Set 13 Flashcards
It refers to an event that resulted in the deaths of nine ski hikers in the northern Ural mountains on the night of February 2, 1959. It happened on the east shoulder of the mountain Kholat Syakhl. The lack of eyewitnesses and subsequent investigations into the hikers’ deaths have inspired much speculation. Investigators at the time determined that the hikers tore open their tent from within, departing barefoot in heavy snow. Though the corpses showed no signs of struggle, two victims had fractured skulls, two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue. What is this called?
Dyatlov Pass Incident
Extreme cases of compulsive hoarders, which brothers were found dead in their home in New York in 1947? The younger brother, Langley, died by falling victim to a booby trap he had set up, causing a mountain of objects, books, and newspapers to fall on him crushing him to death. His blind brother, Homer, who had depended on Langley for care, died of starvation some days later.
Collyer brothers
What was the nickname given to a 6.2-kilogram (14 lb) subcritical mass of plutonium that accidentally went critical on two separate instances at the Los Alamos laboratory in 1945 and 1946. Each incident resulted in the acute radiation poisoning and subsequent deaths of two scientists (Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin)?
Demon core
Which man invented CFCs and leaded petrol? In 1940, at the age of 51, he contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his death when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55.
Thomas Midgley
In 1944, 74 sailors died when which American submarine accidentally torpedoed itself?
USS Tang
Which critic and member of the Algonquin Round Table claimed to be the inspiration for Rex Stoute’s detective Nero Wolfe and died live on air from a heart attack during a radio discussion about Hitler in 1943?
Alexander Woollcott
Which British ship, sharing its name with a tropical island, sank itself in the Arctic in WW2 with a faulty torpedo?
HMS Trinidad
Which American novelist and short story writer, whose most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio, died when a cocktail stick he had accidentally swallowed in Panama ruptured his colon?
Sherwood Anderson
Which Welsh driver was the first man to be killed in pursuit of the land speed record in 1927 at Pendine Sands?
J G Parry Thomas
Legendary Jewish strongman Siegmund Breitbart, who died when a nail he was driving through wood with his bare hands as part of an act pierced his leg and caused blood poisoning, was the subject of which 2001 Werner Herzog film?
Invincible
Which Swedish author, died of cyanide poisoning while staying at Hotel Hellman in Stockholm, because the hotel staff had failed to clear the room after using hydrogen cyanide against bedbugs?
Dan Andersson
It occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood. A large molasses storage tank burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph, killing 21 and injuring 150. The event has entered local folklore, and residents claim that on hot summer days, the area still smells of molasses. This happened in which US city?
Boston
Now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, which man is remembered for his accidental death by jumping from the Eiffel Tower in 1912 while testing a wearable parachute of his own design? He had become fixated on developing a suit for aviators that would convert into a parachute and allow them to survive a fall should they be forced to leave their aircraft.
Franz Reichelt
Which vocal group of Democrats in the Northern United States opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates?
Copperheads
He died in 1871 in Lebanon, Ohio, at the age of 50, after accidentally shooting himself with a pistol. He was representing a defendant in a murder case for killing a man in a barroom brawl. He wished to prove the victim had in fact killed himself while trying to draw his pistol from a pocket while rising from a kneeling position and decided to show colleagues how he would demonstrate this to the jury. Grabbing a pistol he believed to be unloaded, he put it in his pocket and enacted the events as he imagined them to have happened, shooting himself dead in the process. Who?
Clement Vallandigham
Which traditional pastry is made in various forms in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Norway, Denmark and Estonia, associated with Lent and especially Shrove Monday or Shrove Tuesday?
Semla
Which king of Sweden, died of digestion problems in 1771 after having consumed a meal consisting of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favourite dessert: semla served in a bowl of hot milk? He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as “the king who ate himself to death”.
Adolph Frederick
Which chef to Louis XIV, committed suicide because his seafood order was late and he could not stand the shame of a postponed meal. His body was discovered by an aide, sent to tell him of the arrival of the fish?
Francois Vatel
Which Scottish aristocrat, polymath and first translator of Rabelais into English, is said to have died laughing upon hearing that Charles II had taken the throne?
Thomas Urquhart
Which Athenian law-maker was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens?
Draco
Which 6th century BC wrestler, an associate of Pythagoras, enjoyed a brilliant wrestling career and won many victories in the most important athletic festivals of ancient Greece? In addition to his athletic victories, he is credited by the ancient commentator Diodorus Siculus with leading his fellow citizens to military triumph over neighboring Sybaris in 510 BC.
