Set 07 Flashcards
The only woman ever to win an F1 race, which South African triumphed at Brands Hatch in the 1980 British Formula One Series?
Desiree Wilson
Every Grand Prix in F1 begins with two free practice sessions on the Friday, except for which venue, where they are on a Thursday?
Monaco
Which sport has re-introduced a ‘107% rule’ for 2010, whereby you qualify if you are within 107% of the time of the best competitor?
Formula One
What is another name for the warm-up lap before an F1 GP, because no overtaking is allowed?
Formation lap
How many red lights are extinguished simultaneously to signify the start of an F1 race?
Five
If an F1 driver raises his arm while on the starting grid, what does it mean?
His car has stalled
Monaco is exceptional in being 160 miles. Most F1 GPs are about how many miles long?
190 miles
What is the time limit for all F1 GPs?
Two hours
Which flag is shown in motor racing to show that the race has been abandoned?
Red
Which colour flag is shown to a slower car indicating that he must led a faster one lap him?
Blue
In an F1 Gp, what percentage of the race do you have to finish to be classified?
90%
What important role in F1 has been carried out since 2000 by the German Bernd Maylander?
Safety Car driver
What colour stripe in motor racing indicates soft or softer tyres?
Green
As of 2010, what role does Charlie Whiting perform in Formula One?
Race Director
When a red flag is shown at an F1 GP, the drivers may restart if up to how many laps have been completed?
Three
From 1994 to 2010, which basic function was permitted at pit stops but now is not?
Refuelling
You get 25 points for finishing first in F1, but how many for second?
18
In F1, what happens in the points table if the race is stopped before 75% of the laps are completed?
All drivers get half points
Which is the only still-active F1 team that competed in its opening season?
Ferrari
Ritchie McCaw is aiming to beat the record number of All Black caps. Who currently holds the record, with 92?
Sean Fitzpatrick
What is the only named wind in Great Britain?
The Helm Wind
Which team did Red Bull buy in F1 that started their rise to contention?
Jaguar
Which driver number is never used in F1?
13
Jochen Rindt won the driver’s championship in 1970 despite dying at which GP?
Italian
Replacing Formula 3000 in 2005, what is the main feeder series for F1?
GP2
Kimi Raikonen entered Formula 1 from which unusually low-level feeder series?
Formula Renault
Mika Hakkinen, David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher have all raced in DTM after retiring from F1. What does DTM stand for?
Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters
When Nigel Mansell left F1, he duelled for the 1993 CART or Champ Car title with which other F1 retiree?
Emerson Fittipaldi
On retirement from F1, Juan Pablo Montoya, Nelson Piquet Jr and Scott Speed all raced in which format?
NASCAR
How many Grands Prix made up the inaugural season, a far cry from 2010’s 19 meets?
Seven
Which country hosted the first ever South American Grand Prix in 1953?
Argentina
Which country hosted the first ever African Grand Prix in 1953?
Morocco
In the 1994 and 1995 F1 seasons, Japan hosted two Grands Prix- what was the second one called?
Pacific GP
Which country hosted three Grands Prix, a record, in the 1982 season?
USA
October 2011 will see/saw the first ever Grand Prix in which country?
India
The US Grand Prix will be held in which city from 2012 to 2021?
Austin, Texas
In which city would you find the F1 circuit Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace?
Sao Paulo
In F1, most circuits run in which direction?
Clockwise
Which three time F1 champion famously described racing in Monaco as “like riding a bicycle around your living room”?
Nelson Piquet
Who designs most new F1 circuits?
Hermann Tilke
In motor racing, what name is given to tyres with no tread patterns?
Slicks
What size engines must Formula One cars have?
2.4 litres
The highest speed ever recorded during a GP in F1 was 221mph set by whom during the 1998 German Grand Prix?
David Coulthard
Each team in F1 can use only a maximum of eight whats in a season?
Engines
Each driver in F1 can use only a maximum of one what per four consecutive events?
Gearboxes
Bernie Ecclestone is/was boss of FOM. What does this stand for?
Formula One Management
From 1996 to 2002, a Formula One digital channel showed shots from unusul camera angles (e.g. Onboard, in the pit lane) during races. The service was affectionately nicknamed what, after its founder?
Bernievision
What is snooker’s highest governing body?
World Snooker Association
What is the size of a full-size snooker table?
12 feet by 6 feet
What did snooker originally mean in a military context?
Inexperienced personnel
Which player organised the first ever World Snooker Championship in 1927?
Joe Davis
In 1959, Joe Davis introduced a variation of snooker to try to improve the game’s popularity by adding two extra colours. However, it never caught on. What was it called?
Snooker Plus
In 1969, David Attenborough commissioned which snooker programme to show off the new colour television potential?
Pot Black
What is the maximum number of frames usually found in professional snooker tournaments, typically in the final?
35
In snooker, what is the premier non-ranking tournament?
The Masters
World Snooker, which organises the world tour, is based in which English city?
Bristol
The WPBSA governs the professional games of billiards and snooker. Which body governs the amateur game?
IBSF (International Billiards and Snooker Federation)
If you are what position or above in the world snooker rankings, you don’t have to qualify for tournaments?
Sixteenth
After the World Championship, what is the second most important event in world snooker?
The UK Championship
Organised by Matchroom Sport chairman Barry Hearn, which variant of snooker was established with a 25-second limit on shots?
Premier League Snooker
Identical to the normal rest, yet with a hooked metal end and used to set the rest around another ball. The most recent invention in snooker, what is its name?
Hook rest
Which other animal name, as well as a spider, can be given to a type of cue rest in snooker?
Swan
Usually housed underneath the side of the table, which rest in snooker is a combination of a table length rest and cue which is rarely used unless the cue ball needs to be struck in such a way that the entire length of the table is the actual obstacle?
Half-butt
If Ray Reardon dominated the 1970s in snooker, Hendry the 1990s and Steve Davies the 1980s, who dominated the 1960s?
John Pulman
Which three players won World Snooker Championships in the 2000s, the most open decade for years?
O’Sullivan, Williams and Higgins
As of 2010, who was the last man to successfully defend a world snooker title?
Steven Hendry
Which variant of snooker has only nine reds and matches limited to 30 minutes, with, allegedly, rowdy audiences encouraged to drink as much alcohol as possible?
Power snooker
Sinuca brasileira has how many red balls?
One
Which is the world’s second most popular sport after football?
Cricket
The Royal Grammar School in which English town was the location of cricket’s earliest definite reference, in 1550?
Guildford
In 1844, which two countries, neither of them Test nations, played the first ever international cricket match?
USA and Canada
The first ever Test match was held at which venue?
Melbourne Cricket Ground
How many people on the field while a cricket match is in play?
Fifteen
In limited overs cricket, the team that scores the most runs. Which two additional feats must be performed to win a full match?
Dismissing the opposition twice
Name all three kinds of crease at either end of a cricket pitch.
Popping, bowling and return (of which there are two)
What is the width of a three-stump wicket?
Nine inches
Where does the second umpire stand during a cricket match (i.e the one who is not next to the bowler)?
Square leg
In Test and ICC cricket matches, there are two umpires, a third umpire and which fourth official tasked with ensuring that play is within the laws of cricket and the spirit of the game?
Match referee
How many scorers in a cricket match?
Two
What is the term used in cricket if a bowler straightens his arm illegally during delivery?
Throwing
The wicketkeeper is the only fielder in cricket who can get a batsman out in a certain way- what way?
Stumped
In cricket, what are the three things a substitute fielder is not allowed to do?
