Season 4 - Week 9 Flashcards
Which body of water is bounded by the Arabian Peninsula to the south and west and
by Iran to the east? In 1991, Iraqi forces dumped 4 million barrels of oil into this body of water to try to prevent US Marines landing on the coast of Kuwait.
Persian Gulf (accept Arabian Gulf; do not accept “Arabian Sea” or “Gulf of Oman”)
Hindu deities have animal vahanas, or vehicles, on which they travel. What animal
traditionally serves as a vahana for the Hindu warrior goddesses Jagaddhatri,
Narasimhi, and Mariamman? In Egyptian myth, the goddess of war Sekhmet is
portrayed as a version of this animal, while, in Greek myth, this animal makes up one of
the composite parts of both the chimaera and the sphinx.
Lion or lioness
Which English meteorologist gives his name to the “cell” of global air circulation in
which warm air rises around the equator, moves towards the poles, descends in the
subtropics, and then returns towards the equator?
George Hadley
Which hard-right nationalist political party did Giorgia Meloni co-found in 2012 and
lead to victory in the 2022 general election? Its name is taken from the first line of the
Italian national anthem.
Brothers of Italy (or Fratelli d’Italia or FdI)
In the traditional Indian numbering system, used throughout much of South Asia, what
name is given to the unit equal to one hundred thousand?
Lakh
Sancho Panza is the vulgar, pot-bellied squire to which minor nobleman from La
Mancha in an epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes?
Don Quixote
Now perhaps best known for its act one cavatina ‘Saper Bramate’, which was the most
successful opera written by Giovanni Paisiello? Premiered in 1782, it was so successful that an opera composed in 1816 that is now known by this title was originally called Almaviva to avoid comparison. Paisiello himself led a mob to disrupt the premiere of
that opera.
Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia La precauzione inutile or The Barber of Seville, or The
Useless Precaution
What name, meaning “slow steppers”, did Italian biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani give to
the phylum of microscopic eight-legged relatives of the arthropods? They are known
for their ability to survive extreme conditions such as high radiation, dehydration, and
extreme temperatures and pressures, and some have even survived exposure to outer
space.
Tardigrada (or tardigrades; also accept water bears, or moss piglets, or kleiner
Wasserbär)
Which French structural anthropologist developed the concept of ‘bricolage’ – the
skill of using that which is at hand and recombining it to create something new – to
describe the characteristic patterns of mythological thought?
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Which city is the largest in Indonesia not to be located on the island of Java? Its
location in the north of Sumatra across the Straits of Malacca from the Malaysian city
of Penang has enabled it to become an important trading port.
Medan
Which French aviator wrote the acclaimed memoirs Terre des hommes (Wind, Sand and
Stars) and Vol de Nuit (Night Flight) but is best remembered for his novella for children
Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince)?
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Saxo Grammaticus is a 12th-century historian and author from which country, which he
chronicled in his best-known work? That work includes a story of this country’s Prince
Amleth, the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Denmark
Frank Uwe Laysiepen, better-known as Ulay, is best known for his collaborative works
with which Serbian performance artist? Ulay and this woman were romantic partners
until 1988 when they ended their relationship in a performance called Lovers in which
each walked the Great Wall of China from a different direction.
Marina Abramović
Which liberal, centrist party was founded by Emmanuel Macron in 2016 and went on
to win a large majority in the 2017 legislative election? After the 2022 elections, this
party entered a coalition called Ensemble Citoyens with Democratic Movement and
Horizons. You may answer with either this party’s current or former name, both of
which suggest an intention to modernise and renew French politics.
Renaissance (or RE; previously known as La République En Marche, or LREM, or
LaREM, or REM)
While there are 24,000 recognised species, a 2016 DNA barcoding study suggested it is
more likely there are a million species in which phylum of worms? These very small
worms with a collagen cuticle have adapted to almost every ecosystem on earth and
there may be 60 billion individuals for every human.
Nematoda or nematodes, or roundworms, or eelworms; do not accept Nemertea
or Nematomorphs
What name is given to a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space?
Two-dimensional examples of these spaces are known as surfaces.
Manifold
The largest oil spill in history, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill took place in 2010 in which
body of water? The Ixtoc I oil spill, also among the largest in history, also took place in
this body of water
Gulf of Mexico or Golfo de México
Which Italian journalist and author made his name writing satirical sketches during the
Italian Wars of Independence but is best known today for his children’s novel Le
avventure di Pinocchio (The Adventures of Pinocchio)?
Carlo Collodi
The Battle of Tsushima took place in May 1905 and caused a major shift in balance of
power in its region. Which imperial power was the losing side in the battle?
Russia or the Russian Empire
Indonesian president Joko Widodo has announced that the capital will move from
Jakarta to the planned city of Nusantara on Borneo to encourage development in parts
of Indonesia outside Java. What name is given to the Indonesian portion of the island
of Borneo? In Indonesia, this name also refers to the island as a whole.
Kalimantan
What bird traditionally serves as a vahana for the Hindu goddess of fortune Lakshmi? In
Greek mythology, this bird traditionally accompanies Athena, the goddess of wisdom.
Owl
Also known as easterlies, what name is given to the prevailing east-to-west winds that
occur in the equatorial region of the world’s oceans? Their English name refers to the
fact they facilitated faster sea routes for sailing ships.
Trade winds
The Chinese character for which traditional unit of length combines the characters for
‘field’ and ‘earth’ because this distance was an approximation of the length of a
village? This traditional Chinese unit is today standardized as half a kilometre.
Li [Lee]
Jean Passepartout is the French valet of Phileas Fogg in which adventure novel by
Jules Verne?
Around the World in Eighty Days or Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours
Indonesia’s proposed new capital, Nusantara, will be built near the cities of Balikpapan
and Samarinda in East Kalimantan. Those cities are seaports on a strait named after
which city on Sulawesi, the largest city in Indonesia not to be on either Java or
Sumatra?
Makassar
Which German mathematician’s namesake ‘sphere’ is among the simplest of the onedimensional complex manifolds, and is the prototypical example of this man’s
namesake ‘surfaces’?
Bernhard Riemann
Daniel Auber was the first composer to adapt which 18th-century French novel into an
opera? Later adaptations include one of the best-known works of Jules Massenet, the
Puccini opera that contains the tenor aria ‘Donna non vidi mai’, and Hans Werner
Henze’s opera Boulevard Solitude.
Manon Lescaut
The Caduveo, the Bororo, and the Nambikwara are some of the Amazonian tribal people discussed by Claude Lévi-Strauss in which ‘travelogue’ that opens with the
ironic line, “Je hais les voyages et les explorateurs” (“I hate travel and explorers”)?
Tristes Tropiques or Sad Tropics or A World on the Wane