Milo of Croton
Also known as ‘the boats’, this was an ancient Persian method of execution designed to inflict torturous death. The naked person was firmly fastened within a face-to-face pair of narrow rowing boats (or a hollowed-out tree trunk), with the head, hands and feet protruding. The condemned was forced to ingest milk and honey to the point of developing severe diarrhea, and more honey would be rubbed on his body to attract insects to the exposed appendages. He or she would then be left to float on a stagnant pond or be exposed to the sun. The defenseless individual’s feces accumulated within the container, attracting more insects, which would eat and breed within his or her exposed and increasingly gangrenous flesh. The feeding would be repeated each day in some cases to prolong the torture, so that dehydration or starvation did not provide him or her with the release of death?
Scaphism
Which soldier who accidentally killed Cyrus the Younger was the most famous victim of scaphism?
Mithridates
More famous for his contribution to the English language, which Greek general died while fighting an urban battle in Argos when an old woman threw a roof tile at him, stunning him and allowing an Argive soldier to kill him?
Pyrrhus
Which Greek stoic philosopher is believed to have died of laughter after watching his drunken donkey attempt to eat figs?
Chrysippus
Which brother of Judas Maccabeus was killed when an elephant fell on him in battle?
Eleazar Maccabeus
Which Bishop of Pergamum was roasted to death in a brazen bull during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian?
St Antipas
Which Roman emperor, who shares his name with a herbal remedy, after being defeated in battle and captured by the Persians, was supposedly used as a footstool by the King Shapur I?
Valerian
Which prince of the Polans tribe was, according to 9th century legend, eaten alive by mice in a tower in Kruszwica?
Prince Popiel
Which Earl of Orkney strapped the head of his defeated foe, Máel Brigte, to his horse’s saddle. The teeth of this head grazed against his leg as he rode, causing an infection that killed him?
Sigurd the Mighty
Which king of Hungary died when the canopy of his throne collapsed on him?
Bela I
Which king of Aragon in 1410 died from a lethal combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing?
Martin I
Sir Arthur Aston, Royalist commander of the garrison during which Civil War event, was beaten to death with his own wooden leg, which the Parliamentarian soldiers thought concealed golden coins?
Siege of Drogheda
Which peasants’ revolt leader in Hungary was condemned to sit on a red-hot iron throne with a red-hot iron crown on his head and a red-hot sceptre in his hand (mocking at his ambition to be king), by Hungarian landed nobility in Transylvania. While he was still alive, he was set upon and his partially roasted body was eaten by six of his fellow rebels, who had been starved for a week beforehand?
Gyorgy Dozsa
Which Scottish botanist fell into a pit trap in Hawaii in 1834 accompanied by a bull. He was gored and possibly crushed?
David Douglas
Which homeless man in New York, originally Irish, is most famous for having survived a number of attempts on his life by five acquaintances, who were attempting to commit insurance fraud?
Michael Malloy
Which man, nicknamed “White Death” by the Red Army, was a Finnish sniper? Using a modified Mosin-Nagant in the Winter War, he has the highest recorded number (505) of confirmed kills in any major war.
Simo Häyhä
Comprising half of the Far Eastern Federal District in Russia, it is the largest subnational governing body by area in the world. If it were an independent country, it would be the eighth largest in the world, yet it has a population of only 949,280 inhabitants. What is the name of this Siberian republic?
Sakha
What is the capital of Sakha Republic?
Yakutsk
Which is the second largest subnational division in the world?
Western Australia
Which term used to refer to nine of Russia’s 83 federal subjects. The term is supplemental to the oblast-based administrative division of the Russian Federation and could be compared to the English equivalents of march, territory, province, country or region? Russias’s second-largest subnational division of Krasnoyarsk is one of them.
Krai
Which is the largest Brazilian state?
Amazonas
Which is the largest subnational division of China?
Xinjiang
What name is given to the northwestern projecting peninsula of Papua New Guinea?
Bird’s Head Peninsula
Of the 21 most populous subnational entities in the world, 20 are parts of India and China. Which is the only one in neither country?
Punjab, Pakistan
What is the world’s 22nd most populous sub-national entity, and the most populous in Europe?
England
What name is given to the case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg (then part of the Holy Roman Empire)? Numerous people took to dancing for days without rest, and, over the period of about one month, most of the people died from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion.
Dancing Plague of 1518
Also known as the “Mystery of the Somerton Man”, this is an unsolved case revolving around an unidentified man found dead at 6:30a.m., December 1, 1948 on Somerton beach in Adelaide, Australia. Considered “one of Australia’s most profound mysteries” the case has been the subject of intense speculation over the years regarding the identity of the victim, the events leading up to his death and the cause of death. What’s its name, taken from a scrap of paper from the Rubaiyat found in his coat pocket?