Captain, wicket-keep or bowl
In the event of an injured batsman being fit to bat but not to run, the umpires and the fielding captain may allow another member of the batting side to play as what?
A runner
In cricket, hits for what number of runs are unusual and generally are the result of “overthrows” by a fielder returning the ball?
Five
In Australia, what are extras called in cricket?
Sundries
In limited overs cricket, what term is given to the innovation whereby a batsman is safe from losing his wicket (except via run out) for the ball after a no ball?
Free hit rule
In cricket, which extra is awarded if the batsman misses the ball and it goes past the wicketkeeper to give the batsmen time to run in the conventional way? A mark of a good wicketkeeper is that he avoids these.
Bye
In cricket, which extra(s) are awarded if the ball hits the batsman’s body, but not his bat, while attempting a legitimate shot, and it goes away from the fielders to give the batsmen time to run in the conventional way?
Leg bye
In cricket, how many ways can a batsman be dismissed?
Ten
In cricket, which unusual dismissal is given if a new batsman does not appear at the crease within three minutes of the previous one being given out?
Timed out
In cricket, what are the three different ways of retiring as a batsman?
Retired hurt, retired ill or retired out (the last if there is no clear reason for the retirement, but counts as a dismissal)
Cricket is unique in sports because as well as adhering to the laws, players must also do what?
Abide by the Spirit of the Game
What is the main sartorial distinction, particularly when viewed at a distance, between what an umpire wears and what a cricket player wears?
Black trousers
Which was the most recent nation to gain Test status?
Bangladesh
Australia and England were the first two Test nations. Which was the third?
South Africa
Players from which other country are eligible to play for the England cricket team?
Wales
In cricket, the West Indies and England compete for the Wisden trophy, but for which trophy do Australia and the West Indies compete?
Frank Worrell Trophy
Except in Twenty20, what is the usual maximum number of overs in an innings?
Fifty
Who hosts the Cricket World Cup in 2011?
India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
In which country was the 2009 Twenty20 World Championship won by Pakistan?
England
In cricket, what is the BCCI?
Board of control of cricket in India
Which has been the most successful ever county in first-class cricket in England?
Yorkshire
What is the highest domestic first-class honour in Australian cricket?
Sheffield Shield
Which is the most successful state in the history of the Sheffield Shield?
New South Wales
What is the highest domestic first-class prize in Indian cricket?
Ranji Trophy
What is the highest domestic first-class prize in New Zealand cricket?
Plunket Shield
What is the highest domestic first-class prize in South African cricket?
Currie Cup
What is the highest domestic first-class prize in West Indian cricket?
Shell Shield
What was the first ever limited overs knockout competition in cricket, established in England in 1963?
Gillette Cup
In which variant of cricket does the bowler does not have to wait for the batsman to be ready before a delivery, leading to a faster, more exhausting game designed to appeal to children, which is often used in PE lessons at English schools?
Kwik Cricket
In some variants of cricket, what does the “Tip and Run”, “Tipity” Run, “Tipsy Run” or “Tippy-Go” rule signify?
The batsman must run if contact is made between bat and ball, even if unintended
What is the name of the Samoan variant of cricket, played with hockey-stick shaped bats?
Kilikiti
In which unlikely country is an annual Ice Cricket tournament held?
Estonia
The ICC is now headquartered in Dubai, but what did the ICC stand for when it was founded in 1909?
Imperial Cricket Conference
The Guide to Cricketers was a predecessor of Wisden and was edited between 1849 and 1866 by which man?
Fred Lillywhite
In cricket, a batsman’s batting average is determined by the total number of runs scored by what?
Number of innings in which he was out
in cricket statistics, what does BF stand for?
Balls Faced
in cricket statistics, what does SR stand for?
Strike rate
In cricket bowling statistics, what single word signifies ‘the average number of runs conceded per over’?
Economy
Which English born player, originally a cricketer, was responsible for most of the statistical expressions still used in baseball, coming eventually to be known as Father Baseball?
Henry Chadwick
Athletics derives from the Greek word athlos meaning what?
Contest
What was the ancient Irish equivalent of the Olympics and/or the Highland Games?
Tailteann Games
What name was given to the only event at the first Ancient Olympics, a running race the length of the stadium?
Stadion
The earliest recorded modern athletic meeting was held in which English county in 1840?
Shropshire (Royal Shrewsbury School)
It used to be the International Amateur Athletics Federation- for what does IAAF now stand?
International Association of Athletics Federations
In which American city is the National Marathon held?
Washington
Road running evolved as a betting sport where wagers would be placed on the ability of what kind of person to win the race?
Footman
To the nearest whole number, how long is a marathon in kilometres?
Forty two
Originating in Japan and remaining very popular there, what races are a relay race variation on the marathon?
Ekiden
Which is the only athletics sport in which judges monitor athletes on their technique?
Racewalking
As well as always having to have a foot in contact with the ground, race walkers have to ensure that their advanced leg is what?
Straight
Racewalking has its origins in which sport, originating in England in the late c18?
Pedestrianism
In a Racewalking Centurion contest, what must you do to complete the race?
Walk 100 miles in 24 hours
Over which two distances are race walking competitions in the Olympics?
20km and 50km
In athletics, what is always 1.22m in width?
Race lane
Black SBR or colored EPDM granules have what application in a sporting context?
Athletics track surfaces
A standard indoor athletics track is what length?
200m
The Millrose games are an athletics event held at the indoor athletics track in which famous venue?
Madison Square Garden
At the elite and professional level, courses must be looped and each lap must be between 1750m and 2000m in length. What event is being described?
Cross-country race
Road racing courses in athletics are of two primary types- point to point and which other?
Looped
In athletics, which part of the world is CONSUDATLE the federation for?
South America
In athletics, which part of the world is NACACAA the federation for?
North America, Central American and Caribbean
Of the four major divisions in athletic events, which is the only one ever to have been dropped permanently from the Olympics?
Cross-country
Outdoor track and field is the only sport in athletics that does not have a its own distinct global championship which is separate from other types of athletics, but it does have which quadrennial cup competition?
Continental Cup
The World Youth Championships in Athletics are for athletes under 17. Which championship exists for under 19s?
World Junior Championships
Which world championships exist for athletes over the age of 35?
World Masters Athletics Championships
In his treatise Rhetoric, which Greek philosopher argued that athletes in the pentathlon were the most beautiful because they were all-rounders?
Aristotle
Jim Thorpe- All-American was a 1951 biopic starring whom as Thorpe?
Burt Lancaster
The 2007 documentary film Spirit of the Marathon followed runners preparing for which specific event?
Chicago marathon
According to legend, whih son of Zeus first called the Olympic games ‘Olympic’ and built the first Olympic stadium?
Heracles
The ancient Olympics were suppressed in which year, when Theodosius I demanded that all pagan cults and practices end?
393 AD
Whih event held in the 1790s in France is held to be the first to have introduced metric measurements into athletics and hence the modern Olympic movement?
L’Olympiade de la Republique
Which man started the Much Wenlock olympics?
William Penny Brookes
Between 1862 and 1867, which UK city held an annual Grand Olympic Festival, started by John Hulley and Charles Melly?
Liverpool
What was first proposed by poet and newspaper editor Panagiotis Soutsos in his poem “Dialogue of the Dead”, published in 1833?
The revival of the Ancient Greek Olympics
Which wealthy Greek-Romanian philanthropist sponsored the first modern revival of the Olympics in 1859, held in an Athens square?
Evangelis Zappas
Dr William Penny Brookes, flush from his success at Much Wenlock, ran a National Olympic Games in England at which venue in 1866?
