Quiz 32

Question 1

The St Scholastica’s Day Massacre in 1355 took place in which English City?

Answer 1

Oxford

Question 2

The violinist and conductor Charles Williams composed Devil’s Gallop, a piece used as the title music for which radio series, first broadcast in 1946?

Answer 2

Dick Barton, Special Agent

Question 3

Which Mediterranean island’s south-eastern tip is Cape Carbonara?

Answer 3

Sardinia

Question 4

The tilt of the Earth’s axis is referred to by the phrase - the obliquity of the… what?

Answer 4

Ecliptic

Question 5

What was the bandleader Count Basie’s actual first name?

Answer 5

William

Question 6

In which country will you find the Spitzkoppe, a mountain known locally as the Matterhorn of Africa?

Answer 6

Namibia

Question 7

Which type of plant, popular as a flowering houseplant, is named after a US Minister to Mexico, who introduced it to the United States?

Answer 7

Poinsettia

Question 8

The words “Cormac MacCarthy fortis me fieri fecit AD 1446” are inscribed on what?

Answer 8

Blarney Stone

Question 9

Only Connect, now the name of a TV quiz show, is also the epigraph to which novel by EM Forster?

Answer 9

Howard’s End

Question 10

Which African country takes its name from a Portuguese word for shrimps?

Answer 10

Cameroon

Question 11

Which medical affliction that results in perceptual distortions of the size and shape of objects was identified by the psychiatrist John Todd in 1955, and named after a novel first published in 1865?

Answer 11

Alice in Wonderland

Question 12

“It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail”, is a quote attributed to which American author who died in 2012 aged 86?

Answer 12

Gore Vidal

Question 13

Which opera ends with Azucena’s revelation that she threw the wrong baby into the fire?

Answer 13

Il Trovatore

Question 14

Which flower, because of its strong smell, has a name meaning nose-twister

Answer 14

Nasturtium

Question 15

Otorhinolaryngology is the full title of the branch of medicine and surgery that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the head and neck, but derives its name from which three specific parts of the body?

Answer 15

Ear, Nose and Throat

Question 16

All That Fall is a radio play first broadcast in 1957, commissioned by the BBC from which playwright who was later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Answer 16

Samuel Beckett

Question 17

In which major European art gallery will you find the 1812 Gallery, the Malachite Hall and the Hall of St George?

Answer 17

Hermitage

Question 18

What should you expect to find inside a Warden pie?

Answer 18

Pears

Question 19

In which city did Sally Gunnell win her Olympic 400m hurdles gold medal?

Answer 19

Barcelona

Question 20

What name is given to the civilisation known to have flourished in Southern Mexico, generally considered the first Meso-American civilisation?

Answer 20

Olmec

Question 21

Which record label, founded in New York in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, had its first success with a recording by Sidney Bechet, and went on to become associated with the 1950s be-bop of Thelonius Monk, Horace Silver, the Jazz Messengers and the MJQ?

Answer 21

Blue Note

Question 22

Which 1836 battle saw the capture of the Mexican General Santa Anna and effectively marked the end of the Texas Revolution?

Answer 22

San Jacinto

Question 23

What does the abbreviation TNT stand for, when applied to the widely used explosive?

Answer 23

Trinitrotoluene

Question 24

Which 1859 historical novel features chapters called Knitting, Still Knitting and The Knitting Done?

Answer 24

A Tale Of Two Cities

Question 25

Which city, the capital of the Philippines between 1948 and 1976, is named after the country’s president between 1935 and 1944?

Answer 25

Quezon

Question 26

What five-word phrase is a recommended form of greeting to be used at the beginning of a letter written directly to the Queen?

Answer 26

May it please your Majesty

Question 27

A substance known as C90 is often used on film sets, for what purpose?

Answer 27

Fake snow

Question 28

Which anarchic theatrical character was created by the French dramatist Alfred Jarry in the 1890s, his name being adopted by an alternative rock group from Ohio in the 1970s?

Answer 28

Pere Ubu

Question 29

Which was the first professional football club for which Sir Stanley Matthews played?

Answer 29

Stoke City

Question 30

Which British chemist, particularly noted for his work on plant pigments, alkaloids and other natural products, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1947?

Answer 30

Robert Robinson

Question 31

In astronomy, which term is used to describe the observable lengthening of the wavelength of light from an object as a result of that object’s motion away from it?

Answer 31

Red shift

Question 32

Lake Wenham in Massachusetts became the most famous supplier of what commodity to Victorian Britain?

Answer 32

Ice

Question 33

Which adjective, meaning completely honest and just, derives from the name of the son of Zeus and Europa?

Answer 33

Rhadamanthine

Question 34

The genre of Japanese painting called Ukiyo-e, characterised by screen paintings and wood block prints, which flourished during the Tokugawa period, is sometimes known in English as art of the - what?

Answer 34

Floating world

Question 35

Named after the 19th century French scientist Jean Louis Marie Poiseuille, the poise is a standard unit used to measure which physical property of a liquid?

Answer 35

Viscocity

Question 36

The book Ten Days That Shook The World by the American journalist John Reed, is an account of which event?

Answer 36

The Russian Revolution

Question 37

An LED display has been a familiar feature of electronic devices over the past fifty years or so. What do the letters LED stand for?

Answer 37

Light Emitting Diode

Question 38

Malin Head, the northernmost point of mainland Ireland, is not in Northern Ireland. In which county of the Republic does it lie?

Answer 38

Donegal

Question 39

An Aubade, often found in the form of a love song or poem about lovers, refers to which specific time of day?

Answer 39

Dawn