This match day leans heavily on 20th‑century media and institutions: the first televised Major League Baseball game in 1939, a German chocolate brand defined by its square bar, the financial performance metric alpha, a 1994 action blockbuster, two long‑running Newport music festivals, and U.S. presidents’ congressional careers.

Q1 and Q4 both sit at the intersection of sports, news, and entertainment: the Dodgers–Reds game at Ebbets Field on August 26, 1939 is widely recognized as the first Major League Baseball game ever televised, while Speed (1994) — promoted with a tagline about rush hour — reached U.S. theaters just days before the O.J. Simpson Bronco chase turned Los Angeles freeways into wall‑to‑wall live TV.

Q2 and Q3 highlight how abstract ideas become brands and trivia fodder: Ritter Sport’s 100 g square, broken into sixteen pieces and color‑coded by filling, is as iconic as its German slogan about being square and practical, while alpha — the risk‑adjusted excess return over a benchmark — underlies both modern portfolio theory and the name of the crowd‑sourced investing site Seeking Alpha.

Finally, Q5 and Q6 live in mid‑20th‑century American culture and politics. George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival (launched in Newport, Rhode Island in 1954) and Newport Folk Festival (founded there in 1959) helped make the city synonymous with genre‑defining live music, from Muddy Waters to Norah Jones and Brittany Howard, while Richard Nixon — who served in both the House and the Senate before becoming the 37th president — exemplifies the kind of career‑path fact that often anchors U.S. history questions.

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Study Notes

Question 1: Early Televised Baseball & TV Firsts

TELEVISION - The first game of a doubleheader on August 26, 1939 at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, between the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds, which the visitors won 5-2, is the first major league baseball game with what distinction? It’s one shared, in a thematic sense, with Bulova watches, the New York World’s Fair, and the 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade.

On August 26, 1939, experimental NBC station W2XBS televised a Brooklyn Dodgers–Cincinnati Reds doubleheader from Ebbets Field, making it the first Major League Baseball game ever broadcast on television; the Reds won the opener 5–2. Similar TV firsts tie in the other examples: Bulova ran the first paid U.S. television commercial in 1941, the 1939 New York World’s Fair helped launch regular NBC television programming, and the 1954 Tournament of Roses Parade became one of the earliest nationally promoted color telecasts.

  • Reasoning Tips

    • The category (TELEVISION) plus the 1939 date and Ebbets Field clue you into very early TV history, when only a handful of experimental stations like W2XBS were broadcasting.
    • Bulova watches, the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and the 1954 Rose Parade are all famous as televised firsts (first TV commercial, early regular TV programming, and an early national color telecast), which collectively nudge you toward “first to be televised” as the shared idea.
    • When LearnedLeague questions list several disparate examples and say they share something “in a thematic sense”, look for a shared medium or technology (here, landmark television broadcasts) rather than shared subject matter.

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Question 2: Ritter Sport’s Square Chocolate Bar

FOOD/DRINK - A trademark feature of what German chocolate brand is its 3.5-ounce square bar, divided into sixteen smaller squares in a 4×4 grid? Popular varieties include milk chocolate with hazelnuts (brown wrapper), milk chocolate with almonds (green), and dark chocolate with marzipan filling (red).

Ritter Sport is a German chocolate brand made by Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG in Waldenbuch; its standard 100 g (3.5 oz) bar is a distinctive square divided into sixteen smaller squares in a 4×4 grid. Popular flavors such as Voll-Nuss (milk chocolate with whole hazelnuts) in a brown wrapper, Ganze Mandel (milk chocolate with whole almonds) in dark green, and Marzipan (dark chocolate with a marzipan center) in a red wrapper are part of a long‑running color‑coding strategy summed up by the slogan “Quadratisch. Praktisch. Gut.” (square. practical. good.).

  • Reasoning Tips

    • The combination of a German brand, a precisely specified 3.5‑ounce square bar, and a 4×4 grid of smaller squares is almost unique to Ritter Sport and is heavily emphasized in its marketing.
    • Wrapper colors keyed to fillings (brown for hazelnuts, green for almonds, red for marzipan) are a classic packaging‑clue style that LearnedLeague often uses for confectionery questions.
    • Some brands are as strongly associated with a shape as with a name; Ritter Sport’s long‑running trademark battles over its square format and its origin story (Clara Ritter designing a bar to fit a sports jacket pocket) reinforce that this is the go‑to “square German chocolate bar.”