Crystal Palace
Where in Paris was the first ever meeting of the IOC, presided over by Baron de Coubertin, in 1894?
The Sorbonne
Which Greek writer was the first ever IOC President?
Demetrius Vikelas
In 1900, the revival of the Olympics were threatened when they were held as a mere sideshow to what?
Paris Exposition
Which city hosted the 1906 Intercalated Games?
Athens
Which town hosted the second Winter Olympics, in 1928?
St Moritz
Who founded the Paralympic Games at Stoke Mandeville?
Dr Ludwig Guttman
Which was the first city to host both paralympics and Olympics?
Seoul
The inaugural Youth Winter Olympics will be held where in 2012?
Innsbruck
What is the international federation for governing volleyball?
FIVB
Which rival resort in Switzerland was bidding against Turin for the right to host the 2006 Winter Olympics and accused Turin of breaking the rules?
Sion
With the acronym TOP, which arrangement, both exclusive and expensive, allows selected organisations to use the Olympic rings in their advertising and logos?
The Olympic Programme
Although the 1936 Berlin games were the first to be televised locally, which Olympics were the first to be televised globally?
1956 Winter Games (Cortina d’Ampezzo)
What is the significance of the colour of the Olympic rings on the flag?
Every country has at least one of the colours on its national flag
At which Olympics was the flag first used?
1920 Antwerp
The person who lights the Olympic flame at Olympia faces which important restriction?
Must be a woman
Which Russian bear cub was the mascot of the 1980 Olympics?
Misha
What is the very first element of an Olympics opening ceremony?
Hoisting of flag of host country and playing of national anthem
Which country’s athletes are always last to enter in the Olympics opening ceremony?
Host country
Which three country’s flags are flown at the closing ceremony of an Olympic games?
The host country, Greece and the next host country
The mayor of the city that organized the Games transfers a special Olympic flag to the president of the IOC, who then passes it on to the mayor of the city hosting the next Olympic Games at the closing ceremony of the Olympics, in a protocol bearing the name of which city?
Antwerp
The medal ceremony of which Olympic event usually forms part of the closing ceremony?
Men’s marathon
Which is the other Olympic wrestling discipline as well as Graeco-Roman?
Freestyle
Athletics, swimming and which two other sports have never been absent from the Olympics programme?
Fencing and artistic gymnastics
History and tradition of the sport, universality, popularity of the sport, image, athletes’ health, development of the International Federation that governs the sport, and costs of holding the sport are the seven criteria used to judge what?
If a sport should be Olympic
Which two sports were excluded from the Olympic programme for London 2012?
Baseball and softball
From 2016, rugby sevens and which other will be Olympic sports?
Golf
Jim Thorpe was stripped of his medals because he had played which sport semi-professionally?
Baseball
Which is the only Olympic sport in which no professionals are allowed to compete?
Boxing
Which European country boycotted the 1936 Olympics due to eligibility criteria imposed by the IOC?
Ireland
Why did the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland boycott the 1956 Melbourne Olympics?
Soviet intervention in Hungary
Cambodia, Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon boycotted the same Olympics due to which event?
Suez Crisis
China boycotted the Melbourne games for a third reason- what?
Taiwan was allowed to compete
In 1972 and 1976, many African countries boycotted the Olympics in protest at what?
Apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia
Thanks to this boycott, which country led a withdrawal from the Montreal Olympics, even after some athletes had competed?
Tanzania
In which year did Taiwan return to the Olympic fold under the name of Chinese Taipei?
1984 Los Angeles
What was the name of the 1984 ‘alternative Olympics’ held by those countries boycotting the Los Angeles games?
Friendship Games
Which Indian captained his national team to gold against Nazi Germany at the 1936 Games?
Dhyan Chand
The Soviet Union did not participate in the Olympics until 1952 in Helsinki, instead organising their own games called what?
Spartakiads
Other communist countries organised which alternative to the Olympics between the World Wars?
Workers Olympics
When Peter Norman supported Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s protest at the 1968 Olympics, he wore the badge of which organisation?
Olympic Project for Human Rights
Which country currently has a policy of avoiding Olympic competition between its athletes and Israel, which led to the withdrawal of a judoka in 2004 because he was “overweight”?
Iran
The winner of the marathon in 1904, the American Thomas Hicks, was given brandy and which highly toxic substance to improve his performance by his coach in the days before anti-doping drives?
Strychnine
Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen is the only Olympic athlete to hold what distinction when he competed at the 1960 Rome Olympics?
Died through drug use
Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall, a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, holds what distinction in Olympic history?
First athlete to test positive for drugs
What drug did Ben Johnson test positive for in Seoul?
Stanozolol
What is the name of the IOC-established drug-testing regimen, now used in other sports and by other bodies?
The Olympic Standard
Georgian and Russian athletes embraced despite their countries being at war on the podium for which event in Beijing?
10m air pistol
Which man set off the Centennial Park bomb at the 1996 Olympics?
Eric Robert Rudolph
At the Olympics, how much gold must a gold medal contain?
Six grams
In which Olympic sport are two bronzes awarded, one to each of the losing semi-finalists?
Boxing
If you finish fourth to eighth at the Olympics, you don’t get a medal, rather getting what?
A Victory Diploma
The Second Youth Olympics will be held in which Chinese city in 2014?
Nanjing
In tennis, from 1908 to 1960, the server had to do what?
Keep one foot on the ground at all times
How many incorrect challenges are tennis players allowed per set?
Three
Most historians believe that tennis originated in which country from the c12, at first being played with the hand?
France
Harry Gem and Augusto Perera developed modern tennis in Birmingham, then helping to found the world’s first club in Leamington Spa. They originally played it on a lawn used for which other sport?
Croquet
What does Sphairistike literally mean in Greek?
Skill at playing at ball
The first modern tennis court in the USA, established at a cricket club, was established by a friend of Walter Clopton Wingfield. Its site is now beneath which famous building?
Staten Island Ferry Terminal
The US National Mens Singles Championship, now the US Open, started in 1881 in which town?
Newport RI
The majors or slams in tennis are terms borrowed from which totally unrelated sport?
Bridge
Who designed the tie-break system in tennis?
James Van Alen
Tennis was reintroduced to the Olympics as a full medal sport at which Olympics?
Seoul 1988
What is the women’s equivalent of the Davis Cup?
Federation Cup
If a painting is described as tondo, what shape is it?
Round
Who was Sweyn Forkbeard’s father?
Harald Bluetooth
.lk is the internet domain for which country?
Sri Lanka
In which English town were the first automatic traffic lights in 1927?
Wolverhampton
What is the name of the Falklands airport?
Mount Pleasant
What are the Queen’s other Christian names?
Alexandra Mary
Lithotripsy is the process of removing what from the human body?
Kidney stones
According to Dickens in the Old Curiosity Shop, if there were no bad people, there would be no good whats?
Lawyers
In which country was the chemist Dorothy Hodgkin born?
Egypt
Who met his wife Jill at a village fete hosted by Humphrey Lyttelton in 1957, and died at Glebe Cottage in February 2010?
Phil Archer (in the Archers)
Which former prime minister conducted a number of orchestras, including the London Symphony?
Edward Heath
What provides the soundbox to a kora?
A gourd
Which was the first film in which Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall appeared together? It was also Bacall’s debut.
To Have and Have Not
Who directed To Have and Have Not?
Howard Hawks
In Freudian thought, what part of the mind is concerned with ethics and outward standards of acceptable behaviour?
Superego
What were Eagle, Intrepid, Aquarius, Antares, Falcon, Orion and Challenger?
