Rosebery #3 Flashcards
Located in the Mariana Trench, what is the the deepest known point in the Earth’s oceans?
Challenger Deep
What Spanish surrealist’s best-known work is The Persistence of Memory?
Salvador Dali
Under which name did Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst rule as Empress of All the Russias?
Catherine (II or the Great)
In which 1942 film does most of the action take place in and around the nightclub and gambling den, “Rick’s Café Américain?”
Casablanca
The Treaty of Waitangi is regarded as the founding document of the government of which country?
New Zealand
What treaty officially ended World War I between the Allies and Germany?
Treaty of Versailles (1919)
Which battle between British forces and the United States occurred after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812?
(Battle of) New Orleans
What do chemists call molecular entities capable of donating a proton or, in the special case of aqueous solutions, forming the hydronium ion H3O+?
(Bronsted) acids
What is the IUPAC name for the muriatic acid available in hardware stores, often used for removing calcium carbonate build-up in pipes?
hydrochloric (acid)
Ascorbic acid is more commonly known by what name, especially when used as a food additive or preservative?
vitamin C
Methanoic acid is also called formic acid because it occurs naturally in which insects for whom the Latin is formicae?
ants
Identify the speaker of the following line and the play in which the line is spoken: “The quality of mercy is not strained.”
Portia in The Merchant of Venice
What country’s currency is renminbi (RMB), the basic unit of which is the yuan?
China
Until 1971, British prices were given in pounds, shillings, and pence. How many pennies were there in a shilling?
12
What was currency of the Netherlands from the 17th century until 2002, when it was replaced by the euro?
(Dutch) guilder
After the U.S. Dollar and the Euro, what is the world’s most traded currency, by value?
(Japanese) yen
What is the Roman name for the Greek god Zeus?
Jupiter
What is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Hestia?
Vesta
What is the Roman name for the Greek god Dionysus?
Bacchus
What is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Athena?
Minerva
What is the Roman name for the Greek god Ares?
Mars
What is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Hera?
Juno
What is the Roman name for the Greek god Hermes?
Mercury
What is the Roman name for the Greek goddess Demeter?
Ceres
What fictional character in The Railway Series books by the Reverend Wilbert Awdry was the title character in the accompanying television spin-off series?
Thomas (the Tank Engine)
What famous building is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.?
White House
What English mathematician published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine such as Babbage’s Analytical Engine is therefore often regarded as the first computer programmer?
(Ada, Countess of) Lovelace
What sport’s professional leagues include Bundesliga, Serie A (“ah”), Ligue 1 (“un”), EPL, and MLS?
Association football or soccer
What term is used to describe any of the member states of the Swiss Confederation?
canton
Who is often known as the father of modern epidemiology, in part for his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in London in 1854?
John Snow
In physics, what term is used to describe the rate of change in an object’s acceleration?
jerk
What language has historically also been known as Cambrian or Cymric (“kim-rick”)?
Welsh
What gemstone, an amorphous form of silica primarily found in Australia, is known for its “play-of-color?” Its types include white, black, and fire.
opal
On which scale of natural mineral hardness is a diamond always a 10, at the top of the scale?
Mohs’ (Scale of Mineral Hardness)
Which gemstone is a variety of the mineral corundum, or aluminum oxide, in which some aluminum atoms are replaced by chromium atoms?
ruby
The gemstone jet is a mineraloid with an organic origin, deriving from which natural substance?
wood
I am one of the most visited sites in the world, typically receiving more than 8 million visitors a year. I was originally built in the 12th century, although my current use dates to the 18th century. A glass pyramid stands over my current main entrance. The Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo are two of the best-known works in my collection. What am I?
Louvre (Museum)
What punctuation marks do English speakers typically use where French speakers use guillemets, or sideways double chevrons?
quotation marks
French classifies nouns as masculine or feminine. German classifies nouns as masculine, feminine, or which third gender?
neuter
What do British speakers typically call the punctuation mark that North American speakers call the period?
full stop (or full point)
What type of verb requires one or more objects?
transitive
Oysters, squids, and snails are all members of which biological phylum?
Mollusca (or mollusks)
The family Ursidae comprises 8 species of which type of animal?
bear(s)
The order Cetartiodactyla includes hippos, giraffes, and surprisingly also cetaceans, which are better known as what?
whales (and dolphins)
What is the scientific (genus and species) name for the common house cat?
Felis catus
Who is the author of the following line of poetry: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold?”
(W.B.) Yeats
Who is the author of the following line of poetry: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield?”
(Alfred, Lord) Tennyson
Who is the author of the following line of poetry: “To err is human; to forgive, divine?”