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Question 3: Investment Alpha and Seeking Alpha

BUS/ECON - In securities investing, what letter-named measure (i.e., it is named for a letter, but it is not one character) indicates an investment’s ability to outperform the overall market? A popular crowd-sourced financial news and investing website takes its name from investors “seeking” this edge.

In finance, alpha is the measure of an investment’s excess return relative to an appropriate market benchmark, often calculated using the Capital Asset Pricing Model; a positive alpha indicates the portfolio beat its risk-adjusted expectation, while a negative alpha means underperformance. The website Seeking Alpha explicitly references this concept in its name, and its French-language entry notes that the title refers to alpha as the difference between a stock’s performance and an index.

  • Reasoning Tips

    • The question stresses a letter-named measure that is longer than one character, nudging you toward Greek-letter terms like alpha, beta, gamma rather than single-letter tickers or grades; among these, alpha is the one tied to outperformance over a benchmark.
    • Knowing that many investing sites and funds play on jargon in their branding helps: a crowd‑sourced investing site called Seeking Alpha practically shouts this answer once you remember that alpha is the sought-after edge.
    • Conceptually, it’s useful to distinguish alpha (skill- or strategy-based excess return) from beta (market-related risk exposure). Thinking in those terms can help you eliminate wrong guesses like beta, Sharpe ratio, or standard deviation.

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Question 4: ‘Get ready for rush hour’ and Speed (1994)

FILM - “Get ready for rush hour” was the movie poster tagline for what film, directed by Jan de Bont and released widely in the US in 1994 one week before O.J. Simpson’s low-velocity freeway chase in Los Angeles?

The tagline belongs to Speed, a 1994 American action thriller directed by Jan de Bont about a Los Angeles bus that will explode if it drops below 50 miles per hour, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Speed opened wide in U.S. theaters on June 10, 1994, and a week later, on June 17, 1994, viewers watched O.J. Simpson’s nationally televised low-speed Ford Bronco chase on Los Angeles freeways, making the question’s timing clue particularly memorable.

  • Reasoning Tips

    • The rush hour wording in the tagline, the 1994 date, and the Los Angeles freeway reference all point strongly toward Speed, whose entire premise involves a bomb-rigged city bus stuck in traffic.
    • Knowing a few famous action‑movie taglines (for example, this one for Speed or “Yippee-ki-yay” being associated with Die Hard) is a classic way to pick up film points.
    • Jan de Bont is another helpful hook: he is best known for directing Speed and Twister after a long career as a cinematographer, so seeing his name as director should narrow your options quickly.

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Question 5: Newport Jazz & Folk Festivals in Newport, Rhode Island

POP MUSIC - Muddy Waters, Norah Jones, Brittany Howard, and Brandi Carlile are among those who have performed at both major genre-based music festivals founded by George Wein, one in 1954 and the other in 1959, in what northeastern U.S. city?

In 1954, Elaine and Louis Lorillard hired jazz promoter George Wein to organize the first Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island; the event is now an annual multi-day jazz festival. Wein later co-founded the Newport Folk Festival in 1959, also in Newport, as a folk-oriented counterpart, and both festivals are now held at Fort Adams State Park overlooking Newport Harbor. Artists such as Muddy Waters (who recorded At Newport 1960 at the jazz festival and is noted as having appeared at the folk festival in the 1960s), Norah Jones, and Brittany Howard have all appeared on lineups for both events, illustrating how the twin festivals blur boundaries between jazz, blues, folk, and other styles.

Question 6: Presidents Who Served in Both House and Senate – Richard Nixon

AMER HIST - Who is the most recent U.S. president to have previously served in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives?

Richard Nixon is the most recent U.S. president to have served in both chambers of Congress before reaching the White House: he represented California’s 12th district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1950 and then served as a U.S. senator from 1950 to 1953 before becoming vice president and later the 37th president. A survey of presidential backgrounds shows that earlier presidents such as John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson also served in both houses, but no president after Nixon has done so—later presidents with congressional experience (for example, Barack Obama and Joe Biden) served only in the Senate, not the House.

  • Reasoning Tips

    • When a question asks for “most recent” with a specific résumé (both House and Senate), it often helps to think chronologically through modern presidents with long Washington careers; in this case, Kennedy and Johnson qualify but served before Nixon.
    • Remember that Barack Obama and Joe Biden had significant Senate tenures but never served in the U.S. House, which rules them out and points you back to Nixon as the last president with service in both chambers.
    • Memorizing a few “career pathway” lists (governors-turned-presidents, generals-turned-presidents, presidents who served in both houses of Congress) can pay dividends on American history questions that frame things in terms of prior offices.

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