The lunar modules that landed on the moon
When Dave Scott dropped the hammer and feather on the moon, it was a feather from which bird, the name of his lunar module?
Falcon
What was the name of James II’s wife, nicknamed ‘The Queen of Tears’?
Mary of Modena
A Childhood At Green Hedges by Imogen Smallwood is about which other writer?
Enid Blyton (her mother)
Sir Sandford Fleming was a Canadian engineer and inventor who proposed what innovation, still used today?
Global time zones
Meteorologica, about the weather, was by which Greek philosopher?
Aristotle
Which other writer was described by William Faulkner as ‘The nicest old lady I ever met’?
Henry James
Who was the mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V?
Joanna the Mad
William B Melick invented which aid to surveyors?
Clinometer
What had happened to Woodstock Palace, enabling Blenheim to be built on the site?
Destroyed in the English Civil War
Who wrote the song ‘Woodstock’, as performed by Matthew’s Southern Comfort, but wasn’t actually present at the festival?
Joni Mitchell
Mitchell’s then husband told her about the festival, so she could write the song- which man?
Graham Nash
Which female singer has created a range of children’s stories based around the character of Ugenia Lavender?
Geri Halliwell
Which actress, the star of the original Viktor/Victoria, died young in mysterious circumstances, possibly murdered by the Gestapo, and was Hitler’s (apparently unwilling) lover for some years?
Renate Mueller
Garibaldi fought in the civil war of which South American country?
URUGUAY
Which is the only UK coin whose markings are incuse, in other words concave, rather than sticking out from the surface?
20p
‘Neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’ is a quotation from Herodotus on which building in New York?
Central Post Office
Torre del Lago on the Tuscan Riviera is the home of an annual festival devoted to which composer’s music?
PUCCINI
Which famous composer taught music to poor orphans at the Church of the Pieta in Venice?
Vivaldi
In which city were the first ever Paralympic Games staged?
Rome
The childless Charles II chose which grandson of Louis XIV of France as his successor, which led to the War of the Spanish Succession?
Philip of Anjou
Having no successors of his own, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI drafted which degree of 1713 in an attempt to ensure that Maria Theresa successed to his lands?
Pragmatic Sanction
Which early c18 war saw Russia, Denmark and Poland allied against Sweden, which lost its empire?
Great Northern War
Which phrase is used of French essays written primarily for their aesthetic effect?
Belles Lettres
Friedrich Serturner, an apothecary’s assistant, became the first man to isolate which substance, almost killing himself from an overdose?
Morphine
Which c14 poet was the first to use rhyme royal?
Chaucer
Which two word Italian term is applied to verse forms using stanzas of eight lines?
Ottavo Rima
Which part of the nervous system stimulates smooth and cardiac muscles?
Autonomic nervous system
Old Mr Turveydrop owns a dancing academy on Newman Street in which Dickens novel?
Bleak House
Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is based on the works of whom?
Plautus
Which city in Southern Italy has a medical school dating back to the c9 that may be the first university in Europe?
Salerno
Which Holy Roman Emperor opened the University of Bologna?
Frederick Barbarossa
Which university in North East Italy was founded by students fleeing Bologna?
Padua
Which c19 French painter is noted for his picture of the execution of Lady Jane Grey?
Delaroche
Dorothy is a modern version of which older name?
Theodora
Which Nordic capital gave its name to a Conference on Security and Co-Operation in Europe in 1975 to advance the process of detente?
Helsinki
Armand Jean Du Plessis was Bishop of Lucon but is better known as what?
Cardinal Richelieu
Which French politician served as the Controller-General of Finances from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV? He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from the brink of bankruptcy.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Which is the largest cemetary in the Southern Hemisphere?
Rookwood Necropolis, Sydney
Vysehrad Cemetary, resting place of many composers, is in which city?
Prague
Which man was the confessor of Louis XIV?
Pere Lachaise
Harriet Smith appears in which Jane Austen book?
Emma
What was Dutch Schultz’s real name?
Arthur Flegenheimer
It is said that he bet a friend he could write a story in six words and then presented this: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Who?
Ernest Hemingway
What name is given to the advertising columns sometimes seen in continental European streets?
Morris columns
The neo-classical Duveen Galleries can be found in which UK art gallery?
Tate Britain
Which modern American artist is famous for his images of cartoon character Popeye?
Jeff Koons
Comedian Shappi Khorsandi was born in which country?
Iran
Which British artist is famous for large flint circles, mud paintings and photos of the British landscape?
Richard Long
Which Polish film director was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for his film Katyn, about the massacre where his father, among others, died?
Andrzej Wajda
The nanquan and nandao combined competition are disciplines in which non-combat martial art made famous by Bruce Lee and Jet Li?
Wushu
Recently a proposal to replace what in pentathlon by laser guns was defeated by the sport’s governing body?
Air pistols
Which is the largest of the 140 or so subglacial lakes found under the surface of Antarctica?
Lake Vostok
Essential for sexual reproduction, it results in the formation of gametes in animals and in spores in non-animal organisms.
What name is given to this process of reductional division in which the number of chromosomes per cell is cut in half?
Meiosis
This group released their first album, Allegria, in 1982. Although French, the group members are all children of gitanos who fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War and the group’s Flamenco Rumba-inspired pop sound betrays their roots. What is the name of this group whose latest studio album was 2006’s Pasajero?
Gypsy Kings
Ranking immediately below yokozuna, which is sumo’s second highest attainable rank?
Ōzeki
Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame are awarded for outstanding contributions to the entertainment industry in one of five categories: Motion Pictures, Radio, Recording, Television, and Live Theatre. Which entertainer, who died in 1998, is the only person to have been awarded a Hollywood star in each of the five categories?
Gene Autrey
With its namesake original capital located in northern Ethiopia, this Empire once extended across most of present-day Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia, northern Djibouti, and northern Sudan. It was founded in the 4th or 5th Century BC but was at its height under King Ezana in the 4th Century AD, at which time it became the world’s first major Empire to convert to Christianity. What is the name of this Empire that declined rapidly after the 7th Century?
Aksumite Empire (or Axumite Empire)
Deriving from the Persian for ‘in heat’, what name is given to the periodic condition in bull elephants, perhaps caused by a rise in hormone production, that is characterized by highly aggressive behaviour and the discharge of a secretion called temporin from the temporal ducts on the sides of the head?
Musth (or Must)
Depicted as a drum-beating demon and said to eat the bellybuttons of children, which god of thunder and lightning in Japanese mythology was the inspiration for a major combatant in the Mortal Kombat series of video games?
Raijin (or Raiden)
Which Sanskrit epic, compiled sometime between 400 and 200 BC and traditionally ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki, tells the life story of a prince in the city of Ayodha?
Ramayana
In the Canadian police drama series Due South, the central character, Constable Benton Fraser, owns a part dog, part wolf named after which former Canadian Prime Minister?
Diefenbaker (John George Diefenbaker)
Which 14th Century French philosopher is best remembered today for the thought experiment that bears his name that refers to a paradoxical situation in which an ass, placed precisely equidistant from two stacks of hay of equal size and quality, starves to death since it has no reason to choose to eat one stack over the other?
Jean Burridan
In Norse mythology, Njord, Freyr and Freyja are all members of which group of gods who fought against the Æsir in a war that led to the unification of the two tribes?
Vanir
Which Australian modernist magazine, published by the surrealist poet Max Harris, is best remembered today as being the victim of the infamous Ern Malley hoax and for giving its name to a wider Australian literary and artistic avant-garde movement of the 1940s that counted Arthur Boyd and Sidney Nolan among its members?