Taman Shud Case
Printer steganography is a type of steganography produced by color printers, including HP, Konica Minolta, Xerox and Epson brand color laser printers, where tiny dots of what colour are added to each page. The dots are barely visible and contain encoded printer serial numbers, as well as date and time stamps?
Yellow
Malad City, Idaho, claims to have more people of what ethnicity than anywhere else in the world outside that country?
Welsh
What phenomenon occurs when a forgotten memory returns without it being recognised as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original?
Cryptomnesia
Often described as the opposite of déjà vu, it involves a sense of eeriness and the observer’s impression of seeing the situation for the first time, despite rationally knowing that he or she has been in the situation before?
Jamais Vu
Which small, uninhabited barren knoll measuring 0.5 sq mi, is located in the centre of the Kennedy Channel of Nares Strait—the strait that separates Ellesmere Island from northern Greenland and connects Baffin Bay with the Lincoln Sea- what is strange about it is that it is claimed aggressively by both Canada and Denmark?
Hans Island
Who was Pol Pot’s deputy, known as Brother Number Two?
Nuon Chea
Which Greek word for ‘going down’ is used to describe the epic convention of the hero’s trip into the underworld?
Katabasis
Which doctrine in Christian theology referenced in the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed states that Jesus Christ “descended into Hell”. The lack of explicit scriptural references to Christ’s descent to the underworld has given rise to controversy and differing interpretations?
The Harrowing of Hell
What name is given to a cognitive neuroscience phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listener, who can only process the speech as repeated meaningless sounds?
Semantic Satiation
Which isolated 414-mile long road leads to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Sea Coast in Alaska?
Dalton Highway
Which physician, bacteriologist, professor, and member of the French Academy of Medicine who intentionally brought about the collapse of rabbit populations throughout much of Europe and beyond in the 1950s through introducing the myxomatosis virus from Australia?
Paul Felix Armand-Delille
The stone spheres are an assortment of over three hundred petrospheres, located on the Diquis Delta and on Isla del Caño. Known locally as Las Bolas, they are also called The Diquis Spheres. These are the best-known stone sculptures of the Isthmo-Colombian area. In which country are these stone spheres?
Costa Rica
What name is given to a passenger elevator which consists of a chain of open compartments (each usually designed for two persons) that move slowly in a loop up and down inside a building without stopping. Passengers can step on or off at any floor they like, and it gets its name from a resemblance to the Rosary used in Catholicism?
Paternoster
What name is given to a sculpture consisting of a large granite ball supported by a very thin film of water. Water flows beneath a very heavy, perfectly spherical rock from a spherical concave base with exactly the same curvature. It can weigh thousands of pounds, but because the thin film of water lubricates it, the ball spins?
Kugel Ball
What connects Alice Herz, Roger LaPorte and Norman Morrison in 1965, Florence Beaumont in 1967 and George Winne in 1970?
Americans who burnt themselves to death in protest at the Vietnam war
What name is given to a custom-made ocean-going self-propelled semi-submersible vessel built by drug traffickers to smuggle drugs. They are especially known to be used by Colombian drug cartel members to export cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, which is often then transported overland to the United States?
Narco submarines
Which feral child who apparently lived his entire childhood naked and alone in the woods before being found wandering the woods near Saint-Sernin-sur-Rance, France, in 1797 was captured, but soon escaped, after being displayed in the town? He was the subject of Truffaut’s 1969 film The Wild Child.
Victor of Aveyron
Which mentally handicapped Hanoverian of unknown parentage was found in 1725 living wild in the woods near Hamelin? Living off the forest’s flora, he walked on all fours, behaved like an animal and could not be taught to speak. Later he was taken to England where he was exhibited, then cared for by a farmer’s family, and is buried in Northchurch, Hertfordshire.
Peter the Wild Boy
Which king ordered that Romulus and Remus should be killed, althugh his servant left them by the Tiber instead?
Amulius
Which King of Scotland carried out the famous language deprivation experiment?
James IV
What objects link Yantlet Creek, Kent; Chalkwell Avenue, Southend-on-Sea; Staines Museum; and Lower Upnor, Kent?
London Stones
Generally regarded as one of the poorest and most dangerous areas of the Western Hemisphere and one of the biggest slums in the Northern Hemisphere, what is the poorest section of Port-au-Prince, Haiti?
Cite Soleil
What two-word phrase describes a notice that is carried by the military, usually aircraft personnel, that displays messages aimed at the civilians that ask them to help the servicemember in case they are shot down?
Blood Chit
The first known blood chit was a letter signed by George Washington carried by which French balloonist, who spoke on English, on his American visit?
Jean-Pierre Blanchard
Why were the blood chits carried by WWI British airmen in India and Mesopotamia called ‘goolie chits’?
