Friday, July 22, 2005

 

Spotlight: The answer: Alex Trebek. The question: "Which popular game show host celebrates his 65th birthday today?" Trebek, the host of Jeopardy! since 1984, is a Canadian who got his start as a newscaster on CBC-TV. In 1991, Trebek became the only host in TV history to host three daily game shows at once – Jeopardy!, Classic Concentration, and To Tell the Truth. Jeopardy! has played in different versions and languages in countries such as England, Australia, Sweden, Germany, Russia, and Israel.

Quote: "Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education." – Chuck Palahniuk

Word of the day: naturalization: the act of becoming a national of a country other than a person's native one; Trebek is a naturalized American. (© )

Today's News:

• London: police kill man at Underground station (story)
• Discovery: space shuttle scheduled for Tuesday launch, with or without fuel gauge fix (story)
• Beam me up, Scotty: ashes of the late James Doohan, who played Scotty on the original Star Trek, to be buried in space (story)

Today's History:

• Cleveland, Ohio: founded by surveyor Moses Cleaveland (1796)
• Wiley Post: aviator completed the first solo round-the-world flight in his monoplane (1933)
• John Dillinger: bank robber called US Public Enemy No. 1 was killed by FBI agents in front of Chicago's Biograph Theater (1934)

Today's Birthdays:

• Gregor Mendel: father of modern genetics (1822-1884)
• Emma Lazarus: poet, The New Colossus on the Statue of Liberty (1849-1887)
• David Spade: actor, 8 Simple Rules (41)