Quiz 19

Question 1

With the chemical formula Fe3O3, which ore is the world’s most important source of iron?

Answer 1

Haematite

Question 2

The BBC Proms, founded in 1895, were held at which London venue until they moved to the Royal Albert Hall?

Answer 2

Queen’s Hall

Question 3

The 18th Century portrait popularly known as The Skating Minister of the Edinburgh cleric the Reverend Robert Walker skating on Donnington Loch, is by which painter?

Answer 3

Henry Raeburn

Question 4

Which ocean liner, the first to exceed a thousand feet in length, ended her days under the name of Lafayette while being converted into a WW2 troopship?

Answer 4

SS Normandie

Question 5

Which Holy Roman Emperor was one of the leaders of the Third Crusade in 1189, but drowned in a river before reaching the Holy Land?

Answer 5

Frederick I - Barbarossa

Question 6

Who was born at 17 Bruton St, London W1 at 2:40 in the morning on the 21st April 1926?

Answer 6

The Queen

Question 7

A kit is a tiny, high pitched variety of which musical instrument, used widely by dancing masters between the 16th and 18th centuries?

Answer 7

Violin

Question 8

MacFarlane Burnet, who discovered immunological tolerance, Lawrence Bragg, a pioneer of X Ray crystallography and Howard Florey, who isolated and purified penicillin, are all Nobel Laureates born in which country?

Answer 8

Australia

Question 9

Which landmark of East Anglia owes its distinctive profile to the 14th Century engineering work of Alan de Walsingham?

Answer 9

Ely Cathedral

Question 10

What’s the present-day name of the capital city known until 1975 as Lourenco Marques?

Answer 10

Maputo

Question 11

Which form of transport was first developed in Yokohama in 1869 by the Reverend Jonathan Scobie, for use of his invalid wife?

Answer 11

Rickshaw

Question 12

Which entertainer, whose real name was Daniel Patrick Carroll, was once described by Bob Hope as the most glamorous woman in the world?

Answer 12

Danny La Rue

Question 13

What is the Latin name for the element Sodium, giving rise to its chemical formula Na?

Answer 13

Natrium

Question 14

The so-called Wicked Bible was printed in 1631 by Barker and Lucas in Blackfriars in London, and its nickname arises from a misprint of some rather crucial words in Exodus. What four word phrase, in particular, is responsible for this Bible’s notoriety?

Answer 14

Thou shalt commit adultery

Question 15

What word for a source of wealth, often associated with a large output from a mine, comes from a Spanish term for good weather?

Answer 15

Bonanza

Question 16

What is the name of the American golfer who, in 1971, became the first to win the UK, US and Canadian open in the same year?

Answer 16

Lee Trevino

Question 17

The French term houille blanc and the German Weisse Kohle, both literally meaning White Coal, refer specifically to what?

Answer 17

Hydro-electric power

Question 18

In physics, what name is given to a tiny particle emitted from a radioactive nucleus during beta decay that specifically contains no charge?

Answer 18

Neutrino

Question 19

Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave, is a work of fiction published in London in 1688, about an African prince tricked into slavery and barbarically killed, by a female writer about whom little is known. What was her name?

Answer 19

Aphra Behn

Question 20

Cyrophytes, a group of organisms which are most likely to be algae and fungi, thrive in which specific type of environment?

Answer 20

Ice and snow

Question 21

In 1974, after a rock concert in Boston, the music critic John Landau wrote “I saw the rock and roll future, and its name is…” - with which name did he complete the sentence?

Answer 21

Bruce Springsteen

Question 22

Hydrated magnesium silicate is often used in the home. By what everyday name do we know it in that context?

Answer 22

Talc

Question 23

Now an archaic poetic term, a Palfrey was a horse meant especially to be ridden by which group of people?

Answer 23

Women

Question 24

Heard in the US Supreme Court in 1893, the case of Nix v Hedden established that which edible crop was a vegetable and not a fruit?

Answer 24

Tomato

Question 25

Also a musical term for a florid melodic passage in music, what name was given to the posture in ballet where the dancer stands with one leg extended horizontally backwards, the torso extended forwards and the arms outstretched?

Answer 25

Arabesque

Question 26

In the 2005 Julian Barnes novel Arthur and George, George Edalji is a solicitor accused of mutilating horses. Who is Arthur, the novelist whose investigations help acquit him of the charge?

Answer 26

Conan Doyle

Question 27

Bernardo O’Higgins was the first President of which country?

Answer 27

Chile

Question 28

Which species of North American pit viper gave its name to a Northerner sympathetic to the South, or opposed to Lincoln’s policies, in the American Civil War?

Answer 28

Copperhead

Question 29

The term dystrophy, as in muscular dystrophy, literally refers to a fault or defect in what function?

Answer 29

Nutrition

Question 30

Franz Schubert’s Ninth Symphony is known as the Great, but which number is ascribed to his so-called Unfinished Symphony?

Answer 30

Eight

Question 31

If all of the characters in the Bible were listed alphabetically, who would come first?

Answer 31

Aaron

Question 32

In the BBC TV Series Yes Minister, by Anthony Jay and Johnathan Lynn, to which fictional government department was Jim Hacker first appointed a minister?

Answer 32

Department of Administrative Affairs

Question 33

Which popular grape variety is used to produce the wines of Chablis?

Answer 33

Chardonnay

Question 34

Which humorous artist and musician often used to sign his name with a trademark signature in which the double f in his surname was replaced by two treble clefs?

Answer 34

Hoffnung

Question 35

“It’s being so cheerful that’s as keeps me going” was the catchphrase of the character Mona Lott, in which classic radio comedy show popular in the 1940s?

Answer 35

It’s That Man Again (ITMA)

Question 36

Which two-word phrase, indicating the tendency of writers and artists to ascribe human emotions and sympathies to nature, was coined by John Ruskin in the third volume of his word Modern Painters?

Answer 36

Pathetic Fallacy

Question 37

Which Spanish city has a name that literally means pomegranate?

Answer 37

Granada

Question 38

What’s the name of the unfeasibly articulate and scheming toddler at the centre of the cartoon series Family Guy?

Answer 38

Stewie

Question 39

What name describes a mechanical model, usually clockwork, representing the motions of the planets around the sun, an example having been depicted in a famous 18th century painting by Joseph Wright of Derby?

Answer 39

Orrery

Question 40

Which American woman, who escaped from slavery in Maryland in the 1840 is remembered for helping over 300 Southern slaves to freedom via the so-called Underground Railroad of safe houses?

Answer 40

Harriet Tubman