Angry Penguins
La Nuit américaine, known in English as Day for Night, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1974. It is considered one of the masterpieces of which French New Wave filmmaker?
François Truffaut
Originally a lake fed by the Kunene River, which large endorheic salt pan of northern Namibia, that forms part of the Kalahari Basin, is at the centre of a namesake National Park that is home to a wide variety of wildlife?
Etosha Pan
First proposed in 2003 as an alternative to the Big Crunch, what name has been given to the cosmological hypothesis about the ultimate fate of the universe that states that the universe may be torn apart by its own expansion in approximately 50 billion years time?
Big Rip
Based on a mediaeval Spanish legend, what name is shared by an enormously popular 1636 tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and an 1885 opera by Jules Massenet that was based on the play?
Le Cid
Which Chinese Communist military leader, who had led the People’s Liberation Army into Beijing in 1949, rose to become Mao Zedong’s second in command during the Cultural Revolution and, prior to his death in a plane crash in Mongolia in 1971, was designated as Mao’s constitutional successor?
Lin Biao
After leaving Sepultura in 1996, the Brazilian singer and guitarist Max Cavalera formed which thrash metal band whose sixth album, Conquer, was released in 2008?
Soulfly
The former primary school teacher Sajida Talfah, who was born in 1937, is both the cousin and widow of which former head of state?
Saddam Hussein
Named after the Serbian geophysicist who refined it, what name is given to the theory that states that large changes to the Earth’s climate, such as ice ages, have been caused by cyclical variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun that have resulted in varying distribution of solar radiation?
Milankovitch Theory
In which 2008 American musical film did Paris Hilton play Amber Sweet, a surgery and drug addicted woman whose big break singing in a pop opera was ruined when her face fell off during her debut performance?
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Zhu Qiu and Bai Da are the two main variants of which ancient Chinese code of football that is described by FIFA as the “very earliest form of the game for which there is scientific evidence”?
Cuju
To avoid press attention, what was Prince William called by fellow students while at St Andrew’s?
Steve
The Prince William Cup is competed for by which two rugby countries?
Wales and South Africa
David Lynch was to Twin Peaks as which man was to Lost?
JJ Abrams
David Lynch was to Twin Peaks as which man was to The Wire?
David Simon
What was the surname, which they shared with a national capital city, of the German brothers Fritz and Heinz who, in 1935, devised two equations that relate current to electromagnetic fields in and around a superconductor and, in doing so, explain the Meissner effect?
London
This 15th Century king of the Songhai Empire strengthened his empire to such an extent that it became the largest nation in the history of West Africa. His far-sighted policies led to greatly increased trade with Europe and Asia and, in 2004, his reputed tomb in Gao, in modern-day Mali, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. What was his name?
Askia Mohammed I (or Askia the Great or Muhammad Toure)
Comparable to the Chinese notion of Qi, what name, from the Sanskrit for ‘breath’, is given to the vital, life-sustaining force of living beings in Hindu philosophy?
Prana
In a bid to raise the competition’s profile, by what name will the revamped UEFA Cup be known from the 2009-2010 season?
(UEFA) Europa League
Which artistic group, which eschewed the prevalent traditional academic style and aimed to revive older media such as woodcut prints, was founded in Dresden in 1905?
Die Brücke (or The Bridge)
Ingmar Bergman’s only gothic horror film starred Max von Sydow as Johan Borg, a painter haunted by a series of demons. Released in 1968, what is the title of this film?
Hour of the Wolf (or Vargtimmen)
In 1978, the Georgian Nona Gaprindashvili became the first female to be awarded which title?
Chess Grandmaster
Responsible for the blue glow of nuclear reactors and named after the Nobel Prize-winning Russian physicist who was the first to characterise it, what name is given to the electromagnetic radiation that is emitted when a charged particle passes through an insulator at a speed greater than that of light through the relevant medium?
Cherenkov Radiation
Despite trailing Usain Bolt by some distance, which Trinidadian athlete, who shares his name with a folk singer, took the silver medal in the 100 metres at the 2008 Beijing Olympics?
Richard Thompson
The treaty of 1962 that put an end to the Algerian War was signed in which French town, also world-famous for its mineral water?
Évian (or Évian-les-Bains)
I am 72 years old and I wanted to present my drawings this year before disappearing from this planet. I have not shown them to anyone except Salvador Dalí 30 years ago who told me to keep going. So said which Basque-born fashion designer, perhaps best known for his costume designs for films such as Barbarella, at the first exhibition of his drawings in Moscow in 2005?
Paco Rabanne
It is responsible for the frequency of colour-blindness amongst the inhabitants of Pingelap and the high levels of deafness found on Martha’s Vineyard. First fully outlined by the evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr in 1952, what two-word name is given to the loss of genetic variation, often resulting in high levels of disability, that occurs when a new colony is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population?
Founder Effect
Whioch African capital city was formerly known as Port Clarence?
Malabo
Umberto Granaglia, who died in 2008, was awarded the title of ‘Player of the Twentieth Century’ in which sport?
Bocce
George Zorbas was born in 1867 as the son of a wealthy landowner in what was then the Ottoman Empire. After an eventful early life he decided, in 1915, to become a monk and left for Mount Athos. It was here that he met and befriended an author who was to immortalise him in the title of his most famous work. Who was the author?
Nikos Kazantzakis
Now thought to refer to the Rwenzori Mountains, located on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, what name did Ancient Greek geographers give to the semi-legendary mountain range in central Africa that was believed to be the source of the White Nile?
Mountains of the Moon (or Montes Lunae)
Derived from an episode described in the autobiography of the title subject and completed in 1652 during the papacy of Innocent X, what is the name of the central marble group, part of a larger sculpture complex, that was designed by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini for the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome?
Ecstasy of St. Theresa
Which French structuralist anthropologist, who celebrated his 100th birthday in November 2008, is perhaps best known for his four-volume Mythologiques in which he traced the spread of a single myth from the southern tip of South America to the Arctic Circle?
Claude Lévi-Strauss
What is the name given to the phase of matter achieved by a few cryogenic liquids at extreme temperature where they become able to flow without friction, allowing such a liquid to flow up the side of an open container and down the outside?
Superfluid
During the 1920s and 1930s, Jean Borotra, Jacques Brugnon, Henri Cochet and René Lacoste were known as ‘The Four Musketeers’. Name any two of the four currently active French tennis players who have been dubbed ‘The New Musketeers’ by the French press?
Gilles Simon, Richard Gasquet, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Gaël Monfils
In which town in Lower Austria did Josef Fritzl keep his daughter, Elisabeth, captive for 24 years in the basement of the family home?
Amstetten
Which son of King Mpande was the leader of the Zulus during the Anglo-Zulu War and the last King of an independent Zulu nation?
Cetshwayo
Inspired by liquid mercury, the 110 tonne Cloud Gate, sculpted by the Indian-born artist Anish Kapoor, was unveiled in 2004 in Millennium Park in which U.S. city?
Chicago
What was the name of the Greek water-carrier who became a national hero after winning the first modern-day marathon at the 1896 Summer Olympics?
Spyridon Louis
Which Pacific archipelago is named after a 17th Century Queen Consort of Spain?
Mariana Islands
This phenomenon occurs when a person, after having learned a fact or word for the first time, encounters that item again, perhaps several times, soon after having learned it. It was coined in a column of the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the mid 1980s. What is the name of this phenomenon?
Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
Its initiatives including relaxed private sector price controls, drastically reduced government subsidies and the elimination of exchange controls, Fujishock was the name given to a collection of wide-ranging neoliberal reforms enacted in which country during the early 1990s?