(Alexander) Pope
Who is the author of the following line of poetry: “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose?”
(Gertrude) Stein
What machines, invented by the Germans, were the subject of much study by the Polish Cipher Bureau, who later passed their knowledge along to the British working at Bletchley Park?
Enigma (Machines)
A shift cipher, in which each letter is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions down the alphabet, is also called what, after a person who used it in his private correspondence?
Caesar (cipher)
The Babington Plot to assassinate which monarch was foiled by cryptanalyst Thomas Phelippes, who cracked the substitution cipher the conspirators used?
(Queen) Elizabeth I (prompt on “Elizabeth”)
What innovation in computing threatens to render the public-key cryptography that underpins current Internet standards obsolete?
quantum computing
The two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch in cricket are called what?
wicket(s)
During which phase of mitosis do replicated chromosomes split and daughter chromatids move to opposite poles of the cell?
anaphase
What American singer-songwriter rose to fame in the late 1990s as the lead singer of the R&B girl group Destiny’s Child?
Beyonce or Giselle Knowles-Carter
What religion’s most famous shrines include the Fushimi Inari Shrine and the Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island?
Shinto(ism)
What fictional young reporter, often accompanied by his dog Snowy (or Milou in French) is the hero of an adventure series created by Belgian cartoonist Hergé?
Tintin
What Italian artist is credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture and designed a number of fountains in Rome, including the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona?
(Gian Lorenzo) Bernini
By which two letters and number is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom commonly known?
MI6
Which famous experiment, named for the Yale psychologist who conducted it, measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure and produced unsettling results?
Milgram (experiment)
Which Canadian sports coach is credited with the invention of the game of basketball?
(James) Naismith
Which West African empire of the 13th through the 17th centuries was renowned for the wealth of its kings?
Mali
Which of Beethoven’s symphonies is also known as the Fate Symphony?
Fifth (or C Minor)
For which instrument is Polish composer Frédéric Chopin best known, both for playing and for composing solo works for?
piano
Which English composer is best known for his orchestral suite The Planets, which includes the movement Mars, the Bringer of War?
(Gustav) Holst
On which date in 1789 was the Bastille Saint-Antoine fortress and armory stormed by the Paris mob?
14 July
Which public square in Paris was the site of many notable public executions during the Revolution, during which it was named the Place de la Révolution?
Place de la Concorde
The 1794 arrest and execution of which Jacobin leader is considered have ended the Reign of Terror?
(Maximilien) Robespierre
Which novel by Charles Dickens is set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution?
A Tale of Two Cities
What particle, discovered in 1995, is the most massive of all observed elementary particles?
top (or truth) quark
A muon is an elementary particle similar to which lighter, more stable, and much more familiar particle?
electron
What is the only fundamental particle named after a person?
Higgs (boson)
I was born in 1936 and died very unexpectedly in 1990 at age 53 of toxic shock syndrome caused by a strep bacterial infection. I started my career in high school, working for a Saturday morning children’s show, and in university, I created the five-minute Sam and Friends television segments. Although I spent most of my career working in television, I also wrote and directed movies, including the dark fantasies The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. I am best known as the creator of the Muppets and was the voice of Kermit the Frog until my death. Who am I?
Jim Henson
Which illuminated manuscript of the Gospels in Latin, created around 800 CE and kept in the Trinity College Library, is one of Ireland’s national treasures?
Book of Kells
What name was given to the nearly-complete Australopithecus afarensis skeleton discovered in Ethiopia in 1974?
Lucy
In which board game, one of the first German games to achieve world-wide popularity, do players roll dice to acquire brick, lumber, wool, grain, and ore?
Settlers of Catan
To 5 decimal places, what is the value of pi?
3.14159
Legally, a person who has died “intestate” is a person who has died without what?
a will
Some people carry a gene that makes which common herb taste like soap?
coriander (or cilantro)
By latitude, what is the southernmost team in the NHL?
(Florida) Panthers
The thylacine, a large carnivorous marsupial that went extinct in the 20th century, was more commonly known as what?
Tasmanian tiger (or Tasmanian wolf)
Demasduit, or Mary March, was one of the last of which culture of indigenous people from the island of Newfoundland?
Beothuk
“Parliament” may be used as a collective noun to describe a group of which type of animal?
owl(s)
What large near-Earth asteroid was named for the ancient Egyptian embodiment of chaos?
(99942) Apophis
What large biting flies are the biological vectors of trypanosomes, which cause sleeping sickness?
tse tse (flies) (or tik-tik flies)
In which ballet is it common for the same dancer to dance the parts of both Odette and Odile?
Swan Lake
What is 100 degrees Celsius in degrees Fahrenheit?
212