Because there were rumours that downed pilots were castrated and then used as domestic servants
What was the popular name of the 1st American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941-1942. The pilots were United States Army (USAAF), Navy (USN), and Marine Corps (USMC) personnel, recruited under Presidential sanction?
Flying Tigers
Which Texan man, who sounds like a woman, was the commander of the Flying Tigers?
Claire Lee Chennault
What name is given to the paintings of women, animals, graffiti or other symbols on the forward part of planes? A modern example is the ‘Virgin Girl’ on Virgin Atlantic aircraft.
Nose art
Confusingly, the Flying Tigers were famous for an animal’s face on their planes- but not a tiger- rather what?
A shark
Name the densely populated, largely ungoverned settlement in Kowloon that was originally a Chinese military fort. Its population increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it was controlled by Triads and had high rates of prostitution, gambling, and drug use but was demolished in the 1990s and replaced by a park.
Kowloon Walled City
Called The Manhattan of the Desert or the oldest skyscaper city in the world, it owes its fame to its distinct architecture, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The houses are all made out of mud brick but about 500 of them are tower houses, which rise 5 to 11 stories high with each floor having one or two apartments. This building technique was implemented in order to protect residents from Bedouin attacks. What Yemeni city?
Shibam
In October 1937, Dominican President Rafael Trujillo ordered the execution of the Haitian population living within the borderlands with Haiti. The violence resulted in the killing of about 25,000 Haitian civilians over a span of approximately five days. This would later become known as what, from the shibboleth that Trujillo had his soldiers apply to determine whether or not those living on the border were native Dominicans who spoke Spanish fluently?
The Parsley Massacre
Which term, coined by Theodore Roosevelt, is the term used to describe the effort of the United States — particularly under President William Howard Taft — to further its aims in Latin America and East Asia through use of its economic power by guaranteeing loans made to foreign countries?
Dollar diplomacy
What is the most common term for events which occurred on the night of April 8, 1956, when Staff Sergeant Matthew McKeon, a junior drill instructor at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, marched his assigned platoon into a swampy tidal creek? The incident resulted in the deaths of six United States Marine Corps recruits. McKeon was found guilty of possession and use of alcoholic beverage.
Ribbon Creek Incident
Which African American World War II veteran’s 1946 beating and maiming, hours after being discharged from the United States Army, sparked national outrage and galvanized the civil rights movement in the United States? Still in uniform, Woodard was left completely and permanently blind after a run-in with police.
Isaac Woodard
What name was given to nine black teenaged boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident deal with racism and a basic American right: the right to a fair trial. The case includes a frameup, all-white jury, rushed trials, an attempted lynching, angry mob, and miscarriage of justice and influenced To Kill A Mockingbird?
Scottsboro Boys
Which African-American boy who at 14 years old was murdered in Mississippi after reportedly flirting with a white woman. He was tortured, then shot through the head?
Emmett Till
What two-word phrase describes an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience or venue/space. It has the auspice of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with the Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists. It has also been made much use of by the Stuckists?
Art intervention
Robert Brown claims to be the child of which royal couple?
Princess Margaret and Peter Townsend
Cassie Chadwick pretended to be which famous man’s daughter?
Andrew Carnegie
This writer claimed to have been a lama in Tibet before spending the second part of his life in the body of a British man. Cyril Henry Hoskin (8 April 1910 – 25 January 1981) described himself as the “host” of which Tibetan man?
Lobsong Rampa
David Hampton, who died of AIDS in 2003, claimed to be the son of which Hollywood star?
Sidney Poitier
James Addison Reavis (1843-1914), the self-styled Baron of __________, was an impostor on a grand scale who claimed to own much of which US state in the late 19th century?
Arizona
Christopher Rocancourt, (b. July 16, 1967 in Honfleur, France) is an impostor, confidence man and gentleman thief who scammed affluent people by masquerading as a French member of which family?
Rockefeller
What was the real name of Princess Caraboo, who fooled Almondsbury?
Mary Baker
He claimed to be the first Formosan to visit Europe. For some years he convinced many in Britain, but was later revealed to be an impostor.
George Psalmanazar
Who was the Swiss referee in the 1966 World Cup Final?
Gottfried Dienst
What was the surname of the bizarre man who created the character of Josey Wales? He lived the first half of his life as a violent white supremacist with forenames Asa Earl and the second half of his life as a man deeply interested in Native AMerican culture and claiming to be himself a Native American- forename Forrest?
Carter
In literary awards, what does the acronym ABBY stand for?