Peru
The Temple of Bel and the Temple of Ba’al-Shamin are ruins found in this ancient Syrian city that is known as Tadmor in Arabic. It was an important caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian Desert and was nicknamed ‘the Bride of the Desert’ until it fell into disuse after the 16th Century. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, what is the name of this ruined city?
Palmyra
A semi-autobiographical tale of a boy discovering his sexuality in war-torn Japan, what was the title of Yukio Mishima’s debut novel, published in 1948?
Confessions of a Mask (or Kamen no Kokuhaku)
On the shore of which lake is Castel Gandolfo?
Lake Albano
A 1642 portrait of the Landgravine of Hesse-Kassel by the German artist Ludwig von Siegen is the first known example of which intaglio printmaking process that takes its name from the Italian for ‘half-painted’?
Mezzotint
What is the second largest lake in Europe, immediately east of Lake Ladoga?
Lake Onega
Which cult Japanese game show, that originally aired between 1986 and 1989 but has since become a worldwide hit, features the show’s namesake count who sets up a series of ludicrous physical challenges for the contestants?
Takeshi’s Castle
This therapod dinosaur lived during the Cretaceous period, about 100 to 97 million years ago, in what is now North Africa. It featured heavily in the 2001 film Jurassic Park III, in which it was shown attacking and killing a Tyrannosaur. Also notable for the sail-like structure upon its back, what is the name of this dinosaur that is the largest known land carnivore of all time, larger even than Tyrannosaurus rex or Giganotosaurus?
Spinosaurus
With a name deriving from the Polish for ‘little tail’, what name is given to the diacritic hook, placed under the lower right corner of a vowel, used in several eastern European and Native American languages?
Ogonek
Located in its namesake conservation area in the Crater Higlands area of Tanzania, what is the name of the world’s largest unbroken, unflooded volcanic caldera?
Ngorongoro Crater
Which French idiom, meaning ‘hobby’ and referencing a favourite pursuit of a 19th Century French neoclassical painter, did Man Ray use as the title for his famous 1924 photograph of the model Kiki de Montparnasse?
Violon D’Ingres (or Ingres’ Violin)
What name is given to circumambulating the Ka’aba?
Tawaf
With a wingspan of up to ten and a half feet it has, perhaps, the largest wingspan of any land bird. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, it is sometimes called the undertaker bird as it is said to resemble an undertaker from behind. It eats carrion and live animals, such as small reptiles, rodents and flamingos which it kills with repeated assaults using its massive beak. What is the common name of this bird, Leptoptilos crumeniferus?
Marabou Stork
Pania of the Reef, a statue of a prominent figure of Maori mythology, is the most famous landmark of which city?
Napier
Inspired by the efficient movements of parkour, what name is given to the form of “urban acrobatics”, founded by Sébastien Foucan, in which participants use the urban landscape to perform athletic and aesthetically-pleasing movements through its structures?
Free running
Produced by Steven Spielberg and broadcast between 1995 and 1998, which award-winning American animated series centred on the antics of the title characters, two genetically enhanced laboratory mice who desire to take over the world?
Pinky and the Brain
Which Portuguese painter, born in Lisbon in 1935, is best known for works such as Triptych and The Family that are characterised by their psychological drama, often giving a sinister edge to cartoon-like imagery?
Paula Rego
Which controversial American photographer created the cover of Patti Smith’s 1975 debut album Horses?
Robert Mapplethorpe
What term used to mean a tutelary spirit alloted to people at birth but now means a very clever person?
Genius
Everyman is a novel of 2006 by which American author?
Philip Roth
What CDS is a tool allowing the transfer of third party credit risk from one person to another?
Credit Default Swap
Which artistic term was introduced in Italy during the period of upheaval at the end of the 1960s, when artists were taking a radical stance. Artists began attacking the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether art as the private expression of the individual still had an ethical reason to exist?
Arte Povera
Which country’s kings were associated with the Papal title ‘Most Christian King’?
France
Passy and Dunant were the first ever winners of which Nobel Prize?
Peace
Which choreographer is credied with creating the first crossover ballet, with elements of pop music, with Douce Coup in 1973?
Twyla Tharp
In chemistry, Schiff’s reagant turns red in the presence of which chemicals?
Aldehydes
Squalius cephalus is the Latin name for which British fish?
Chubb
Who had a posthumous chart hit with Somewhere Over the Rainbow?
Eva Cassidy
The Empire of Kanembornu was founded around which major lake of Africa?
Chad
The Songhei Empire of Africa had its capital at Gao on which river?
Niger
Which man was a German military officer, victor of Liège, and, with Paul von Hindenburg, one of the victors of the battle of Tannenberg. From August 1916 his appointment as Generalquartiermeister made him joint head (with von Hindenburg) of Germany’s war effort?
Erich Ludendorff
Which man was an English author, Anglican priest, professor of divinity at Cambridge, and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, known as the Gloomy Dean due to his pessimistic columns in the Evening Standard?
William Inge
Meaning Rose painting in Norwegian, what is the name of a form of decorative folk art that originated in the rural valleys of Norway. It is a style of decorative painting on wood that uses stylized flower ornamentation, scrollwork and geometric elements in flowing patterns?
Rosemaling
Dervent, dating from the Sassanid era, claims to be the oldest city in which country?
Russia
Which Romanian city is the former capital of Moldavia?
Iasi
In Greek myth, who was the father of Prometheus?
Iapetus
Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson were among the photographers who founded which professional collective in the 1940s?
Magnum
According to astrophysical usage, how many elements are not metals?
Two
Which man played for Namibia in both the Cricket and Rugby World Cups in the early 2000s?
Rudy van Vuuren
Which American footballer appeared in a cameo in Little Nicky, trying to sell his soul to the devil for a superbowl win, something he never achieved in 17 attempts on Earth?
Dan Marino
Which legendary Welsh rugby union player became the first ever substitute in a rugby international in 1969?
Phil Bennett
What is the score at the end of the game in Escape to Victory?
Four-Four
Which English footballer played Terry Brady in Escape to Victory?
Bobby Moore
Badminton is played until a player reaches 21, unless the score reaches 20-all, If it does, what is the upper limit of the 2-point tiebreak needed?
30 (so you can win 29-30)
Which Swede is widely acknowledged as being the most successful speedway rider of the current era, having won six Speedway World Championship titles in 15 attempts?
Tony Rickardsson
Speedway evolved at the Maitland Showground in which country in the 1920s?
Australia
What is the governing federation of speedway?
FIM
According to FIM regulations, speedway bikes are only allowed to be fuelled with what?
Methanol
Since the inaugural Speedway World Cup in 2001, which country has won it most, with four wins?
Poland
In tenpin bowling, the name of which town is given to a throw that results from the ball hitting the opposite “pocket” from the bowler’s normal handedness, i.e., a right-handed bowler rolls the ball but it crosses over and hits the 1 and 2 pins first?
Brooklyn
How many Olympic medals did Steve Redgrave win in total?
Six (one bronze as well)
Nicknamed the “Russian Bear,” “Alexander the Great” and “The Experiment”, he went undefeated in international competition (spanning from 1987 to 2000) until a rule change resulted in an upset loss to American Rulon Gardner in the gold-medal match at the Sydney Olympics. Alexander Kalerin was a champion in which sport?
Graeco-Roman wrestling
What is the traditional signal that a wrestler has retired from the sport?
He leaves his shoes on the mat
George Lazenby has been married twice to which tennis star?
Pam Shriver
When Chris Tomlinson broke the British long jump record in 2002, whose record did he beat?
