History's mysteries

Don't know if it poses any threat to Pawn Stars, but former Jeopardy champ David Madden is trying to interest the History Channel in a history-based quizzer. Madden has already toured the country with his high-school History Bowl (for teams) and History Bee (for individuals). He sounds a little high-minded about it all:

It's essential for being able to do the sort of critical thinking and reflecting on why this stuff is important. If we don't have knowledge of the past, there's no way we can understand the present to prepare for the future.

To which I'm inclined to intone, with mock solemnity, amen.

Oh, I don't want to sound so smartass about Madden's project. I like quizzers, after all, and I still remember History IQ fondly. If David can get the History Channel genuinely interested in a similar show, good on him.

The linked story offers a bit of unintentional humor: "with 19 wins, he [Madden] nearly took the record for the most consecutive wins" on Jeopardy. Well, David didn't really get all that close to Ken Jennings' seventy-four wins. But when he worked at IBM last year, Madden did beat Watson in a couple of beta-testing rounds. Take that, Ken.