Guess the Year
Keep Portland Weird
Cool World Records
Let's Taco 'Bout It
I'm "Blue"
100
The first working, electronic computer was invented by John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry in...?
(Closest guess)
1942!
100
Portland was home to the World's Smallest park, all the way from 1971 to March 2025, when a city in Japan took the title! In the Waterfront area of downtown, off of Naito Parkway, stands Mill Ends Park, which won the title as smallest in 1971, as per Guinness World Records. It houses one tree! It is only _ _ _ square inches in diameter!
(Closest guess)
452
100
Szabolcs Csépe (Hungary), known as GrassHopper, played Dance Dance Revolution for an unbelievable _____ hours to secure the record for longest videogame marathon as well as the longest videogame marathon on a rhythm game title!
(Closest guess)
144!!! That's SIX DAYS of Dance Dance Revolution!!! He explained: “For me, by far this attempt was the most physically demanding experience, where the arms and shoulders expressed fatigue for extended hours without stretching. Apart from physically training for marathon gaming sessions, I prepared with the two most important keys to succeed: doing serious practice attempts with a small staff, and also coming up with a plan for supporting your body with sufficient food and water intake.”
100
This fast food restaurant chain opened its first location in 1962 in Downey, California. It serves reasonably-priced Mexican-style food and has spread across the world, operating over 7,800 locations throughout North America alone!
Taco Bell
100
The largest animal to have ever lived on Earth, according to current knowledge, this giant of the sea mostly feeds on tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill, and the largest one ever recorded was a female that was caught in 1909 and measured a whopping 110 feet long!!!
Blue whale
200
It took Leonardo Da Vinci a little over 16 years to complete the Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous painting ever made, and he worked on it up until he died, in the year...?
(Closest guess)
1519!
200
Portland is home to the Unipiper, otherwise known as Brian Kidd, who is a street performer and artist that is world-famous for dressing up as _______ __________ and playing the bagpipes, while riding his unicycle!
Darth Vader!
200
In 2023, Avery Emerson Fisher of California set a very strange record! She holds the record for most magic tricks performed underwater in one minute, as she put on scuba gear and went into the San Francisco Bay Aquarium. How many tricks was she able to perform underwater in one minute?
(Closest guess)
38!!!
200
This 2013 song by Parry Gripp asks the question of what would happen if the weather suddenly had a very strong craving for Mexican food...
"It's Raining Tacos"
200
This 1998 song by Eiffel 65 is a classic dance hit, but if someone could please explain what 'da ba dee da ba die' means, and why people think the song says 'if I was green I would die,' I'd really appreciate it
"Blue (Da Ba Dee)"
300
Jackie Robinson was the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball, and his start on the Brooklyn Dodgers made history. Robinson made his debut on April 15 of what year?
(Closest guess)
1947!
300
Aside from the Statue of Liberty in New York, Portland is home to the second-largest copper statue in the United States. Placed above City Hall in 1985, she had to be floated up the Willamette River on a barge, and then driven on massive flat-bed trucks down the streets of Portland before she was installed! It was quite the spectacle! What is this very famous statue's name???
Portlandia
300
A man that they call Hamburger Harry, who was originally from Germany and now lives in Florida, had spent over 26 years of his life collecting hamburger-themed memorabilia! In 2014, he set the record for having the most hamburger-themed collectibles, owning a whopping _____ items, including the Burgermobile from the 1997 film Good Burger! How many items did he have when he set the record?
(Closest guess)
3,724!!!
300
According to the website TacoTuesday, and a few other sources, Americans consume about this many tacos every year!!!
(Closest guess)
4.5 billion!!! That's a heck of a lot of tacos!
300
This American space travel company is owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, and recently Katy Perry made the whole world cringe when she went on one of their 11-minute flights above the Karman Line, or where you become weightless outside of our atmosphere, and then cried about it
Blue Origin
400
The Backstreet Boys have had a long and successful career as pop artists, gaining worldwide fame and many hit singles over the years. Their biggest hit, "I Want It That Way," was released on April 12 of this year, and quickly became an overnight sensation!
(Closest guess)
1999!