Lynn Davies
Which US welterweight champion, nicknamed the Cobra, was sensationally defeated in 1986 by underdog Lloyd Honeyghan?
Donald Curry
Hip Priest by Simon Ford is a book about which man and his band?
Mark E Smith and the Fall
Which famous TV actor’s real name was Harold J Smith?
Jay Silverheels
Dings Crusaders are an RFC playing in which city?
Bristol
Velyki Sorochyntsi is the birthplace of Nikolai Gogol and is in which present-day country?
Ukraine
Which Oscar-winning actress’s real forenames are Alicia Christian?
Jodie Foster
In which African country was Sylvia Pankhurst given a state funeral in 1960, having championed its cause during the 1930s?
Ethiopia
Which treaty ended the War of 1812 between the USA and Britain but was too late to stop the Battle of New Orleans being fought after its signing?
Treaty of Ghent
In a famous comedy film, who has a wife called Incontinentia Buttox?
Biggus Diccus
What did Charles Henri Sanson do on 21st January 1793 to secure his place in history?
Executed King Louis XVI
In March 2008, NASA announced that which moon, that shares its name with a species of bird, may have its own ring system, leading to speculation of the existence our Solar System’s only known satellite of a satellite?
Rhea
Its name deriving from that of a city in Ohio where an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis occurred among schoolchildren in 1968, which RNA virus of the Caliciviridae family causes approximately 90% of epidemic non-bacterial outbreaks of gastroenteritis around the world?
Norovirus (from Norwalk)
First performed in 1838, the first of Hector Berlioz’s completed operas is named after, and loosely based on the memoirs of, which Florentine artist?
Benvenuto Cellini
A 2007 remake of which classic 1978 American independent horror film was written, produced, and directed by the rock musician and artist Rob Zombie?
Halloween
Which 15-year old anarchist tried to assassinate Benito Mussolini in Bologna on October 31, 1926, by shooting at him during the parade celebrating the March on Rome? His shot missed Mussolini, and he was immediately attacked and lynched by nearby fascists.
Anteo Zamboni
What was the acronymic name of the Italian secret police force that was founded in 1927 in the aftermath of Anteo Zamboni’s attempted assassination of Benito Mussolini?
OVRA
In 1932, Major Meredith was sent to the Campion District of Western Australia by the Defence Minister George Pearce in order to wage a bizarre military campaign against an indigenous Australian creature. However, the soldiers, although armed with machine guns, found themselves outmanoeuvred and outflanked by their animal adversaries. Named after the creature that emerged victorious, how is this humiliating and staggeringly weird military operation known today?
Emu War
This debut novel by Jean Genet was written while its author was in prison and was first published in 1943. What is the title of this French novel that tells the story of Divine, a drag queen who has been canonised following his death from tuberculosis, and is narrated by an unknown prisoner who admits to the reader that the stories he is relating are told to assist with his masturbation?
Our Lady of the Flowers
Which website is devoted to movie reviews and news, and was created by Senh Duong in 1998?
Rotten Tomatoes
The Tin Drum by Gunther Grass was part of which trilogy?
Danzig trilogy
The Square of Red Army Soldiers, located on right bank of the Vltava River in Prague, was renamed in 1989 after a student who immolated himself in January 1969 in protest at the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. What is this square now called?
Jan Palach Square
Although his name is mysteriously mispronounced in the song, which Hungarian-born painter and art forger, the subject of Orson Welles’ film F for Fake and Clifford Irving’s Fake!, is mentioned in the opening verse of The Stranglers’ hit single No More Heroes?
Elmyr de Hory
Which is the oldest extant Islamic building in the world?
Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem
Translated from the Lingala language as ‘one who stops the flow of rivers’, Mokele-mbembe is a creature of African legend that is said to inhabit the lakes and swamps of the Congo River Basin. However, recent experiments by European scientists, that involve showing photographs of known creatures to the Pygmy tribes who live in the area, have suggested that Mokele-mbembe is, in fact, a folk memory of which known creature that is thought to have lived in the region until approximately one thousand years ago?
Rhinoceros
The French frigate Méduse, immortalised in Théodore Géricault’s 1819 painting Raft of the Medusa, gained notoriety when it struck the Banc d’Arguin, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the coast of which African country?
Mauretania
Which well-known word, associated with Christmas, comes from the Greek for ‘one who imitates all’?
Pantomime
Which Michael Jackson single has a guitar solo provided by Eddie Van Halen?
Beat It
Which Treaty was signed to end the 1635 to 1659 war between France and Spain, a war that was initially a part of the wider Thirty Years’ War?
Treaty of the Pyrenees
Resulting in a death toll of between 20 and 30 million and occurring between 1850 and 1864, what name is given to the bloody revolt fought against the forces of the Qing Government in China by forces inspired by a self-proclaimed mystic named Hong Xiuquan?
Taeping Rebellion
In a 2005 ‘practice’ match, the English snooker player Jamie Cope became the first, and to date, only professional player to achieve which feat?
A 155 break
The Italian national rugby union team is sponsored by which clothing company that was founded as a sock and underwear manufacturer in Turin in 1916?
Kappa
If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, volume, or partial pressure, then the equilibrium shifts to counteract the imposed change and a new equilibrium is established. Whose eponymous principle is this?
Le Chatelier
What is the name of the fine, downy hair that grows on a foetus before being shed and replaced permanently for life by vellus hair at about 40 weeks of gestational age?
Lanugo
Nicknamed ‘the doctor’ because of its cooling effects, what is the name of the dry, dusty West African trade wind that blows south from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March each year?
Harmattan
The Battle of Aegospotami effectively ended which war?
Peloponnesian
One of the oldest unsolved problems in number theory, what name, after the Prussian mathematician who proposed it in 1742, is given to the conjecture that states that every even integer greater than 2 can be written as the sum of two primes?
Goldbach’s conjecture
Released in 2008, Stop Drop and Roll was the debut album from the American garage rock band Foxboro Hot Tubs, an alter-ego of which Grammy Award-winning punk/rock trio?
Green Day
The first currency of the modern Greek state was introduced in 1828 to replace the Turkish kuruş that had previously been used. Meant to symbolise the rebirth of Greece, the new currency was named after a mythical creature. Although replaced by the drachma after just four years in circulation, what was the name of this currency?
Phoenix
The largest statue of Jesus Christ in the world overlooks which South American city (clue: Not Rio)?
Cochabamba, Bolivia
Said to have been the words spoken by Durán when quitting the fight in the eighth round, what Spanish name is given to the second of three boxing matches between Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Durán that took place in November 1980?
No Mas
This 15th Century Italian painter’s best known works include Madonna and Child Enthroned and The Annunciation with Two Kneeling Donors. However, he is, perhaps, better remembered today as the title character of a celebrated poem by Robert Browning and for giving his name to a Norwegian New Wave group who had hits in the 1980s with Shouldn’t Have to Be Like That, Light and Shade and Everytime I See You. Who is this painter and teacher of Sandro Botticelli who shares his surname with a prominent Italian football coach?
Fra Lippi
Which villainous master of disguise and telepathic hypnosis, created by Norbert Jacques, was the title character of three Fritz Lang films of 1922, 1933 and 1960?
Doctor Mabuse
According to a mythic narrative, how are Adrastus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Parthenopeus, Polynices and Tydeus collectively known?
Seven Against Thebes
In golf scoring, if one under par is a birdie, two under par is an eagle and three under par is an albatross, then what is four under par?
Condor
What is the notional term for a five under par, though one has never been scored, as it would require a hole in one on a par six, themselves very rare holes?
