Trivia quiz

I was close on number 4. I got number 5 correct.

1. What unique role did free samples of Vicks VapoRub play in U.S. postal history?

2. What company’s stock market ticker symbol is CAKE?

3. A group of crocodiles in water is called a float. What’s the group called when it’s on land?

4. How many washing machine loads of laundry does the average American family do every year?

5. What animal was called a hippotigris by the ancient Greeks and Romans, who thought it was a cross between a horse and a tiger?

Answers below.

1. They were the U.S.’s first junk mail. In the early 1900s, VapoRub creator Lunsford Richardson persuaded postal authorities to let him send promotional samples to random addresses across the nation without including the intended recipient’s name on each package, as previously required. Richardson was allowed to address his samples to “Boxholder,” today’s equivalent of “Occupant.”

2. The Cheesecake Factory. The restaurant chain is listed on NASDAQ.

3. A bask.

4. Almost 400—392, to be exact, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

5. The zebra. Hippotigris is Greek for “horse-tiger.”