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quizballs 39 - free general knowledge quiz -
questions and answers for trivia quizzes and pub quizzes
Which country has the shortest coastline? Monaco (3.5
miles)
What Italian term describes the mood of a piece of music as sweet?
Dolce (pronounced dolchay)
What famous saying, representing a deranged and directionless group
of people, has been interpreted in creative works by Hieronymus Bosch,
Katherine Anne Porter, Erasure, The Grateful Dead, and Bob Seger, among others?
Ship of Fools
Kim Campbell was the first woman prime minister of which country?
Canada (She served from 25 June to 4 November 1993, succeeding Brian
Mulroney.)
What is the French meaning of 'Marmite'? Cooking pot (or stew
pan - there is a picture of one on the Marmite label.)
In architecture, cartouche is a decorative feature resembling what?
A scroll
According to his memoirs, what famous Venetian adventurer was once
imprisoned as a magician, a director of the Paris state lotteries, knighted in
the Netherlands, a spy for Louis XV, and a librarian in Bohemia?
Casanova (fully, Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-98)
What is the name of the street in London famous for its tailors
shops? Savile Row
Who was the 'father of medicine' to whom a code of medical ethics is
attributed and which bears his name? Hippocrates (Hippocrates,
c.460-370BC, is regarded first to have defined the principles of the
Hippocratic Oath, hence its name.)
What shape is farfalle pasta? Bow tie (or butterfly, which is
what farfalle means in Italian.)
Pb is the symbol for which chemical element? Lead (derived
from the Latin 'plumbum', from which the word plumber also derives - because
the first plumbers used lead for pipes, etc.)
What city did Charles II of England sell to France in 1662 for
£40,000? Dunkirk
From which creatures can Newcastle disease transfer to humans,
causing mild conjunctivitis and flu symptoms? Birds (especially poultry
- apparently first discovered in the East Indies in 1926 it was identified
later in Newcastle-upon-Tyne a year later, hence the name.)
What household gadget did Melville R Bissell invent 1876? Carpet
sweeper
British Landrace, Pietrain and Tamworth are what sort of animals?
Pigs (they are all domesticated pig breeds)
Lee Kuan Yew became the first officially elected prime minister of
which country in 1959? Singapore (The Republic of Singapore, from the
Malay words singa - lion, and pura - city. Singapore became independent of
Malaysia in 1965, prior to which it was a British colony until 1959. Singapore
is about twenty-five times more densely populated than the UK, and in fact only
Monaco is more crowded of all the countries of the world.)
Who was rumoured to to have had his first wife Amy Robsart poisoned,
in the hope of marrying Queen Elizabeth the First? Robert Dudley, Earl of
Leicester
A Salchow (usually pronounced 'salco' or 'salcov') is a jump in which
sport? Figure skating (after Swedish skater Ulrich Salchow, its inventor
and the first to perform the jump in major competition, in 1909. The jump
involves a full revolution in the air, normally taking off and landing on
different feet, and can be extended to more than one revolution, hence 'triple
salchow', which obviously is three. No-one has managed anything more than a
quadruple Salchow. )
What is the capital of Barbados? Bridgetown
Of Albanian descent, by what name is 1979 Nobel Prizewinner Agnes
Gonxha Bojaxhiu better known? Mother Teresa
Mjosa (more precisely Mjøsa) is the largest lake of which
country? Norway (can anyone please clarify the
pronunciation of Mjøsa?)
How would 'good day' normally be said in Japanese? Konnichi wa
(or similar, for example ko-nee-chee-wa)
What is the highest volcano in Africa? Kilimanjaro (aka Kilima
Njaro, Kilima Dscharo, and Oldoinyo Oibor. Kilimanjaro is also Africa's highest
mountain, almost 20,000 feet high, with an estimated total volume of 1,150
cubic miles. In modern times Kilimanjaro emits little more than steam and
sulphur. Kilimanjaro is in Tanzania on the Kenyan border, close to Mombassa and
Nairobi in Kenya, and to Lake Victoria, and is one of about 20 volcanoes in the
East African Rift Valley.)
The German Deutschmark was comprised of one hundred what?
Pfennig
'Atoms for Peace', formed in 1957, is now known as what? The
International Atomic Energy Agency (The IAEA, based in Vienna, is an
independent and specialised agency of the United Nations, and seeks to promote
peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy.)
A biathlon consists of which two sports? Skiing and shooting
(cross-country skiing and rifle-shooting to be exact - in that order)
The word deltiologist, derived from the Greek 'deltos' meaning
writing-tablet, refers to a collector of what? Postcards (picture
postcards more precisely)
Who wrote in 1770 "If God did not exist it would be necessary to
invent him"? Voltaire (or real name Francois Marie Arouet, 1694-1778,
French writer, philosopher and historian. The quote is from his epistle: Letter
to the Author of The Three Impostors, or in French, Épître
à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs, dated 10 November 1770.)
What year did the Channel Tunnel between Britain and France open?
1994 (The official opening was 6 May 1994, in Calais, performed by Queen
Elizabeth II and President Francois Mitterrand. Interestingly, the French chose
to retrieve their huge tunnel boring machine, while the British chose to leave
theirs in the tunnel, buried in concrete.)
Which tragic figure of Greek mythology became the King of Thebes
after solving the Sphinx's riddle to guess what walks on four legs in the
morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening? Oedipus (The
answer to the riddle was 'Man', who in life first crawls, then walks, and
finally walks with a stick. The psychoanalyst Freud's choice of the term
'Oedipus Complex' to describe a male's infatuation with his mother is based on
the story of Oedipus, in which the King casts his baby son and heir Oedipus out
of the city to die, so as to avert a prophecy that Oedipus will one day kill
his father to become King and also take the Queen as his wife, which does
indeed happen. There is a more to the story, and I'll not spoil the ending.)
quizballs 39 - free quiz
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