Today on CityCast DC, how well do you know our city?
Actually, how well does CityCast know our city?
CityCast CEO David Plots and I, both DC Natives,
squared off in a trivia showdown.
Listen in and let us know how you did.
Today is Thursday, September 21st.
I'm Michael Schaefer and here's what DC is talking about.
All right, we are here for a trivia battle with David Plots, CityCast CEO and my fellow
native Washingtonian to you.
He's facing off against me, which means I obviously can't lead the thing.
So our producer Priyanka Tilvae is here.
She has the teacher's edition with the answers and the questions and she is going to put
us through a battle.
Let's do it.
Yes, I am so excited to paint you two against each other, friends, old colleagues and
adults.
Friends.
There's no friendship here.
Polo is going to say now you're going to fight to the death.
Mike's young plastic brain up against my old, old, rigid, broken brain.
But so it'll be humiliating if he loses.
There is no friendship in local news trivia.
The stakes here, if you guys lose, is you have to admit that the other's favorite elementary
school in DC, brain supreme, do you guys want to say what elementary schools you're
repping?
I'm repping Lafayette, obviously, Hail to our Lafayette.
Hi, on the hill, where the children are happy and they work and they play with the
will.
Does merch have a song, Mike?
I think it does and I don't know it.
Well, it's already fallen behind.
Oh, geez.
This is going to be a tough day.
Yes, I am repping merch elementary school, my neighborhood school where both of my children
were educated.
All right.
And so then the way this is going to work is we are talking about quirky DC trivia, quirky
DC history.
I'm going to ask each of you a question.
If you get your question right, you get two points.
If you don't know the answer, the other person gets a chance to steal and they get one point.
But also, I am the queen of this trivia match and I get to decide any random roles that
I want to make up as we go along.
So who knows?
It's going to be a pretty unpredictable situation.
We'll just roll with it.
You ready?
I think you're a really wise person, Brunk.
I just want to say that up front and just a really helpful, you know, excellent judge
of character too.
I appreciate that.
But ask kissing will get you nowhere plot.
Pranky have always been unfair to me and you like plots better than me working the
rafts.
Wow.
Okay.
We're just going to move along because this is getting out of hand already.
All right.
Mike, first question is for you.
Deep in the woods of Rock Creek Park, there is a mound.
It is surrounded by a moat.
It is Fort Darussi, a union army fortress that has been almost completely swallowed up
by the forest.
What battle was it most famously used in?
It was most famously used in the Battle of Fort Stevens.
Yes.
Ding ding ding.
That's two points for you.
Fun fact, plots gives a tour about this through Airbnb.
Do you want to tell us a little bit about your tour plas?
Why do you get so into this in the first place?
Oh, it's the Fort Darussi has an amazing history.
The fortifications of Washington have an amazing history.
DC in 1861 became the most heavily fortified city the world has ever known because they
built all these protections around the city in case of Confederate invasion.
Then in 1864, there was a Confederate invasion that no one knows about.
It hit Fort Darussi and Fort Stevens up in the northern part of the city, and Abraham
Lincoln went to the battle.
It was an amazing moment that where had things turned out a little differently, the war
might have ended in a very different way and the country we live in might be very different.
I take people up there once a month or so, I lead a tour and it's an awesome spot.
Yeah, I've been dying to take that tour and if you'd maybe brought me along on that
tour, I would have given you some extra brownie points in this trivia game.
But alas, you have not.
So here we are, a two-zero mic.
Can I make it confession here?
Yep.
I've not taken plots as tour and I actually didn't know the answer to that.
I just port Stevens is like the only battle that took place in or near DC, so I assumed
it had it must have been.
You said it's so confidently, too.
It's like half the battle.
It is.
Pun intended.
All right, next question is for you, David.
So there are catacombs underneath the Franciscan monastery in Brookland.
Why were they built?
I just went to that monastery for the first time in my life two weeks ago.
Oh, my gosh.
They were built because Alexander Boss Shepherd was gun running and he wanted to place
to store all his guns.
So he dug out catacombs in that part of the city, stored all his guns back in the 1870s.
I have no idea.
You're just trying Mike's strategy of seeing things confidently and hoping it's right.
That was very wrong.
Mike, do you want a chance to steal?
Yeah.
The soldiers at Fort Darussi were concerned about the inadequate defense of Fort Stevens
and they thought they might need a place to hide out if the battle went badly.
That would have been such a great narrative arc if it were only true.
But alas, no points for anyone.
The answer here is that they wanted a version of the quote unquote,
holy land for North Americans who couldn't afford to go all the way to the Vatican.
And so they built these catacombs here in DC.
They do actually have an official papal endorsement.
And I'll throw in a random bonus question here for one point.
There is a really morbid and strange artifact in these catacombs.
Can you guess what it is?
The bones of the maker of the catacombs are there.
No.
Mike, do you want to try?
