Rosebery #4 Flashcards
Salts of which metal are typically used to give orange fireworks their distinctive colour?
calcium
What obsolete British coin was equal to one-quarter of a penny?
farthing
What is the title of the 2016 film, based on the non-fiction book of the same name, about black female mathematicians who worked at NASA during the Space Race?
Hidden Figures
What is the Pleistocene mammal Smilodon better known as?
saber-toothed tiger (or saber-toothed cat)
Which painter painted the piece entitled “Impression, soleil levant” that gave the Impressionist movement its name?
(Claude) Monet
Which of the “grandes dames” of Impressionism was best known for her paintings of the daily lives of women, particularly mothers with their children, such as “The Child’s Bath?”
(Mary) Cassatt
Who was the only painter, the most senior of the Impressionists and a father figure to many, to show his work at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions?
(Camille) Pissarro
Which disease was the target of an intensive vaccination effort by the World Health Organization starting in 1967, resulting in the eradication of the disease in the wild in ten years?
smallpox
What is the more common name for pertussis, now one of the most common vaccine-preventable bacterial diseases in North America as vaccination rates have fallen?
whooping cough
Who developed the first polio vaccine in the 1950s?
(Jonas) Salk
The only two diseases to have been eradicated by vaccination are smallpox and rinderpest, which affected what type of animal?
cattle (accept “cows”)
Identify the title and composer of the 1924 musical composition for piano and jazz band that opens with a clarinet glissando.
Rhapsody in Blue by (George) Gershwin
Who were the indigenous people of the northern island of Hokkaido, now assimilated into Japanese culture?
Ainu
What title did Minamoto no Yoritomo take after seizing power in 1185 and setting up his capital in Kamakura?
Shogun
What was the former name of the city that was renamed Tokyo after the fall of the shogunate in 1868?
Edo
Which emperor announced Japan’s unconditional surrender on 15 August 1945, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
(Emperor) Hirohito
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Gertrude, Polonius, and Ophelia appear?
Hamlet
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Katherina, Bianca, and Petruchio appear?
The Taming of the Shrew
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia appear?
King Lear
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Caliban, Miranda, and Prospero appear?
The Tempest
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Benvolio, Mercutio, and Tybalt appear?
Romeo and Juliet
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Oberon, Titania, and Puck appear?
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Cassio, Desdemona, and Iago appear?
Othello
Identify the Shakespearean play in which the characters Viola, Sebastian, and Malvolio appear?
Twelfth Night
What current comedy television show is known for its discourses on ethics and moral philosophy and even titled one episode, “The Trolley Problem?”
The Good Place
In which professional sports league do the Seattle Storm, Minnesota Lynx, and Los Angeles Sparks play?
Women’s National Basketball Association (or WNBA)
In 4/4 time, for how many beats is a semibreve note held?
four
What common household devices contain typically contain radioactive Americium-241 sources?
(ionization) smoke detectors
What two letters may be substituted for the German letter Eszett, particularly in Swiss German?
double s
What yellow flower is the symbol of the Canadian Cancer Society?
daffodil
What do we call the change in the frequency or “pitch” of a sound wave heard by an observer moving relative to the source?
Doppler effect (or Doppler shift)
The Poet was the original title of which bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin?
The Thinker
What U.S. street is known for the fifteen blocks between La Brea Avenue and Gower Street that feature five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks?
Hollywood Boulevard
In which city is Shankill Road, a centre for loyalist paramilitary groups during the Troubles, located?
Belfast
The name of which New York City street, deriving from the wooden palisade that stood at the edge of the Dutch settlement, is now a metonym for the financial sector in the United States?
Wall Street
In which city can you find the Via Dolorosa, the “Way of Sorrow,” believed to be the path that Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion?
Jerusalem
I am one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions, drawing millions of visitors a year. Although I am not usually known as such, I am a church, consecrated to Christ and Christian Martyrs. My name is believed to have been derived from the large statue of the emperor that stood nearby. My inaugural games lasted for over a hundred days and included both animal entertainments and gladiatorial contests. What am I?
Colosseum
According to Greek mythology, under which mountain was the monster Typhon trapped by Zeus? The forges of Hephaestus were also located underneath it.
Etna
Which Greek island and popular tourist destination is the largest island of the small, circular archipelago that is the remnant of the volcanic caldera of the Minoan eruption?
Santorini (or Thira)
Which Hawaiian volcano erupted explosively in 2018, its lava flows consuming hundreds of homes and destroying Hawaii’s largest freshwater lake?
Kilauea
In which country is the dormant volcano (and highest mountain in Africa) Kilimanjaro located?
Tanzania
Which Persian legendary creature has the head of a human, the body of a lion, and a venomous tail?
Manticore
What word, meaning “fox” in Japanese, is used in English to refer to the fox spirits in Japanese folklore?
Kitsune
In Algonquin folklore, what malevolent, cannibalistic, supernatural being was strongly associated with famine and starvation?
Wendigo (or Windigo)
What kind of creature is Buckbeak, the creature rescued by Harry Potter and his friends in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban?
Hippogriff
Which comic book series featured the first appearance of Superman in its first issue?
