The Great Chicago Quiz Show on WTTW in Chicago has host Geoffrey Baer asking contestants (including some famous Chicagoans) trivia questions about their city. No program about Chicago history would be complete without at least a few tidbits from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, and Geoffrey asked contestants several , including:

• The world’s first Ferris Wheel was a hit at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park. In fact, it was so popular that immediately after the fair closed, it was moved and reopened. Where was it moved?
A. Riverview Amusement Park on the North Side
B. St. Louis, Missouri
C. Lincoln Park
D. The White City Amusement Park on the South Side

The correct answer is C, though we do take issue with the wording of “immediately.” The Ferris Wheel operated on the Midway Plaisance for a while after the Fair officially closed on October 30, 1893, before being dismantled by hundreds of workers in the spring of 1894 and put into storage. Not until the fall of 1895 was the great wheel erected again in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. As a bonus, WTTW offers a bonus video “What Happened to the First Ferris Wheel?”

• Which Chicagoan invented the brownie?
A. Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson, who had a notorious sweet tooth
B. H. Teller Archibald, the founder of Fannie Mae Candies
C. Bertha Palmer, the socialite of Palmer House fame
D. Herman Berghoff, a beerhall owner during Prohibition

The correct answer is C, based on an apocryphal story that Mrs. Palmer had her hotel kitchen chef invent the delectable dessert for traveler’s heading to the fairgrounds.

• The four stars on the Chicago flag represent Fort Dearborn, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, and what else?
A. The reversal of the Chicago River in 1900
B. The 1909 Burnham Plan of Chicago
C. The World’s Fair of 1933
D. Super Bowl XX

The correct answer is C. Remember: ∗Fort, ∗Fire, ∗Fair, ∗Fair.

Another question linking the two Chicago fairs is …
• Chicago’s second World’s Fair, formally known as A Century of Progress International Exposition, opened on the lakefront on May 27, 1933. Who turned on the ceremonial switch that set the fair in motion?
A. Newly-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt
B. Concentrated light from a distant star
C. Fan dancer Sally Rand
D. Five-year-old movie star Shirley Temple

The correct answer is B. At the time, the light from the star Arcturus was thought to have traveled through space since 1893. (It hadn’t.) A bonus segment describes “Illuminating the 1933 World’s Fair”.

Another Columbian moment happens in Episode 4, when a guest shared her souvenir etched drinking glass from the 1893 World’s Fair.

Episodes can be streamed online at https://interactive.wttw.com/great-chicago-quiz-show/watch