50 Fun Facts About Silver

Dorothy's magic shoes are silver in L. Frank Baum's novel, but which jewel names them in the 1939 film?

Ruby slippers replaced the book's silver shoes because the studio wanted a colour that would show off the new three-strip Technicolor process.

Which South American country takes its name from the Latin word for silver?

Argentina means roughly 'silvery land'. Early explorers believed the Río de la Plata, the 'River of Silver', led to vast riches, but no silver mines were ever found along it.

Which hero of American radio and television westerns rides a horse named Silver?

The Lone Ranger won Silver's loyalty by saving the wild horse from an enraged buffalo. He also handed out bullets made of silver as proof of who he was.

Silver conducts electricity better than any other metal, but which cheaper metal is used for most electrical wiring?

Copper is second only to silver as a conductor and far cheaper, which is why about 60 percent of the world's supply ends up as electrical wire.

Long John Silver is the one-legged ship's cook who leads a mutiny in which classic adventure novel?

Treasure Island nearly carried a different name: Robert Louis Stevenson's working title was The Sea Cook, after Silver's job aboard the schooner Hispaniola.

Which liquid metal has been known for centuries as quicksilver because of the way it shines and flows?

Mercury earned the old name quicksilver, meaning 'living silver', and alchemists tied it to the fastest planet, named for the swift Roman messenger god.

Which wedding anniversary is traditionally marked with silver, as couples in German-speaking lands did by the 1500s?

25th anniversaries have been linked with silver in Germanic countries since the 1500s. The custom of naming the big milestones after precious metals later spread around the world.

Which American patriot, remembered for a midnight ride in 1775, earned his living as a silversmith?

Paul Revere left school at thirteen to become an apprentice to his father, a French Huguenot immigrant, and built a prosperous Boston business in silver and engraving.

Which US state is officially nicknamed the Silver State after the Comstock Lode strike of 1859?

Nevada boomed when the Comstock Lode was found under Virginia City. The rush of miners was big enough to carve a new territory out of western Utah in 1861.

In horror films and modern folklore, a silver bullet is the classic weapon against which monster?

A werewolf can be killed only by silver in the 1941 film The Wolf Man, the movie that fixed the rule in popular culture. Older folklore aimed such bullets at witches too.

Which two-letter chemical symbol, taken from the metal's Latin name, stands for silver on the periodic table?

Ag is short for a Latin name that goes back to an ancient root meaning white or shining, a fair description of the most reflective metal there is.

Which word describes silver that is 92.5 percent pure, the standard grade for jewellery and cutlery?

Sterling silver is hardened with a little of another metal because the pure element is too soft for forks, rings and flutes to survive daily use.

The black tarnish on old silver cutlery forms when the metal reacts with compounds of which element?

Sulfur, not oxygen, is what blackens silver: traces of it in the air build a dark film of silver sulfide. Gold shrugs off the same attack, which is why it never tarnishes.

Which early photographic process, introduced worldwide in 1839, formed its image on a polished silver-plated sheet?

Daguerreotype plates were buffed to a mirror finish, so each one-off picture flips between positive and negative as the viewer tilts it.

A weak silver nitrate solution was once routinely dropped onto which part of a newborn baby to prevent infection?

Eyes were treated at birth after 1881, when a doctor named Credé showed that the solution stopped an infection, caught from the mother, that could leave a child blind.

Taking too much colloidal silver can cause argyria, a condition that turns a person's skin which colour?

Blue-gray skin is the main sign of argyria. In 2007 an American man made the news after a homemade silver remedy for his sinus trouble slowly turned his skin that shade.

Silver iodide is released into the sky in which weather-changing technique meant to produce extra rain or snow?

Cloud seeding works because crystals of silver iodide are shaped much like ice, so water freezes onto them and grows heavy enough to fall.

German silver contains no silver at all and is more accurately named after which metal in the alloy?

Nickel silver is the alloy's usual name today. European metalworkers created it to copy paktong, a silvery metal that arrived on wares imported from China.

Which chemist devised a way to coat the back of glass with silver in 1835, creating the modern mirror?

Justus von Liebig's chemical silvering eventually replaced the older backing of tin and mercury, which was harming the health of mirror makers, and the same reaction still lines vacuum flasks.

Medieval alchemists paired each known metal with a heavenly body; which one did they link with silver?

The Moon gave silver its alchemical name, luna, which is why sticks of silver nitrate used to cauterise wounds were long sold as lunar caustic.

Which Bolivian city grew up beneath Cerro Rico, a mountain so rich in silver that Spain kept a colonial mint there?

Potosí sprang up after the prospector Diego Huallpa found the 'rich mountain' in 1545, and for centuries its silver was turned into coins on the spot.

The Spanish silver dollar was nicknamed the piece of eight because it was worth eight of which smaller coin?

Reales gave the coin its nickname, from the Spanish real de a ocho. The piece of eight circulated so widely in Britain's North American colonies that the United States matched its new dollar to it in 1792.

In the Gospel of Matthew, which disciple betrays Jesus in exchange for thirty pieces of silver?

Judas Iscariot agreed the price with the chief priests before the Last Supper and, filled with remorse, later tried to hand the money back.

Which animal, shown walking, has been stamped on English silver since 1544 as a mark of its purity?

A lion in the walking pose that heralds call passant joined the older marks in 1544. The system dates from 1300, when Edward I ordered silver to be tested before sale.

Which American orator championed free silver in the 1896 'Cross of Gold' convention speech?

William Jennings Bryan was a 36-year-old former congressman from Nebraska and a dark-horse candidate when he rose to speak, and the address won him the Democratic nomination for president.