American Booksellers Book of the Year
This Peruvian-born American anthropologist and author, starting with The Teachings of Don Juan in 1968, wrote a series of books that describe his alleged training in traditional Mesoamerican shamanism. His 12 books have sold more than 8 million copies in 17 languages. The books and their author, who rarely spoke in public about his work, have been controversial for many years?
Carlos Castaneda
Which American actor was recognized for portraying American Indians in Hollywood films. Near the end of his life, his Italian ancestry was made public (he was actually born Espera Oscar de Corti). In 1995 he was honored by the American Indian community for his portrayals. What was his professional name?
Iron Eyes Cody
Similar to Iron Eyes Cody, which man was born Sylvester Clark Long, was an African-American journalist, writer and actor from Winston-Salem, North Carolina who became internationally prominent as a spokesman for Indian causes, claiming to be Native American?
Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance
Archibald Stansfeld Belaney was born in September 1888, near Hastings, England. Yet another man claiming to be Native American, he took what name?
Grey Owl
Serial impostor Frederic Bourdin has been nicknamed what by the French press?
The Chameleon
Known as “the Great Impostor”, he masqueraded as many people from monks to surgeons to prison wardens. He was the subject of a movie, The Great Impostor, in which he was played by Tony Curtis, and became friends with Steve McQueen. During his “careers,” he was, among other things, a ship’s doctor, a civil engineer, a sheriff’s deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher?
Ferdinand Waldo Demara
Stanisława Walasiewiczówna was, famously, a hermaphrodite athlete, exposed only through her death in a shooting. Under what name did she win gold in the 100m at Los Angeles 1932?
Stella Walsh
Which Englishwoman wore male dress and became a sailor during the Napoleonic wars?
Mary Ann Talbot
Which English reporter secretly posed as a man to become a soldier during the First World War and then write about the experience? She died alone and forgotten in Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in 1964.
Dorothy Lawrence
Which English rogue, vagabond and impostor, who claimed to be King of the Beggars was the son of the rector of Bickleigh, Devon?
Bampfylde Moore Carew
Alan Conway, a London travel agent born Eddie Jablowsky, impersonated which film director during the early 1990s?
Stanley Kubrick
Anoushirvan D. Fahkran, a 27-year-old Iranian porn actor, legally changed his name to pose as the 14 year old nephew of which film director?
Stephen Spielberg
Which American journalist and author, much of whose writing was about racial equality, is best known for darkening his skin and journeying through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to experience segregation in the Deep South in 1959. He wrote about this experience in his 1961 book Black Like Me?
John Howard Griffin
Arnaud du Tilh was at the centre of which famous case of imposture?
Martin Guerre
Which 1993 Hollywood film was an adaptation of the Martin Guerre story?
Sommersby
Graham Tumber, despite looking nothing at all like him, impersonated which rock frontman for a year, duping Dover council into providing free hospitality and transport services after promising to appear at a charity concert in the town?
Francis Rossi
What disorder is where a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor?
Capgras delusion
Meyrick Edward Clifton James was used by the British army as whose double?
Montgomery
Rashid’ and felix Dadaev were doubles for which man?
Joseph Stalin
An urban legend holds that in WW”, Churchill’s speeches on the radio were dubbed by which actor and voice artist?
Norman Shelley
Which American novelist wrote several novels, a book of children’s stories and two devotional books? She shunned publicity and wrote her first book anonymously, causing the opposite of the desired effect in that several impostors claimed to be the author, resulting in a literary furore, and more attention than the real author ever foresaw.
Miriam Coles Harris
Which early 20th century American impostor and entertainer presented an exoticized identity as a native of Africa, when in reality he was born Joseph Howard Lee in Baltimore, Maryland? Despite an impoverished start in life and a lack of education, and a series of scandalous arrests related to homosexual activities, mainly involving underage individuals, he maintained a long and colorful career posing as an African “savage”, during which he delivered lectures to many institutions and conducted public debates.
Bata LoBagola
Which country was stripped of their intellectual disability basketball gold medals shortly after the 2000 ParalympicGames closed after a member of the victorious team and an undercover journalist, revealed that most of his colleagues had not undergone medical tests to ensure that they had a disability?
Spain
Who is the first person in history to reach the Geographic and Magnetic North and South Poles as well as climb the highest peaks in all seven continents; the Adventurers’ Grand Slam?
David Hempleman-Adams
What is the northernmost point of Canada and the world’s most northerly land outside Greenland?
Cape Columbia
The short story ‘In the Penal Colony’ describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin in a script before letting him die, all in the course of twelve hours. As the plot unfolds, the reader learns more and more about the machine, including its origin, and original justification. How has this device come to be known?
The Kafka Machine
Who is the closest South Korean equivalent of David Hempleman-Adams?
