The Greatest Upset in Quiz Show History, and ant chutney | #43
Also, how many women inventors can you name?
Dick van Dyke once famously said, “Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them.”
Huh? How can anyone be so wrong in one sentence? Maybe his first name was the giveaway. With International Women’s Day around the corner, here are 3 fascinating stories that definitely disprove this quote.
Things we learnt this week:
In 1966, GE College Bowl was a popular university quiz program on US Television. An episode featured four young ladies from Agnes Scott college in Decatur, Georgia against the much-fancied Princeton boys who raced to a 50-0 lead. This was a foregone conclusion before it had barely begun. The plucky Agnes Scott girls mounted a comeback but with 20 seconds to go the Princeton boys were up 215–190. Agnes Scott answered a 10 pointer about Einstein to cut the lead. With a few seconds left, came the final question
“Bucephalus and Roan Barbary were steeds. For 20 points, what were Balmung and Durendal?”
What happened next? Read this article and see for yourself. If you aren’t tearing up after reading this, you must be made of stone.
Whitney Wolfe Herd co-founded Tinder in 2013 but left the company a year later because of the sexual harassment and discrimination she faced. She then founded Bumble in 2014 and wrote to investors “I have experienced firsthand how unequal relationships negatively impact all areas of life, I wanted to change this.”. Earlier this year she became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.
In 1902, Mary Anderson was visiting New York City. She was riding a streetcar and it was snowing. She observed that the streetcar driver had to get out and continually clean off the windshield. This got Anderson wondering: What if there were some sort of blade that could wipe off the windshield without making the driver get out of the streetcar? Anderson went back to Birmingham, made a sketch of her device, and wrote up a description of it and applied for a patent. Today Mary Anderson is in the Inventors Hall of Fame for inventing the windshield wiper, but she had to face many obstacles on the way.
From IWTK, with love
What are some of the other inventions by women? Our very own Nandini has listed a few here
A Twitter thread celebrating all the amazing feats achieved by women in Indian sport
Things we’re reading / watching / listening to:
Aditi Ramesh: Autocorrect - This debut EP from 2017 combines jazz, blues, rap and Carnatic seamlessly. Ramesh is a talented and outspoken singer-songwriter who doesn’t mince words. Check out the album standout ‘Marriageable Age’
Inside India: Fascinating Food - This book details all the unique dishes across India that you probably haven’t heard of. Did you know that a tribe in Chhattisgarh really makes chutney from red ants? We bet it's brilliANT.
Quiz Announcement
FOR WOMEN, BY WOMEN, the first of its kind at IWTK, presenting the women's day special: BehenNation Quiz
Come for a fun evening of pun, fun, and trivia with fellow women! With the quirky Nandini as host and a panel that features the famous (secretly known as Siddi Piddi) Maanvi Gagroo and actor, storyteller Janaki Sabesh.
Zero mansplaining guaranteed. No men allowed.
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Hi, tried DM'ing you on twitter and received no response. This bit "Dick van Dyke once famously said, “Women will never be as successful as men because they have no wives to advise them.”
Huh? How can anyone be so wrong in one sentence? Maybe his first name was the giveaway."
It's quite problematic. First off, not quite sure if the writer has understood the underlying meaning behind the quote. Secondly, to casually slag off a public figure and cast aspersions on his character without backing up with evidence is not a great look for you guys.