Trivia Bits 10 July

 

 

John Konrads (pictured), an Olympic gold-medal winning swimmer who set 26 individual world records in the 1950 and 1960s, later became the Australasian director of French cosmetics and beauty company L'Oréal.

The Saddle-billed Stork is a large wading bird in the stork family, Ciconiidae and is found in sub-Saharan Africa from Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya south to South Africa, and in The Gambia, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Chad in west Africa.

The Australian Senate is made up of 76 members with 12 senators are elected from each of the six states, regardless of population and each of the two autonomous internal territories, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, has two senators each.

The cocktail called Kir originated in France and is made with a measure of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped up with white wine.

The double bass, or upright bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument of the viol family in the modern symphony orchestra, and is used in a range of genres, such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly/psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango and many types of folk music.

Ceuta, an autonomous city of Spain, is located on the continent of Africa sharing a western border with Morocco.

Elvis Presley made his first appearance on national television in 1956 when he sang Blue Suede Shoes and Heartbreak Hotel on "The Dorsey Brothers Show."

Member of the clergy and economist, Thomas Malthus proposed that population increases faster than means of subsistence in his 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population and that sooner or later population will be checked by famine and disease, leading to what is known as a Malthusian catastrophe.

Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary award 2012, Past the Shallows is the debut novel of Australian writer Favel Parrett and is the story of two brothers growing up in a fractured family on the wild Tasmanian coast with the consequences of their parents' choices shaping their lives and ultimately bringing tragedy to them all.

The Devil’s Advocate is someone who argues against a cause not as a committed opponent but for the sake of argument.