“Twenty-One” contestants first were told the category they would be quizzed on and then chose how many points they wished to try for. The higher the point value, the harder the question. Points were worth five hundred dollars each in the first round of play, rising by five hundred dollars with each succeeding round. The object of the game was to score twenty-one points.

Here are the first twelve questions Jack Barry, the program’s host, put to Charles Van Doren on November 28 and December 5, 1956:

1. World War II

(9 points, at $500 per point) . Lake Ladoga played a large part in a particular phase of World War II. Name the two countries whose troops opposed each other at Lake Ladoga.

Answer: Finland and Russia.

2. Medicine

(8 points, at $500 per point) . The necessity for cleanliness and sterilization was not realized until the middle of the nineteenth century. What is the name of the surgeon who introduced sterilization to the operating room?

Answer: Joseph Lister.

3. Fashions

(3 points, at $1,000 per point) . What synthetic fiber has almost completely replaced silk in women’s stockings?

Answer: Nylon.

4. Founding Fathers

(9 points, at $1,000 per point) . One of the first American statesmen to protest taxation by the British was a man from Massachusetts who said, “Taxation without representation is tyranny.” Name him.

Answer: James Otis.

5. Churchill

(9 points, at $1,000 per point) . Winston Churchill wrote a series of six brilliant books chronicling the events leading up to and including World War II. I want you to name any three of them.

Answer: The Gathering Storm (volume 1 ), The Grand Alliance (volume 3), and Triumph and Tragedy (volume 6). [The others are Their Finest Hour (volume 2), The Hinge of Fate (volume 4), and Closing the Ring (volume 5).]

6. Queens

(11 points, at $1,500 per point) . The wife of King Ahab was a cruel and willful woman; she favored the idolatrous worship of Baal and persecuted the prophets of Jehovah. What was her name, and what country did she rule?

Answer: Her name was Jezebel; her country, Palestine.

7. The Civil War

(8 points, at $2,000 per point) . Because of a disagreement with his commanding general, Ulysses Grant was virtually placed under arrest for a brief time early in 1862. Who was the commanding general of the Union army at that time?

Answer: Gen. H. W. Halleck.

8.