Park Young-Seok
The 1917 Camp Logan Riot, a mutiny by 156 black soldiers of the Third Battalion of the all-black Twenty-fourth United States Infantry, took place in which US city? It lasted one night, and resulted in the deaths of four black soldiers and sixteen civilians. The rioters were tried at three courts-martial. Nineteen were executed, and forty-one were given life sentences.
Houston
Which graffito started appearing soon in multiple locations after a 1941 unsolved murder? The graffiti was last sprayed onto the side of Wychbury obelisk in Hagley on 18 August 1999, in white paint.
Who put Bella In The Wych Elm?
Which Ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and strategist was reputed to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of steam, said to have actually flown some 200 metres?
Archytas
Which Brazilian priest, an experimenter with early airship designs, in 1709 demonstrated a small airship model before the Portuguese court, but never succeeded with a full-scale model?
Bartolomeu de Gusmao
Name either of the ways Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier made aviation history?
First manned balloon flight and first death in an aviation accident
Which English inventor was responsible for the first heavier than air powered flight, accomplished by an unmanned steam powered monoplane of 10-foot (3.0 m) wingspan. In 1868, he flew a powered monoplane model a few dozen feet at an exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London?
John Stringfellow
Which Portuguese pilot, canopy maker and Cuban resident who, carried away with the ever increasing popularity of aerostatic aircraft, disappeared while attempting an aerostatic flight from Havana’s “Plaza de Marte” (currently Parque de la Fraternidad) on June, 1856?
Matias Perez
Which pioneer British glider/plane builder and pilot, a protege of Lilienthal, was killed in 1899 when his fourth glider crashed shortly before the intended public test of his powered triplane. Cranfield University built a replica of the triplane in 2003 from drawings in Philip Jarrett’s book “Another Icarus”?
Percy Pilcher
Which aviation pioneer immigrated from Germany to the U.S., where he designed and built early flying machines and engines to power them.
In August 1901 a newspaper reported that he made a powered controlled flight in Connecticut—two years before the Wright brothers flew?
Gustave Whitehead
Which three-word military phrase refers to the tactic of bringing a large portion of one’s own force to bear on small enemy units in sequence, rather than engaging the bulk of the enemy force all at once. This exposes one’s own units to a small risk, yet allows for the eventual destruction of an entire enemy force?
Defeat in detail
Also known as a Balbo, what two-word phrase was an air fighting tactic proposed during the Battle of Britain by 12 Group commander Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory and Acting Squadron Leader Douglas Bader. In essence, the tactic involved meeting incoming Luftwaffe bombing raids in strength with a wing-sized formation of three to five squadrons?
Big Wing
In biology, RHP is the ability of an animal to win an all-out fight if one were to take place. What does it stand for?
Resource holding potential
Also known as the Good Thief or the Penitent Thief, which companion of Christ on the cross is seen as a saint by some Christians?
St Dismas
In biblical commentary, but not in the Bible itself, who are named Asher, Zebulun, Justus, Nicodemus, Joseph, Barshabba, and Jose?
The nativity shepherds
Traditionally, in a circus, a knifethrower performs with which named assistant?
Target girl
Born near Shrewsbury, supposedly in 1483, which English supercentenarian allegedly lived for 152 years?
Old’ Tom Parr
Which Idaho US Army experimental nuclear power reactor underwent a steam explosion and meltdown on January 3, 1961, killing its three operators? The direct cause was the improper withdrawal of the main control rod from the poorly-designed reactor core. The event is the only known fatal reactor accident in the United States.
SL-1
In which city was the Brazilian radiation contamination accident which happened when old hospital equipment was reused?
Goiania
Which nuclear power plant in France suffered a partial core meltdown in 1980?
Saint-Laurent
The Chalk River accident was the worst nuclear accident at a power station in which country?
Canada
In the INES scale used by the UN, what does INES stand for?
International Nuclear Event Scale
The INES scale goes from 0 to 7 (most serious). What number was Chernobyl, the world’s worst ever nuclear accident?
Seven
On the INES scale, what number was Three Mile Island?
Five
Aerophilately specialises in stamps on airmail. What name is given to the study of stamps on letters delivered by rocket?
Astrophilately
The MOBA has two branches- one in Dedham, MA and another in Somerville, MA. What does MOBA stand for?
Museum of Bad Art
Also called a Fuller map, what name is givn to a projection of a world map onto the surface of a polyhedron, which can then be unfolded to a net in many different ways and flattened to form a two-dimensional map which retains most of the relative proportional integrity of the globe map? The name is common to many Buckminster Fuller inventions.
Dymaxion map
Dubbed the “killer rabbit” attack by the media, it involved a swamp rabbit that caught press imagination after swimming toward the then-U.S. President’s fishing boat. Which U.S. president?