The bones of former DC Mayor Marianne S. Perry are there at the death.
Oh my God.
That would be amazing.
No, it is the bones of what looks to be a seven or eight year old child in the catacombs,
which is, like I said, very morbid and strange.
Well, you can do tours, which is pretty cool.
It's a free tour.
That plus the gardens and everything else of the monastery just sign up on their website.
So that's pretty exciting.
Okay.
So we are at still two zero Mike.
And the next question is for you.
Gallaudet University is credited with starting which national sports tradition?
Steeple chase.
Yeah.
David, do you want to steal?
Gosh, I'm going to know this when it happens tailgating, but I'm sure that's wrong.
No, that is a great guess, though.
I'll give you both a hint and whoever shouts it first gets the point.
It is uniquely a football thing.
The huddle.
Yeah.
That's right.
It's the huddle.
It was so smart.
Like, nice.
It was 1892 and Paul Hubbard, who was the quarterback at the time, called for his
offense to like circle up to huddle because they at Gallaudet as university for deaf students
were using sign language.
And they didn't want the opposing team to be able to see what he was signing.
And so that is how the huddle was born.
And it took like 30 years or so for other major universities to pick this up, which is
kind of mind blowing to me because it feels like such an obvious thing.
What did other teams do if they didn't want the someone to find out what their play was?
I don't know.
That's why I'm so kind of flabbergasted by this because it seems like the obvious thing
to do when you're talking strategy.
That's a cool thing to be proud of here in DC.
Okay.
So now we are at three zero of Mike, but David, we're coming to you with a question that
hopefully you'll be able to get right and get back in here.
One of the streets right by Garfield Park in Capitol Hill is named Capitol Soros Court
because the dinosaur vertebra was found there in 1898.
Who found it and what were they doing at the time?
I'm not looking for names here found it in 1898.
Oh my gosh, wow, someone from the Capitol, I mean, the architect of the Capitol's office
building, they were building one of the Capitol office buildings.
Oh, this is, it's not right, but it's bordering on right.
So I'm not sure what to do about this.
We'll see if Mike steals it and if not, then I might give you a hint.
The year of the Spanish American War, maybe it was the Spanish ambassador.
He was like digging to try to like put bombs around and ran into some dinosaur bones.
No, no, no, it was construction workers.
They were installing a pipe.
So you were kind of on the right track in terms of like people building something plots,
but ultimately it's wrong.
So that's a bummer.
Like question was so generic.
I mean, like the answer is so generic.
I, my answer was so specific.
I mean, I guess it was obviously construction workers.
How many dinosaur bones in the world have been not found by construction workers?
I don't know.
I could have imagined like kids playing around or something and like stumbled across
something.
But the Capitol source also had its own official song, which was called them dino
bones.
The lyrics were written by a fifth grader at Smothers Elementary School.
I'm sure you haven't heard this song, but the lyrics are pretty basic and obvious.
So if you can guess any of the lyrics, I'll give you a point.
David, what's the name of them dino bones?
Yeah, them dino bones, them dino bones.
They were found just outside my home.
My workers.
I think that was close enough plus plots saying.
So I'm definitely going to give you a point just for singing.
That was beautiful.
What was the right answer?
I mean, I have the whole lyrics pulled up.
I can put them in the show notes and I'll send them over to you.
I'm not going to sing them.
Do you want to highlight?
We know it's related to the T-Rex.
We needed to give it a name.
We allowed the city council to pass a bill to make it official.
It doesn't really rhyme.
It's very repetitive.
We named it the Capitol source or capy for short.
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We are at 3-1.
Mike, here is your question, Mike.
There is a public vault at Congressional Cemetery.
More than 3,000 people have been interned there,
including presidents, vice presidents, their families.
But most people only stay for a day or two.
Which famous figure had the longest known internment of the vault?
Congressional Cemetery.
Yes.
James A. Garfield.
And plots?
Any guesses?
Abraham Lincoln.
No.
OK.
I'll give you a hint for a steal to either of you for one point.
It is a first lady.
Eleanor Roosevelt.
No.
Mary Todd Lincoln.
No.
Edith Wilson.
I'm just going to name as many first ladies as I think of.
Nancy Reagan.
Nope.
Melania Trump.
She lives there now.
She lives in the Congressional Cemetery, a public vault.
Melania Harding.
No.
All right.
I'm cutting y'all off.
It is first lady, Dolly Madison.
What happened?
She died much before her husband.
And then she wanted a way to get married with him.
Why the stay?
Yeah.
So she was interned for that long because her family ran out of money.
And it took them a really long time to raise the funds
for her real resting place.
Isn't that crazy?
No way, I'm not saying it's sad.
Yeah, she ultimately was laid to rest in Montpellier
with her husband.
But it took a while.
And actually, I won't tell you how long
do you want to guess, David, for your next point,
or possibly two points, how long she was interned there?
