About trivia

According to the Oxford dictionary, the word 'trivia' refers to “unimportant details of pieces of information”. But in recent years the word 'trivia' has increasingly become associated with general knowledge based games, which are played by one or more contestants who answer questions on a variety of subjects.

The association between trivia and quizzes goes back to the 1960's when two students of Columbia University called Ed Goodgold and Dand Carlinsky created an inter collegiate quiz which tested contestants. They called this a “trivia contest”.

The term trivia became even more popular in 1966, when Goodgold and Carlinsky published their book “Trivia”, which featured in a number of best seller lists. The popularity of the books by Goodgold, Carlinsky and others lead to an increasing number of trivia games where players participated to test their knowledge against others.

Trivia board games

One of the most popular trivia games of all time is “Trivial Pursuit”, a board game which was created in 1979 by Scott Abbot and Chris Haney. The objective of the Trivia Pursuit game is to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions and it's popularity peaked in 1984 when over 20 million games were sold.

Trivia TV shows

One of the most popular TV formats where a players answer general knowledge questions has to be 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'. This TV format originates in the UK where it is hosted by Chris Tararnt. Not many people know that the format was originally created for radio when David Briggs, Steve Knight and Mike Whitehill created the “Cash Mountain” promotional game format for the Capital FM Breakfast show which was hosted by Chris Tarrant. The format, first aired in the UK in 1998, gives the player a chance of winning one million pounds by answering 15 general knowledge questions. The format has been reproduced in many countries and on 19th November 1999, John Carpenter was the first person to win a $1,000,000 by calling his Dad as his “phone a friend” life line with the message:

“Um... I don't really need your help, I just wanted to let you know that I'm going to win the million dollars because the U.S. President that appeared on 'Laugh-In' is Richard Nixon and that's my final answer”

On www.BrainDash.com we allow you to test your general knowledge against other players and increase your brain power through our on-line trivia games, the most popular of which is “Trivia Trial” as it is played by nearly all visitors to our site.

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