Action Comics
What former Marvel Comics writer and editor-in-chief is known for his cameo appearances in many Marvel films?
Stan Lee
Which comic book and manga publisher publishes the Hellboy and Star Wars comics and also published Frank Miller’s Sin City?
Dark Horse (Comics)
What DC Comics limited series written by Alan Moore featured the characters Rorschach, Nite Owl, and Doctor Manhattan, among others?
Watchmen
In 1869, what was published in its first recognizable version – even including gaps for as-yet-unknown elements – by the chemist Dmitri Mendeleev?
Periodic Table (of the Elements)
Who, in 1789, published the first grouped list of chemical elements, organized into gases, metals, nonmetals, and earths?
(Antoine) Lavoisier
As of 2016, the Periodic Table has how many confirmed elements?
118
What is the first element in the chalcogen chemical group or family?
oxygen
In which battle were the Jacobite forces of Charles Stuart decisively defeated by the Hanoverian forces commanded by the Duke of Cumberland in the Scottish Highlands?
(Battle of) Culloden
What modern racquet sport was developed in British India from the earlier game of battledore and shuttlecock?
badminton
What is the SI unit for electrical capacitance, named for a British physicist?
farad
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham follows the adventures of Rat, Mole, Badger, and which motorcar-obsessed country squire?
(Mr.) Toad (of Toad Hall)
In Judaism, what is the holiest day of the year, also known as the Day of Atonement?
Yom Kippur
What Broadway musical tells the story of what happened when 38 planes were ordered to land unexpectedly in the town of Gander following the attacks of 9/11?
Come From Away
Consisting of 21 day-long stages over the course of 23 days, what annual men’s bicycle race has its finish on the Champs-Élysées?
Tour de France
In classical mathematics, what number was a “myriad?”
10 000
Who served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea from 1976 to 1979, overseeing policies that resulted in the deaths of approximately 25% of the country’s population?
Pol Pot
Which element is also known by the name “wolfram,” from which its chemical symbol is derived?
tungsten
What now-reclaimed symbol was first used as a Nazi concentration camp badge, identifying those who were imprisoned because they were homosexual?
(inverted) pink triangle
What country was the first in the world to legalize same-sex marriage, starting in 2001?
Netherlands
What term is used by many indigenous North American communities to describe people who fulfill a traditional third-gender (or other gender-variant) role in their cultures?
two-spirited
On which date in 1944 did Operation Neptune, or the Normandy Landings by the Allied forces, occur?
6 June
In advance of the Normandy invasion, which German Field Marshal was charged with developing the fortifications along the Atlantic Wall?
(Erwin) Rommel
Which beach, from Courseulles to Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, was the Canadian Army responsible for taking during the invasion of Normandy?
Juno (Beach)
What 1998 Steven Spielberg film opens with a graphic depiction of the Omaha Beach assault?
Saving Private Ryan
What is the more common name for adipose tissue, which contains globules of glycerol esters?
fat (tissue)
Cortisol, a steroid hormone that is released in response to stress, is produced by which gland in the body?
adrenal (gland)
With which blood-coagulating vitamin do we routinely inject newborns?
(Vitamin) K
I was born in South Africa in 1892 and studied at Oxford before reluctantly serving in the British Army in the First World War. I later became a professor at Oxford, where I was a member of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. After my death, my son published a series of works based my extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts. I am best known as the author of the classic high fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Who am I?
J.R.R. Tolkein
Standing over the city of Dubai at over 828 m tall, what is the world’s tallest artificial structure?
Burj Khalifa
Which headliner closed out the Woodstock music festival on the last morning, his performance featuring a now-iconic rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner?”
Jimi Hendrix
What is the trademarked name for the highly absorptive pigment made of vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays?
Vantablack
Which animation film studio, featuring Totoro as the studio’s mascot, was co-founded by the director Hayao Miyazaki?
(Studio) Ghibli
What stacking game takes its name from the Swahili for “build?”
Jenga
What two-time U.S. President ran for a third time as the candidate for the Progressive, or “Bull Moose” party he founded?
Theodore Roosevelt (prompt on “Roosevelt”)
In Imperial units, what unit is equal to one eighth of a mile, or 660 feet, and rarely used except in horse racing?
furlong
What Canadian former ice hockey player, a member of the Canadian women’s national team for 23 years, was widely considered the greatest female ice hockey player in the world?
(Hayley) Wickenheiser
In physics, the slope of a velocity-time graph is equal to which physical quantity?
acceleration
What famous tongue twister is supposedly about early paleontologist Mary Anning, who supported herself selling some of the fossils she found to geologists and tourists?
She sells sea shells by the seashore.
What is the name of the star, located in the constellation of Boötes, that is the closest red giant to Earth and the brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere?
Arcturus
What pint-sized ancient Gaulish warrior was, with his friend Obelix, the hero of a comic adventure series written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo?
Asterix
What term is used to describe a market in which prices are falling, which would be the opposite of a bull market?
bear (market)
In which 1981 arcade game did the video game character Mario make his first appearance?
A. DONKEY KONG
Donkey Kong
