• Turning out 381 million wheels a year has earned Lego the title of world’s largest tire manufacturer, according to Guinness World Records. Of course, that’s nothing compared with the number of Lego bricks manufactured each year — around 40 billion. The company estimates that it’s produced more than 80 bricks for every person on earth.

• The twinkly sound of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” in “The Nutcracker” comes from a celesta (or celeste), a keyboard instrument named for its heavenly — celestial — bell-like sound. The story goes that composer Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky first heard the celesta in Paris in 1891 and immediately ordered one for himself, asking the instrument-makers to keep his purchase a secret from rival composers, especially fellow Russian Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Tchaikovsky wanted the celesta’s distinctive sound to be linked forever to “The Nutcracker.”

1. The name Lego comes from the words “leg godt,” which means “play well” in what language?

A) Danish

B) Finnish

C) Japanese

D) Russian

2. One of the oldest living trees on earth is a 4,800-plus-year-old bristlecone pine in Northern California named for what biblical figure?

A) Hagar

B) Methuselah

C) Noah

D) Sarah

3. The quahog (or quahaug) clam is the official state shell of which state?

A) Connecticut

B) Massachusetts

C) Rhode Island

D) Vermont

4. Which astronomer is mentioned in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”?

A) Nicolaus Copernicus

B) Galileo Galilei

C) Johannes Kepler

D) Isaac Newton

5. What does Barbados have in common with Cambodia, Ecuador, Iceland and the state of Hawaii?

A) It’s a former British colony

B) It doesn’t observe daylight saving time

C) It’s in the Tropic of Capricorn

D) It’s a leading grower and exporter of pineapple

6. “The children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads” comes from a poem by whom?

A) Lewis Carroll

B) Emily Dickinson

C) A.A. Milne

D) Clement Clarke Moore

Answers

1) Lego gets its name from the Danish words for “play well.”

2) That very old bristlecone pine in Northern California is named for the very old biblical figure Methuselah.

3) The quahog is the official state shell of Rhode Island.

4) Galileo is mentioned in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

5) Barbados does not observe daylight saving time.

6) Visions of sugar-plums danced in the heads of children in the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore.