Skeleton Trivia for Monday, 2025-08-11
Tips & tanks
Hiya Skeleton Crew,
As part of my gettin things back up & runnin after summer break, I did a li’l refresh of the About + Hall-o-Fame pages. I also added a Tip Jar page, ’cause why not?1
Answers to Last Time
- Philippe François Marie de Hauteclocque took the name Leclerc durin WWII.
- The Leclerc question played pretty hard, but most of youse guys were able to figure out I was talkin ’bout Alexander Hamilton with my oblique reference to Aaron Burr & their duel that killed him.
What’s the theme, ya might wanna know? Well, F1 fans’ll probably recognize that Leclerc & Hamilton are that names of the two drivers for Scuderia Ferrari! (Charles Leclerc & Lewis Hamilton, to be specific. I even managed to sneak the names Charles & Lewis into Thursday’s questions, maybe ya noticed?)
Today’s Trivias
Trivia 1
Last time I mentioned how the main French battle tank’s named for Leclerc; the main U.S. battle tank, the Abrams, is named for a general called Creighton Abrams.
Now, today I was halfway to askin ya what’s the main GERMAN battle tank named for ... but the answer to that is Leopard & I think it’d be kinda soon to have that as an answer since we just had a Jaguar question last week. (Also it’d be kinda a trick question, ’cause up till about 10 minutes ago if ya’d asked me “what big cat is the German battle tank named for?” I’d’ve guessed Panther.)
So instead, lemme me ask ya this: for decades, Russian battle tanks have gone by real borin names, stuff like T-34, T-34/35, & T-80.2 But the first Soviet tank with a T designation, the T-10, was actually originally named the IS-8 (or ИС-8 if ya prefer Cyrillic).
What did the “IS” stand for?
It might help ya to know that this IS-8–to–T-10 redesignation was the direct result of an event that occurred in 1953, & which event was the subject of a 2017 movie by Armando Iannucci.
Trivia 2
Mssrs. Leclerc & Hamilton are both doin *~OK~* this season: they’re at 5th & 6th respectively in the F1 Drivers’ Championship.3 Ferarri, the team they drive for, is at 2nd in the Constructors’ Cup.
Too bad for them all that Oscar Piastri & Lando Norris of what F1 team are sittin at 1st & 2nd place in the standings? This team’s basically got a lock on winnin the Constructors’ Cup for the second year in a row: they’ve got more ’n twice the points Ferrari has, & there’s less than half a season left to go!
OK then
Byeeeeeeeeeeeeee
1 Although honestly if ya wanna give me money I feel like ya’d be better served just signin up for a paid subscription. On Friday I sent the paid crew members a mini-quiz with seven (7) top-quality Before-&-After trivias! ⬏
2 The T creatively stands for Tank (танк), I’m afraid—not Terminator 😕 ⬏
3 Like, I’m sure they’d be thrilled to be higher. But, y’know, 5th-or-6th–best in the world is objectively SUPER GOOD! It’s way better ’n I could do! Heck, it’s even better than my bro W. Skeleton-Boney could do, & he actually races cars on the reg!! (’Course, he’d say somethin snooty like how he doesn’t race F1 cars ’cause they’re not sophisticated enough or whatever for his taste.) (Now that I mention it, I wonder what ol’ W.’s up to, I ain’t heard from him in a minute.) ⬏