    a) The IBM (International Business Machines) corporation was founded (1924).
    b) ENIAC (for "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer"), the first general-purpose electronic computer, is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania (1946).
    c) Usenet expanded beyond the first four "nodes" at Stamford, UCLA, MIT and the Pentagon, adding connections to Harvard, the University of Arizona and CalTech (1971).
    d)  The first of 24 GPS satellites was placed into orbit (1989).

Question Three: Who was killed in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1929)?
   a) Seven of Al Capone's rival gangsters from the Bugsy Malone gang, plus an opthalmologist.
   b) Four gangsters, three cops, and five innocent bystanders, including an orthodontist.
   c)  Six of Al Capone's most trusted lieutenants, plus a chiropractor.
   d)  Five mobsters from two rival gangs, plus three employees of Chicago-based Hallmark Corp who got caught in the crossfire.

Question Four:  Who was St. Valentine?
    a) He was the missionary and martyr who invented the paper heart during his second mission to China.
    b) He was the missionary and martyr who discovered chocolate.
    c) He was a fifth century martyr about whom little is known.
    d) At least three different early martyrs are associated with that name and saint's day, all of them fairly obscure.

Question Five: What February Roman holiday is most closely associated with the development of Valentine's Day?
    a) the one with Audrey Hepburn.
    b) Lupercalia, the festival dedicated to fertility god Lupercus.
    c) Cupidia, dedicated to Cupid, servant of Venus and Eros.
    d) Bacchanalia, dedicated to Bacchus, god of wine.
  

 

Happy Valentine's Day (belated or otherwise) to you all! - Karen