Jimmy Carter
n the early 1930s, American engineer Walter Christie experimented with them. Later, the Royal Air Force tested the Baynes Bat. Both were trying to create what unusual concept in war machinery?
Flying tanks
What name is given to the sea forts off SE England? Sealand is on one of them.
Maunsell forts
In American sport, what are bleachers?
Steeply tiered rows of spectator seating
Mud from a secret location on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River is sold by a company named for Lena Blackburne. What is it used for?
Rubbing baseballs
Which giant reservoir is sometimes called ‘the eye of Quebec’?
Manicouagan
What name is given to a logical fallacy in which information that has no relationship is interpreted or manipulated until it appears to have meaning? The ‘Bible Code’ and prophecies of Nostradamus are examples. The name comes from a joke about an American who fires some shots at the side of a barn, then paints a target centered on the biggest cluster of hits?
Texan Sharpshooter Fallacy
Wich crater on Mars is often known as the “happy face crater” because the illusion of a smiley is created by a semicircular mountain range and two smaller craters within the main crater. The formation was first photographed by Viking Orbiter 1?
Galle
It is a bronze disk of around 30 cm diameter, with a blue-green patina and inlaid with gold symbols. These are interpreted generally as a sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, and stars (including a cluster interpreted as the Pleiades). Associatively dated to c. 1600 BC, it has been associated with the Bronze Age Unetice culture.
The disk is unlike any known artistic style from the period, and had initially been suspected of being a forgery, but is now widely accepted as authentic?
Nebra Sky Disk
What name is given to the forged, supposedly ancient artifacts that were supposed to prove that people of an ancient Near Eastern culture had lived in the USA, ‘found’ in 1890 by James Scotford?
Michigan Relics
Also known as Drutakarma Dasa, he is an American Hindu creationist whose work argues that modern humans have lived on the earth for billions of years. His antievolutionist book Forbidden Archeology has attracted attention from Hindu creationists and paranormalists, but has been labeled as pseudoscience by representatives of the mainstream archaelogical and paleoanthropologist community?
Michael Cremo
Chinese lunar orbiting spacecraft are named for which Chinese goddess of the moon?
Chang’e
The Japanese see a rabbit on the moon with a pot of mochi. So do the Koreans, but with the Korean equivalent of mochi, which is what?
Tteok
Which circularmotifappears insacred sitesfrom theMiddleandFar Eastto thechurchesof south westEngland(where it is often referred to as the “Tinners’ Rabbits)?
Three hares
From the Latin meaning “likeness, similarity”, it is first recorded in the English language in the late 16th century, and used to describe a representation of another thing, such as a statue or a painting, especially of a god; by the late 19th century, it had gathered a secondary association of inferiority: an image without the substance or qualities of the original?
Simulacrum
Which alleged paranormal phenomenon in a private house in Spain started in 1971 when residents claimed to see images of faces appear in the concrete floor of the house. Such images have continuously formed and disappeared on the floor of the home since that time?
Belmez Faces
Named for a distinctively-shaped rock formation, in which sub-national entity would you find Sleeping Giant Provincial Park?
Ontario
Pedra da Galinha Choca (Broody Hen’s Stone) is the name given to one of the most famous monoliths in the city of Quixadá, taking its name from its curious shape. It is located 5 km from the city center. It really does look exactly like a giant stone chicken. In which country?
Brazil
What two-word phrase refers to the tendency to erroneously perceive small samples from random distributions as having significant “streaks” or “clusters”, caused by a human tendency to underpredict the amount of variability likely to appear in a small sample of random or semi-random data due to chance?
Clustering Illusion
Which former chapel in Spain is home to the Mare Nostrum Computer?
Barcelona Supercomputing Centre
Name both non-existent Ohio towns that were inserted into the 1978–1979 official state of Michigan map. The names refer to the slogan of University of Michigan fans and a reference to their archrivals from Ohio State University (OSU)?
Goblu and Beatosu
What name is given to a deliberate mistake in a street map in order to trap copyright violators?
Trap street
What name is given to a street on a street map that does not exist (e.g. it has not yet been built)?
Paper street
It was a “phantom” settlement that appeared on Google Maps and Google Earth but does not actually exist. Its supposed location was just off the A59 road within the civil parish of Aughton in West Lancashire, England, which in reality is nothing more than empty fields. What was its name?
Argleton
Trap streets, mountweazels and nihilartikels are all types of which phenomenon?
Fictitious Entries
What is unusual about Jakob Maria Mierscheid, a member of the German Bundestag?
