Quiz 15 Flashcards
What name is given to the zone, or those parts of the Earth and its atmosphere, able to support life?
Biosphere
The architect Frank Matcham specialised in the design of what sort of building?
Theatres
Which two words, mearning the image of a King, formed the title of the collection of writings supposedly composed by the incarcarated Charles I and published on the day of his burial in 1649?
Eikon Basilike
Which British racing driver was killed in a road accident off the racing track just months after winning the world driver’s championship in 1958?
Mike Hawthorn
Which branch of mathematics takes its name from the Latin word for a pebble?
Calculus
How many gallons of beer are there in a firkin?
Nine
The koala bear is not a bear. To which family of animals does it belong?
Marsupials
Discovered in 1787 by William Herschel, what’s the largest moon of Uranus?
Titania
The mythological lovers Pyramus and Thisbe, whose story is performed by the mechanicals in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, belonged to which ancient civilisation?
Babylon
In which borough of New ork will you find the city’s Botanical Gardens, and the Poe Cottage, the last home of the write Edgar Allen Poe before his mysterious death in 1849?
The Bronx
In Poe’s story, The Cask of Amontillado, what is the not-very-fortunate fate of the character Fortunato?
Bricked up in a cellar
What was the title of the film western, directed by John Huston and released in 1961 that featured Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe, both in the final roles of their careers?
The Misfits
Violet Gibson was known for her attempt to assassinate which prominent figure in 1926?
Benito Mussolini
In an allusion to his ancestor Edward the Confessor, which of the eight later King Edwards was nicknamed Edward the Caresser?
Edward VII
Describing whose funeral in New York in 1974 did Alistair Cooke write - when the ten thousand people inside were asked to stand and pray () Carlsbad caverns in New Mexico at the first blush of dawn?
Duke Ellington
In which German city will you find a statue by Gerhard Marcks which shows a cock standing on a cat standing of a dog standing on a donkey?
Bremen
What was the name of the Russian coalminer lauded by the communist regime, whose name became a byword for prodigious and highly improbablyt feats of productivity?
Alexei Stakhanov
Sunflower, Surf’s Up and Holland were consecutive LP releases in the early 1970s by which multi-million-selling pop group?
Beach Boys
Which is the only one of the chemical elements known as the halogens that is liquid at normal room temperature?
Bromine
The opening line of every episode of which US TV police series, which originally ran from 1951-59 was Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent?
Dragnet
Harry Longabaugh was the real name of which figure from the Wild West?
The Sundance Kid
The coccyx, the bony end lower end of the spinal column takes its name from an ancient Greek word for bird?
Cuckoo
Who was the first British Prime Minister to appear in a live TV broadcast?
Neville Chamberlaine
The three spires of which English cathedral are nicknames the Ladies of the Vale?
Lichfield
A Decemberist was a name given to a member of a revolutionary group called the Northern Society, opposed to the accession of which Russian Tsar in 1825?
Nicholas I
The music of the opera Lakme, containing the Flower Duet which often appears often appears among the most popular classical pieces in surveys was composed by whom?
Delibes
Although she’s universally known as Anne Frank,the name Anne is actually a pet name or abbreviation of the diarist’s actual first name, which was - what?
Annelies
In cell biology, what name is given to the jelly like matter within the cell, but outside the nucleus, which contains the organelles of the cell and in which protein synthesis takes place?
Cytoplasm
Often changing his name to reflect the development of his various styles, which Japanese artist born in 1760 is best known for the woodblock print The Great Wave Off Kanagawa?
Hokusai
When Margaret Thatcher won the leadership of the Conservative Party in February 1975, she stood against four male candidates and won almost twice as many votes as her nearest rival in the ballot, 146 to his 79. Who was the runner up?
Willie Whitelaw
Which old Spanish coin was initially worth two pistoles?
Dubloon
Which physicist and mathematician, born in 1642, described himself as like a boy playing on the seashore () whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him?
Isaac Newton
Critical Path and Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth are works by which American architect and environmentalist who died in 1983
Richard Buckminster Fuller
If a regular rectangular box has sides of 5 centimetres, 6 centimetres and 8 centimetres, what is its volume in cubic centimetres?
240
Which book ends with the line: It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognised who it was?
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The wives of which jazz musician, who was married no less that eight times, included the actresses Lana Turner and Ava Gardner and the novelist Kathleen Winsor?
Artie Shaw
God is my oath or God is my abundance is the literal meaning of which girls’ name in common usage?
Elizebeth
The Logic of Scientific Discovery, originally published in 1934, is the English title of a seminal work by which Austrian born British philosopher?
Karl Popper
Fallingwater, a private hous built above Bear Run Stream in rural Pennsylvania is the work of which great American architect?
Frank Lloyd Wright
Pythias, the ward of Hermias of Ataneus, married which Greek philosopher in the city of Assos around 345BC?
Aristotle
