I recently learned that well-known facts—specifically those that would be well-known to Americans during World War II but not Germans—were used as passphrases during the Battle of the Bulge:

The list of questions was endless: Who plays centerfield for the Yankees? What's a Texas Leaguer? Who's married to actress Betty Grable? What's Mickey Mouse's girlfriend's name?

Now, of course, what is considered well-known to some is not that way for others. Information doesn't diffuse in a way that is as regular as we would like, with many individuals maintaining sometimes inexplicable gaps in their knowledge. Alan Jacobs wrote about these, referring to them as holes in the fabric of knowledge.

And even if you do know something about these bits of knowledge, pity those people who have not kept on their mesofacts, and have outdated information, especially when it comes to players on sports teams.

Well, these kinds of problems did crop up:

The result of such quizzing sometimes caused U.S. military police (MP) to overreact. On December 21, General Bruce Clarke was stopped on the road out St. Vith. The MP there said he had been told to keep an eye out for a German disguised as a one-star general. Clarke did not prove his identity when he mistakenly identified the Chicago Cubs as an American League team. For 30 minutes, the American general was held in shackles until the errors and misjudgments were sorted out. The following day, General Bradley was stopped at a checkpoint and asked to name the capital of Illinois. When Bradley correctly answered "Springfield," he was detained by a military policeman who thought Chicago was the state capital.

Moral of the story: do not stake lives during wartime on knowing what is essentially bar trivia. And be aware of the half-life of facts.

Top image:David Foster/Flickr/CC