Quiz 41

Question 1

Which Shakespeare play features characters described in the dramatis personae as “A Son that has killed his father”, and “A Father that has killed his son”?

Answer 1

Henry VI part 3

Question 2

Science of Logic, completed in 1816, is the work of which German philosopher?

Answer 2

George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Question 3

Of which Cabinet Minister, one of Margaret Thatcher’s most trusted lieutenants, did John Junor write that he would not be two-faced if there was a third one available?

Answer 3

William Whitelaw

Question 4

In psychology, which term, derived from the Latin for flight, is used to refer to an abnormal state of mind in which some emotional stress compels a sufferer to leave home, usually in a temporary state of amnesia, and sometimes to assume a new identity?

Answer 4

Dissociative Fugue State

Question 5

Leinster House in Dublin, the seat of the Irish parliament, is said to have been the model for which famous building?

Answer 5

The White House

Question 6

Which capital city would have hosted the 1916 Summer Olympic Games but for the First World War?

Answer 6

Berlin

Question 7

Which figure in English history was known by various unflattering nicknames including Tumbledown Dick and Queen’s Dick, and spent about twenty years in exile in continental Europe using the name John Clarke?

Answer 7

Richard Cromwell

Question 8

Which weekly literary magazine - first published in 1919 and especially popular between the wars - took its title from the pen name of Wilfred Whitten, its founding editor?

Answer 8

John O’London’s Weekly

Question 9

What term is widely used in art for the halo around the head of a sacred figure?

Answer 9

Nimbus (or Aureole or Glory)

Question 10

In 1714, which German physicist invented the first mercury thermometer?

Answer 10

Gabriel Farenheit

Question 11

Hisarlik in present day Turkey is generally accepted by archaeologists to be the location of which important ancient city?

Answer 11

Troy

Question 12

Il Milione was the contemporary title of a bestselling book of the 14th century, a record of the travels of which merchant and explorer?

Answer 12

Marco Polo

Question 13

A dzo is a hybrid of which two mammals

Answer 13

Yak and Cow

Question 14

The Druid in the Asterix books by Goscinny and Uderzo is known in the English translation as Getafix. What’s his name in the original French version?

Answer 14

Panoramix

Question 15

According to the book of Proverbs, the price of a virtuous woman is - what?

Answer 15

Above rubies

Question 16

The tragic heroine of Scott’s Bride of Lammermoor, Miss Westenra, Dracula’s first victim in England and the protagonist and narrator of Charlotte Bronte’s Villette share which forename?

Answer 16

Lucy

Question 17

Biliary calculi, or cholelithiasis, is a medical condition more colloquially referred to by what name?

Answer 17

Gallstones

Question 18

Fort Sumpter, whose bombardment in April 1861 opened the American Civil War, is a site on an island that protected the harbour of which US city?

Answer 18

Charleston

Question 19

The actress Melanie Griffith is the daughter of which movie star, noted especially for roles in Alfred Hitchcock films?

Answer 19

Tippi Hedren

Question 20

Which highly explosive mixture of mostly picric acid - once used by British troops in ordnance shells - is named after the village on Kent’s Romney Marshes where it was first manufactured?

Answer 20

Lyddite

Question 21

What is the fanciful name for the leathery egg case of the ray, skate or shark, frequently found washed up by the waves on the beach?

Answer 21

Mermaid’s purse

Question 22

Which literary work, published in 1876, has the subtitle An Agony in Eight Fits?

Answer 22

The Hunting of the Snark

Question 23

In 1702, which successful English General was appointed the first Duke of Marlborough?

Answer 23

John Churchill

Question 24

In 1907, which American photographer took the iconic picture of people on the decks of the steamer SS Kaiser Wilhelm II as it crossed the Atlantic, with the title The Steerage?

Answer 24

Alfred Stieglitz

Question 25

By what name is crystalline sodium carbonate better known when used in the home?

Answer 25

Washing soda

Question 26

In one of the most famous heckles in musical history, what name was hurled at Bob Dylan by a member of the audience at a concert in Manchester in May 1966, in protest at his use of electric instruments?

Answer 26

Judas!

Question 27

In the human body the Canal of Wirsung connects the duodenum with which organ?

Answer 27

Pancreas

Question 28

Which three allied leaders met at the Cairo Conference of November 1943?

Answer 28

Churchill, Roosevelt, Chiang Kai-Shek

Question 29

Where, in 1843, did Sir Robert Peel issue a political manifesto credited as having laid down the principles credited as having laid down the principles upon which the modern Conservative party is based?

Answer 29

Tamworth

Question 30

What name is given to a bridge which has a suspended platform in order to carry vehicles and passengers over water, examples of which have been in use at Newport, Runcorn-Widnes and Middlesbrough?

Answer 30

Transporter

Question 31

Solidus, virgule and shilling are terms used to describe a punctuation mark now more commonly known by which name?

Answer 31

Forward slash

Question 32

Poll taxes were imposed on the English people in 1377, 1379 and 1380, under which king?

Answer 32

Richard II

Question 33

What substance is responsible for variation in skin, eye and hair colour?

Answer 33

Melanin

Question 34

Once the tallest building in the world, before it was superseded by American skyscrapers, the Gothic Munster in which south-western German city has a steeple measuring some 161 metres or almost 350 feet?

Answer 34

Ulm

Question 35

Which American soul singer was the long-standing lead vocalist with the Four Tops, and also provided the voice of the plant in the 1986 Frank Oz film of Little Shop of Horrors?

Answer 35

Levi Stubbs

Question 36

What branch of theology deals with the last things - death, judgement, heaven and hell, in short what might be called the Last Judgement?

Answer 36

Eschatology

Question 37

Which town’s Rugby League team was at one time known as The Chemics, and are now known as The Vikings?

Answer 37

Widnes

Question 38

What term was coined by Ukrainian-American Nobel laureate Selman Waksman for the bacteria-killing chemicals derived from micro-organisms?

Answer 38

Antibiotics

Question 39

The Belly of an Architect, A Zed and Two Noughts and The Pillow Book are among the film of which idiosyncratic British director born in 1942?

Answer 39

Peter Greenaway

Question 40

Horace Lindrum, in 1952, was the first Australian winner of the World Championship of which sport?

Answer 40

Snooker