TRIVIA BITS The wonders of handblown glass

Glass blowers in Lauscha, Germany, are worldfamous for making two things: handblown glass Christmas ornaments and prosthetic glass eyes. In the 1880s, they began producing the Christmas ornaments for which they’ve become famous. Around the same time, local glass blower Ludwig Muller-Uri started making prosthetic eyes from glass. His descendants are still in that business.

Trivia question: The oldest surviving ecclesiastical stained-glass window is in a cathedral in what city?

A) Assisi, Italy

B) Augsburg, Germany

C) Canterbury, England

D) Nantes, France

Started in 1915 by immigrants from the Portuguese island group of Madeira, the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament in New Bedford, R.I., is the largest Portuguese feast in the world. More than 100,000 people attend the fourday festival each summer and consume an estimated 13 tons of cacoila — spicy, tender pulled pork served on crusty Portuguese rolls.

The first Academy Award for best makeup and hairstyling was won by Rick Baker for his work on the 1981 film “An American Werewolf in London.” The category has been included in the Oscars nearly every year since. Baker has received a total of 11 nominations and won the Oscar seven times, most recently for the 2010 film “The Wolfman.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first sitting U.S. president to travel in a helicopter. On July 12, 1957, a Bell H-13J helicopter took off from the White House lawn with Eisenhower and a Secret Service officer aboard. The flight to the presidential retreat at Camp David was an evacuation drill designed to protect the president in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. It started the practice of using helicopters to transport the president over distances for which airplanes or automobiles would be impractical.

The oldest area code in the United States is New Jersey’s 201, which covered the entire state, including the town of Murray Hill, where Bell Labs (now Nokia Bell Labs) was head- quartered. No surprise that the Bell engineers who devised the system began the numbering close to home! (Second in numerical order is Washington, D.C.’s 202.) The first direct-dial long-distance telephone call occurred on Nov. 10, 1951, when the mayor of Englewood, N.J., phoned the mayor of Alameda, Calif.

The 80-mile structure known as Hadrian’s Wall in northern England was commissioned by the Roman emperor Hadrian shortly after he came to power in A.D. 117. It was built as a military fortification to mark the boundary between Roman lands and “barbarian” territory. Along the wall are small forts, built at intervals of 1 Roman mile — the equivalent of 1,000 paces. Those structures, some of which have survived to this day, are called milecastles.

Trivia answer: The oldest surviving ecclesiastical stained-glass window is in a cathedral in Augsburg, Germany. TRIVIA FANS: Leslie Elman is the author of “Weird But True: 200Astounding, Outrageous and Totally Off the Wall Facts.” Contact her at triviabitsleslie@gmail.com.