Which family of Dallas oil heirs tried to corner the world silver market before the Silver Thursday crash of 1980?

The Hunts and their company controlled about 195 million ounces of silver by the end of 1979, but when prices fell they could not find the cash their lenders demanded.

At the first modern Olympics in 1896, winners received a silver medal and a branch of which tree?

Olive branches went to the winners along with their silver medals and a diploma. Runners-up were handed laurel, and third place received nothing at all.

Silver from the mines of Laurion paid for the fleet of triremes that made which Greek city a naval power?

Athens struck a rich new vein around 483 BC, and the statesman Themistocles talked its citizens into spending the windfall on a fleet of 200 warships.

Which president was placed on the US dime in 1946, a coin struck in silver until the mid-1960s?

Franklin Roosevelt was chosen for the ten-cent piece because he had helped found the March of Dimes, the campaign against the polio he had lived with since 1921.

Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion that was never actually covered in silver, stands in which Japanese city?

Kyoto's Silver Pavilion was built as a retirement villa for the shogun Yoshimasa. By one account he died before a planned coat of silver foil could be applied, and the nickname only appeared in the Edo period.

The Silver Surfer began as Norrin Radd, who saved his home planet by becoming the herald of which devourer of worlds?

Galactus repaid him with cosmic power and a board that outruns light. The Surfer later turned on his master to save Earth and was exiled there as punishment.

Which actress won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the 2012 film Silver Linings Playbook?

Jennifer Lawrence collected the film's only Oscar from eight nominations. Its director had first thought her too young for the part, until her audition changed his mind.

A silverback is the mature male who leads and defends a family troop of which great ape?

Gorillas follow a silverback, named for the patch of silver hair that comes with maturity, and he will protect the group from leopards or humans at the cost of his own life.

Despite the name, the household pest called a silverfish belongs to which group of animals?

Insects of a primitive, wingless kind, silverfish are named for their silvery colour and the fish-like wriggle of their tapering bodies.

Which punk band released the single God Save the Queen during Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977?

Sex Pistols saw the record banned outright by the BBC, yet it still reached number two on the official UK singles chart.

The Silver Ferns are the national team of New Zealand in which sport?

Netball's Silver Ferns reached the top of the world rankings for the first time in January 2011, after winning the 2010 Commonwealth Games tournament.

Which carmaker's Grand Prix racing cars have carried the nickname Silver Arrows since the 1930s?

Mercedes shared the nickname in the 1930s with its German rival Auto Union. A much-doubted story says the bare metal appeared when paint was stripped to meet a weight limit.

Silverstone, the home of the British Grand Prix, was laid out after the Second World War on what kind of site?

An RAF bomber station operated at Silverstone from 1943 to 1946, and the outline of its three runways still lies inside the modern track.

Which Detroit rocker formed the Silver Bullet Band in 1973 and broke through with the album Live Bullet?

Bob Seger had been a local favourite for over a decade before he assembled the group from Detroit-area musicians. Live Bullet was taped at the city's Cobo Arena in 1975.

The Christmas standard Silver Bells, written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, made its debut in which 1951 film comedy?

The Lemon Drop Kid gave the song its first outing, sung by its star and Marilyn Maxwell. The writers had first called it Tinkle Bells, until one of their wives objected.

Which bassist, later famous as a heavy metal frontman, sang lead on Hawkwind's 1972 hit Silver Machine?

Lemmy Kilmister got the vocal as a last resort, after the lyricist who had sung it live was unavailable. The single climbed to number three on the UK chart.

In chemistry labs, Tollens' reagent leaves a silver mirror inside the test tube when it detects which compounds?

Aldehydes are oxidised far more easily than their close cousins the ketones, so they turn the dissolved silver back into a film of shining metal on the glass while ordinary ketones leave it clear.

The Silver Dart, built by a team around Alexander Graham Bell, made the first powered flight in which country in 1909?

Canada's first controlled powered flight took off from the ice of Baddeck Bay in Nova Scotia, where Bell had been experimenting with flying machines since 1891.

The 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, became linked with which folklore creature?

Mothman was reportedly seen around the town for thirteen months, and the reports ended on the day the bridge fell. A 1975 book, The Mothman Prophecies, tied the two together.

Which Fleetwood Mac member wrote Silver Springs, a song cut from the album Rumours and released as a B-side?

Stevie Nicks wrote it about the end of her romance with a bandmate, and a later dispute over the song led her to leave the group in 1991.

The 1976 comedy thriller Silver Streak was the first film to pair Gene Wilder with which comedian?

Richard Pryor worried the producers, who briefly considered hiring an understudy, but the shoot went smoothly and he and Wilder were paired in three more films.

The Silver Age of comic books began in 1956 when DC's Showcase #4 introduced a new version of which hero?

The Flash returned with a new identity, the police scientist Barry Allen, and the comic's success persuaded publishers to start telling superhero stories again.

In the Sherlock Holmes story Silver Blaze, what kind of animal is the missing Silver Blaze?

A racehorse and a famous winner, Silver Blaze vanishes on the eve of an important race. Holmes cracks the case by noticing that a dog at the stable stayed quiet in the night.

Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, an 1865 children's novel by an American author, takes place in which country?

The Netherlands of the early 1800s is the book's setting, and the story introduced American readers to the sport of Dutch speed skating.

The rock band Silverchair, formed by schoolmates as Innocent Criminals in 1992, came from which country?

Australia's Silverchair were still teenagers from the city of Newcastle when their single Tomorrow went to number one at home in 1994.