Notable Novels
This 1952 novel centers on the Trask and Hamilton families and parallels the biblical story of Cain and Abel in California’s Salinas Valley.
What is East of Eden?
This branch of mathematics studies change over time and was independently developed by Newton and Leibniz in the 17th century.
What is calculus?
In Norse myth, this trickster god gives birth to Sleipnir after shapeshifting into a mare.
Who is Loki?
This 1869 event linked the U.S. rail network coast-to-coast when a ceremonial golden spike was driven at Promontory Summit.
What was the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad?
This 1994 animated film features the songs “Circle of Life” and “Hakuna Matata.”
What is The Lion King?
This NBA franchise was the first to win three consecutive championships in the 2000s, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
Who are the Los Angeles Lakers?
This Polish author’s 1895 novel Quo Vadis helped earn him the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Who was Henryk Sienkiewicz?
Named for an Italian mathematician, this sequence begins with 0 and 1, and each term is the sum of the two preceding terms.
What is the Fibonacci sequence?
This Egyptian goddess, often depicted with cow horns and a sun disk, was associated with motherhood and love.
Who is Hathor?
This Apache leader evaded capture for decades before surrendering to U.S. forces in 1886.
Who was Geronimo?
This character loses a glass slipper while leaving the ball at midnight.
Who is Cinderella?
Before breaking baseball’s color barrier in 1947, Jackie Robinson played professional football in this Pacific Coast city.
What is Los Angeles?
In this 1937 Steinbeck novella, the death of Curley’s wife sets the tragic final events in motion.
What is Of Mice and Men?
In statistics, this measure of spread is calculated as the square root of variance.
What is standard deviation?
In Hindu mythology, this avatar of Vishnu is the central figure of the Bhagavad Gita, serving as Arjuna’s charioteer.
Who is Krishna?
This Texan fortress fell in 1836, inspiring the rallying cry “Remember” it.
What is the Alamo?
This Disney princess has a raccoon companion named Meeko.
Who is Pocahontas?
This NFL team became the first to go 16–0 in a regular season, accomplishing the feat in 2007.
Who are the New England Patriots?
This Latin American author’s novel The Feast of the Goat fictionalizes the final days of dictator Rafael Trujillo.
Who is Mario Vargas Llosa?
This prime number remains the largest ever proven using only pencil-and-paper logic, discovered by Euclid around 300 BCE.
What is there is no “largest prime” proven by Euclid?
This Sumerian goddess descends into the underworld ruled by her sister Ereshkigal in a myth symbolizing seasonal decay.
Who is Inanna?
Buffalo Bill Cody became famous for supplying meat to workers on this Kansas-based railroad.
What is the Kansas Pacific Railway?
In Toy Story, this space ranger says, “To infinity… and beyond!”
Who is Buzz Lightyear?
This golfer’s 1997 Masters win set a tournament record margin and made him the youngest winner at age 21.
Who is Tiger Woods?
This 1782 French epistolary novel unfolds through letters exchanged between Vicomte de Valmont and Marquise de Merteuil.
What is Les Liaisons Dangereuses?
This 18th-century Swiss mathematician used the Greek letter ζ (zeta) to designate a function that remains central to the famous unsolved Riemann Hypothesis.
Who was Leonhard Euler?
This Japanese storm god, brother of Amaterasu, is known for his violent temper and chaotic antics.
Who is Susanoo?
This law of 1862 granted 160 acres of public land to settlers willing to improve and live on it for five years.
What is the Homestead Act?
This Disney World park is home to the countries of World Showcase.
What is EPCOT?
This MLB team was the last to win true back-to-back World Series titles, doing so in 1998–2000 with a three-peat.
Who are the New York Yankees?