Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh is responsible for what patent?

You can thank Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh for keeping you dry on a rainy day. In 1823, he patented the first waterresistant fabric, made by sandwiching a layer of rubber between two layers of fabric. A company that bears his name — with a k added after the c — still makes raincoats, and people in the U.K. affectionately refer to their rain gear as macs.

Trivia question: The Scottish island, Ailsa Craig, is renowned as a source for raw materials used to make what piece of sports equipment?

A) Curling stones

B) Fencing foils

C) Field hockey sticks

D) Snowboards

In July 1968, a thousand athletes from 26 states and Canada gathered at Soldier Field in Chicago for the first Special Olympics Games, brainchild of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver in cooperation with the Chicago Park District and Anne Burke (now a justice on the Illinois Supreme Court). Today, some 5.3 million athletes from more than 170 countries participate in Special Olympics programs. Happy 50th Birthday Special Olympics!

When they conceived the idea for the Oxford English Dictionary, editors figured it would take about 10 years to compile. They figured incorrectly. Starting work in earnest in 1879, they made it as far as the word “ant” by 1884 when the first volume of the dictionary was published. They reached Z in 1928. Then it was time to revise and to add the thousands more words that had arisen over the course of the previous 44 years. Even now, the OED remains a work in progress, adding hundreds of new words and definitions with each periodic update.

The first FIFA World Cup took place in 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay. Thirteen nations participated, including just four from Europe: Belgium, France, Romania and Yugoslavia. Other European nations declined the invitation saying that the travel would take too long and be too costly, and the timing interfered with their regular league schedules. They might also have figured that they had a slim chance of winning. Uruguay had won back-toback Olympic gold med- als in soccer in 1924 and 1928, and it won the 1930 FIFA World Cup as well.

There’s a little piece of the heavens in the stained glass “Space Window” at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The centerpiece of the design by St. Louis artist Rodney M. Winfield is a small moon rock brought to earth by the crew of Apollo 11 and presented to the cathedral in 1974. To prevent its deterioration, the rock is encased in a nitrogen-filled capsule.

Fishery biologists can determine the age of certain fish species by examining the patterns on their scales. Each year of growth leaves a pattern known as an annulus. By counting the annuli (plural of annulus), biologists can determine the fish’s age much the same way that foresters determine the age of a tree by counting its growth rings.

Trivia answer: Granite from the Scottish island, Ailsa Craig, is used to make curling stones. TRIVIA FANS: Leslie Elman is the author of “Weird But True: 200 Astounding, Outrageous and Totally Off the Wall Facts.” Contact her at triviabitsleslie@gmail.com.