Ostrich
Named after this country’s national hero, the Orden del Libertador San Martín is the highest decoration awarded by which nation?
Argentina
With a name meaning ‘splendid foundation’ in Quechua and reigning in the 12th or 13th Century, who was the first king of the Kingdom of Cuzco according to Inca mythology?
Manco Capac
The University of Magdeburg is named after which former mayor of Magdeburg who is best remembered today for an invention that he famously demonstrated in front of the Reichstag in Regensburg in 1654?
Otto von Guericke
Who replaced Otto von Bismarck as Chancellor of Germany in 1890, now best remembered in the name of an African geographical feature?
Caprivi
Which classic 1963 Federico Fellini film tells the story of the fictional Italian film director Guido Anselmi?
8 and a half
According to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, the sting of which species of ant, native to Central and South America, is the most painful of all insect stings?
Bullet Ant
Stendahl’s novel Le Rouge et le Noir was set during the July Revolution of 1830 that saw the overthrow of which King of France in favour of his cousin Louis-Philippe?
Charles X
Although less famous as a pyramid-builder than his son, Khufu (Cheops), which Pharaoh and founder of the Fourth dynasty of Egypt built the Huni pyramid at Meidum, the world’s first true pyramid?
Sneferu
According to the French sociologist Émile Durkheim, what type of action can be egoistic, altruistic, anomic or fatalistic?
Suicide
The toy manufacturer Lego has its headquarters in which town, home to Denmark’s second busiest airport?
Billund
Whose Alms for Oblivion ten-novel sequence is usually regarded as his best achievement?
Simon Raven
Which British radio comedy series broadcast by the BBC between 1962 and 1977, starring Wilfrid Hyde-White, Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler was a radio predecessor of the very similar Yes, Minister?
The Men from the Ministry
What was the name of the cook who became the first recorded Olympic champion when he won the stadion sprint race in 776BC?
Coroebus
What is the Finnish equivalent of the BBC?
YLE
Which world-renowned fashion designer designed the black uniforms for both Heinrich Himmler’s SS and the Hitler Youth?
Hugo Boss
Simply Cola and Carpe Diem are soft drinks distributed by which company, more famous for its namesake drink, that was founded in Fuschl am See in Austria in 1984?
Red Bull
Which is the most populous of the United States of America not to have a professional team in any of the four major professional sports leagues, namely the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League?
Virginia
Which is the most populous urban area in the USA not to have a professional team in any of the four major professional sports leagues, namely the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League?
Las Vegas
Which car manufacturer, now headquartered in Modena, is named after the brothers Carlo, Bindo, Alfieri, Mario, Ettore and Ernesto who founded the company in Bologna in 1914?
Maserati
Premiering in Prague in 1921, which science-fiction play by the Czech author Karel Capek is best remembered today for having introduced and popularized the word ‘robot’?
Rossum’s Universal Robots
Dialogues des Carmélites and La voix humaine were operas written by which 20th Century French composer and member of Les Six who was memorably described by the critic Claude Rostand as “half bad boy, half monk”?
Francois Poulenc
The Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes was captured during which battle of August 1071 that saw his forces decisively defeated by those of the Great Seljuq Sultanate under the command of Alp Arslan?
Manzikurt
Chemically, how are paraffins also known?
Alkanes
Serving as President of Iceland until 1996, which former Artistic Director of the Reykjavík Theatre Company became the world’s first elected female president in 1980?
Vigdis Finbogadottir
With a name meaning ‘squad lads’ and originally consisting of irregulars who had fought during the War of the Spanish Succession, what is the name of Catalonia’s autonomous civil police force that, in 2005, took full policing duties in the city of Barcelona from the Spanish National Police and the Spanish Civil Guard?
Mossos d’Esquadra
The Taj Mahal stands on the banks of which river, the largest tributary of the Ganges?
Yamuna
The Mesha Stele, discovered at Dhiban in 1868, is a black basalt stone bearing an inscription thought to have been written on the orders of Mesha, the 9th-century King of which land on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea in present day Jordan?
Moab
Spawning spin-off shows set in Los Angeles, London and Rio de Janeiro, which American reality television series, that debuted in July 2005, follows the events that take place at the Love Hate tattoo parlour?
Miami Ink
The 2002 film The Hours tells the story of three women whose lives are interconnected by which Virginia Woolf novella?
Mrs Dalloway
Hey Jealousy and Found Out About You were nineties hits for which American alternative rock band whose success was somewhat overshadowed by the suicide of their lead guitarist and principal songwriter, Doug Hopkins, in 1993?
Gin Blossoms
Which English singer and songwriter was born 140 years to the day after the birth of the novelist Emily Brönte?
Kate Bush
Although sometimes known as a shard, what is the scientific name given to the hardened forewing shell of beetles which serves as protection for the hindwing beneath?
Elytron
Which law of physics describes the electrostatic interaction between electrically charged particles. It was studied and first published in 1783 by its eponymous French discoverer?
Coulomb’s Law
Which is the only club as of 2010 to have won the Heineken Cup 4 times?
Toulouse
How many judges at an Olympic weightlifting competition?
Three (Two must be satisfied for a ‘good’ lift)
Which horse racing trainer is Barbadian?
Sir Michael Stoute
Which film actor was born Juan Moreno y Herrera-Jiménez in Casablanca, Morocco?
Jean Reno
In which 1939 film does Bette Davis play a woman dying from a brain tumour?
Dark Victory
The Dorabella Cipher is an enciphered letter written by which composer to Miss Dora Penny, which was accompanied by another dated July 14, 1897. Penny was never able to decipher it and its meaning remains unknown to this day?
Edward Elgar
Fiordiligi and Dorabella appear in which opera?
Cosi Fan Tutti
Who wrote the Basle and Ebony Concertos?
Stravinsky
To which actress is Paul Bettany married?
Jennifer Connolly
I Just Wanna Make Love To You in the Diet Coke advert was a big hit for who?
Etta James
How many oxygen atoms in a nitrate ion?
Three
From which mammalian group are seals descended?
Bears
It’s Los Angeles in 1991 and Bryant ‘Pooh’ Allen is the passenger in a Hyundai. Who’s the driver?
Rodney King
In December 1793, who left Jesus College, Cambridge, to join the 15th Regiment of Light Dragoons under the assumed name of Silas Tomkyn Comberache?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Allan Clarke, who played for Leeds and England in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was nicknamed what?
Sniffer
In the Bible, which birds fed Elijah in the desert?
Ravens
Which boxer appears on the cover of Sergeant Pepper’s?
Sonny Liston
The 400m hurdles, Atlanta, 1996. Who became the first ever Jamaican woman to win a gold medal?
Deon Hemmings
In 1986, who won the Kentucky Derby aged 54, the oldest man ever to win it?
Wille Shoemaker
The workings of which part of the Corvo, the vessel served on by the runaway Sam Colt, inspired his famous invention?
The ship’s wheel
At which football ground would you see a blue plaque to John Lyall and gates named after him?
West Ham
Which former Manchester United player, born in Largs, Ayrshire, took over from John Lyall as West Ham manager in 1989?
Lou Macari
Which drink was invented in Novara, Italy, in the mid c19 by its eponymous creator?
Campari
Which prize is awarded by the Royal Society of London “in recognition of an original discovery in the physical sciences, particularly electricity and magnetism or their applications”
Hughes Medal
Which sitcom was actually filmed in Northwood?
The Good Life
Which PM’s last words were ‘This is not the end of me’?
Campbell-Bannerman
Fluctuat nec mergitur is a Latin phrase meaning “It is tossed by the waves, but does not sink” and is the motto of which European city?
Paris