400
Portland is one of only four American cities that is home to an extinct volcano directly within its city limits! Another of the four is also in Oregon, in the city of Bend (Pilot Butte). The other two cities that have them are Jackson, Mississippi (Jackson Volcano) and Honolulu, Hawaii (Diamondhead). Which of the little mountains within Portland is the extinct volcano?
a. Mt. Tabor
b. Powell Butte
c. Mt. Talbert
A! Mt. Tabor! It last erupted 100,000 years ago!
400
According to Guinness World Records, "at 4 p.m. on 18 September 2013, Irvin "Irv" Gordon (USA) clocked up his _________ mile in his 1966 Volvo 1800S while driving near the village of Girdwood, south of Anchorage in Alaska! He still holds the record for highest operating vehicle mileage!
(Closest guess...it's pretty amazing!)
Three MILLIONTH!!! Dude, you don't understand the magnitude of this!!! Most cars will maybe keep going into the 150,000 mile range if you care for them well and maintain them. Cars like Toyotas and Hondas are known to make it up into the 300,000 mile range with proper care! This man said that he "consistently maintained the vehicle with regular oil changes and other servicing, and the original engine, transmission, and clutch lasted for hundreds of thousands of miles." Truly incredible!!!
400
Which country eats the most tacos every year?
a. Norway
b. Japan
c. Mexico
C, Mexico does, as this was where the taco first originated, but the most surprising thing is that the U.S. is not in second place, despite the wild popularity of tacos here! Norway, believe it or not, is actually the second-highest consumer of tacos each year, as the popularity of Taco Friday in Norway is huge! Tacos were introduced into Norway in 1965, and it quickly became a country-wide tradition to serve tacos to your family on Fridays there!
400
Only an estimated 8-10% of the world's population have these, while 70-79% have brown! The highest proportion of those who are in that 8-10% group come from European heritage mostly, and some countries like Iceland have populations where up to 80% have them! However, they are a genetic mutation and are possible in any heritage group
Blue eyes!
500
The Caesar salad is one of the most popular salads in the world, and is a classic. Made by Italian immigrant Caesar Cardini in his restaurant in Tijuana, Mexico, this salad features a dressing that was made almost by accident! Cardini was in the middle of a busy holiday rush and his restaurant was very popular with upper class Americans visiting Mexico, and he ran out of the ingredients to make his house salad dressing. In a huge hurry, he grabbed whatever ingredients he had at hand, including a strange choice of anchovy paste, and he quickly improvised. This resulted in the delicious marvel we now know as the Caesar salad! In what year did this genius man create this masterpiece?
(Closest guess)
1924!
500
Beneath parts of Old Town Portland, specifically in the area called Chinatown, there is a network of tunnels that connect the basements of businesses on the street with the Willamette River waterfront area. These tunnels were built during the construction of Portland in the mid-to-late 1800s, and their purpose was so that goods and supplies could be moved off of ships nearby to the businesses without the issues of street traffic or rain. Local legend has it, however, that these tunnels were also used to kidnap drunken sailors from the bars and put them onto boats going to China to work while they were passed out! What is the name of these famous tunnels???
Shanghai Tunnels
500
The town of Zahle (in the country of Lebanon) is home to the Daher International Food Company and its subsidiary (baby company) Poppins. In 2016, this food maker hosted over ________ people for a sit-down cereal breakfast in Zahle, earning it the record of Largest Cereal Breakfast Attended, according to Guinness World Records!
a. 700 people
b. 200,000 people
c. 1,800 people
C! Zahle is a pretty small city, with only 150,000 people, so when it hosted the cereal breakfast and about 1,852 came, roughly 1.23% of the city's population showed up! That's impressive, and would be as if 31,242 people from the Portland area showed up for breakfast!
500
According to most credible sources, in order for a food to be considered a taco, it must be fillings wrapped in these bread-like things!
Tortillas! Corn and flour are used to make these kings of taco wrappings, and you technically cannot make a real taco without one, otherwise you just have a wrap!
500
Two of the planets in our solar system are blue in color because of the methane gas that they emit, which causes red light to be absorbed while blue light is reflected back into space, which is what we see when we observe them. Which two planets, of the eight in our solar system, are blue???
Uranus and Neptune!