78 years.
Oh god.
That would be like today.
Well, I mean, not quite.
But very, no, definitely not that long.
Mike, do you want to try?
Eight years.
No.
It is two years.
But it's still pretty wild, because as I said,
most people only stayed there for like a day or two.
So OK, so we are at 3-1 still.
Next question is for you, Mike.
The Ricky, which is DC's official cocktail.
It's gin, lime, club soda, garnished with lime.
What bar came up with it?
Old ebbs.
Nope.
The bar at the Willard.
Nope.
The Raven.
No.
It's called shoemakers.
It was on East Street off of Penn Ave.
Really, really old bar in DC.
Fun fact is that Colonel Joseph Ricky's very first Ricky.
So it was named after this guy.
He was the lobbyist.
His first Ricky was not with gin, but with a different liquor.
And this isn't your actual question plots.
But I will give you a chance to guess at it.
What was the original Ricky made with?
The original Ricky was made with, man.
So what's an old-timey liquor brandy?
It's rye, close.
Either Mike and I don't know anything about Washington
or these questions are insanely difficult.
Yeah, I just thought that you always know everything.
So I made the questions really hard.
Maybe I made them too hard.
All right, David, the next question is for you.
The Supreme Court, as it is today, was built in 1929.
But way, way before in that space, during the Civil War,
there was another famous building in that space.
What was it?
And if you listen to the episode that we did
about secret DC history, that's a gimmie.
So don't say it and give you anything.
I'm sure this is wrong, but I'll say a train station.
No.
Mike, any guesses?
A hospital.
No.
I feel like there was some sort of like terribly close
to the capital slave trading spot.
I'm sure there was.
You've said Civil War, by which point they'd legalized that.
It was a prison.
So basically, after the capital was burned down
on the War of 1812, they built like an old capital building
in the space where the Supreme Court now is.
And then during the Civil War, that building fell into disarray
and became a prison.
I did not know that.
What a cool fact.
Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
And then they actually stripped that down
and built row homes there.
And then those were taken down.
And the Supreme Court, as it is today, was built.
A lot of history on that one very specific plot of land.
And you would know if you would listen to our episode
about secret DC history with Joanna Hill, who wrote a book
all about this, called Secret Washington DC.
So we'll link to that in our show notes as well.
And definitely check it out for that story
and like a bunch of other really weird quirky DC history.
OK.
We are here for the last question now.
It's a price-is-right type question.
And I'm going to make it for three points,
which means that plots, if you get it, you win.
But Mike, if you win, then you dislike.
It's just like blowing plots out of the water.
The question is, how many metro stops
are part of our metro system?
Again, price-is-right rolls.
So if you guess over, you lose.
You want to get ads close to.
Do we submit our guesses at the same time?
Why don't you write it down and hold it up
and say it at the same time?
So that way we make sure that no one's cheating
or revising their guesses based on the other.
It's as of today.
As of today.
Three, two, one.
Hold them up.
OK.
So Mike says 78.
And plots says 71.
And I'm so sorry, David, plots.
But you have been trashed terribly.
It's the right answer.
98.
98.
Yes.
Yes.
I'm living in the past.
I'm living in 1978, DC.
Lots of refuses to acknowledge the silver line.
He doesn't even take the inner green line.
It's really weird.
Get off, take a bus, and then reconnect to the green line.
Mike, I commend you for your deep knowledge of Washington
and your superior Washingtonian in all ways to me.
The Benjamin Merch Elementary School
is the finest elementary school in the city.
Are you good?
I appreciate that.
Thank you both for being such good sports
with my impossibly difficult questions
that I never would have gotten.
And now you know how highly I think of you.
Thank you, Priyanka.
MUSIC
Before you go, here is some quick news.
The city will subsidize your e-bike.
The DC Council unanimously approved a tiered subsidy program
based on income, partially reimbursing
residents for e-bike purchases.
Now it's up to the DC Department of Transportation
to iron out a timeline and details
like vouchers versus rebates.
Also experts are saying low water levels may be partially
responsible for the death of a white water
kayaker on the Potomac River on Sunday.
The young woman died after being pinned under a rock
in a hydraulic vacuum.
The Potomac River's water level measured 2.7 feet
when the accident occurred, but experienced kayakers say
the water levels are usually above three feet.
And lastly, Maryland is putting $120 million in state funds
towards grants for behavioral health services
in public schools.
The Senate president said the grant funding
will help students who are facing a barrage of stress
from social media, the pandemic, and threats of mass shootings
along with general school pressures.
MUSIC
That is all for today here on CityCast DC.
If you enjoy the show, why not tell a friend
to rate the show, leave us a review, and subscribe
to our Morning Newsletter.
We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news
from around the city.
Bye.
MUSIC
That was so hard.
The only question I would have gotten
the Fort Arisee one, right?
But everything else was just like, no way.
No chance.