He does not exist
Zzxjoanw was the last entry in Rupert Hughes’ Music Lovers’ Encyclopedia of 1903, and subsequent editions down to the 1950s. It was a deliberately fictitious entry, and was claimed to be a Maori what?
Drum
Guglielmo Baldini and Dag Henrik Ersum-Hellerup are both fictitious entries in the 1980 edition of which reference work?
Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians
In lexicography, what is the NOAD?
New Oxford American Dictionary
An example of a copyright trap that became an actual landmark in New York state is which town? In the 1930s, General Drafting Company founder Otto G. Lindberg and an assistant, Ernest Alpers, assigned a scramble of their initials to a dirt-road intersection in the Catskill Mountains north of Roscoe. Later, it appeared on a Rand McNally map, but it turned out that they had gotten the name from the county administration. Someone had built a general store at the intersection on the map and had given the name to it because the name was on the Esso maps?
Agloe
Frank Worth, in his bestselling ‘Trivia Encyclopedia’, made up the fact that Colombo’s first name was what to catch out copyright fraudsters? It fooled the makers of Trivial Pursuit, who repeated the incorrect fact.
Phillip
In fact, was is Colombo’s first name?
Frank
What two-word phrase means a method for exposing an information leak, which involves giving different versions of a sensitive document to each of several suspects and seeing which version gets leaked? The term was coined by Tom Clancy in his novel Patriot Games, though Clancy did not invent the technique.
Canary Trap
In computer terminology, what name is given to a trap set to detect, deflect, or in some manner counteract attempts at unauthorized use of information systems? Generally it consists of a computer, data, or a network site that appears to be part of a network, but is actually isolated and monitored, and which seems to contain information or a resource of value to attackers.
Honeypot
Which two-word phrase is a tactic used by many consumer social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It involves re-figuring logos, fashion statements, and product images to challenge the idea of “what’s cool,” along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption?
Culture jamming
It’s an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in an object such as a movie, book, CD, DVD, computer program, web page or video game. The term was coined—according to Warren Robinett—by Atari after they were pointed to the secret message left by Robinett in the game Adventure. It shares its name with a seasonal treat?
Easter Egg
Endless, Nameless was a famous hidden track, as it was one of the very first to appear. It was on which well-known CD?
Nevermind by Nirvana
It is a prime example of a film which is both about falsification (art forgery and the journalism surrounding art forgery) as well as having falsified moments within the film. The movie follows the exploits of a famous art forger, his biographer Clifford Irving, and the subsequent fake autobiography of Howard Hughes that Irving tries to publish. Which Orson Welles documentary?
F for Fake
Which novel purports to be assembled from the notes of a deceased “Monsieur le docteur Ralph”, likely due to the fact that the novel pokes fun at most of the powers of Europe at the time?
Candide
The Salamander Letter was a forgery created by Mark Hoffman in the 1980s concerning the early days of which religion?
Mormonism
Which manuscript, likely intended as a “hoax to fool some nationalist Frisians and orthodox Christians”, first came to public awareness in the 1860s? A public controversy was revived in the context of 1930s Nazi occultism, and the book is still occasionally brought up in esotericism and “Atlantis” literature.
Oera Linda book
Which handwritten book thought to have been written in the 15th or 16th century comprises about 240 vellum pages, most with illustrations? The author, script, and language remain unknown: for these reasons it has been described as “the world’s most mysterious manuscript”. Generally presumed to be some kind of ciphertext, it has defied all decipherment attempts, becoming a historical cryptology cause célèbre.
Voynich manuscript
Which book written and illustrated by the Italian artist, architect and industrial designer Luigi Serafini appears to be a visual encyclopedia of an unknown world, written in one of its languages, a thus-far undeciphered alphabetic writing?
Codex Seraphinianus
Who won the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for his book A Void, which is a translation of the French book La Disparition by Georges Perec?
Gilbert Adair
What is “the content-free encyclopedia”? It is a website that parodies Wikipedia. Founded in 2005 as an originally English-language wiki, the project currently spans over 75 languages. The English version has over 25,000 pages of content.
Uncyclopedia
A running gag and meme among German Internet users, especially in the German Usenet, which is generally considered a satirical story rather than a hoax or an urban legend, concerns the ‘non-existence’ of which German city?
Bielefeld
Which southernmost province of Aragon’s remote and mountainous location and low population has led to relative isolation within Spain. A campaign group with the slogan “_____ existe” was founded in 1999 to press for greater recognition and investment in the town and the province. Due in part to the campaign, transport connections are being greatly improved with the construction of a motorway. However, it remains the only provincial capital in Spain without a direct railway link to the capital, Madrid.
Teruel
Which small (795 sq mi) area along the border between Egypt and Sudan is claimed by neither country, and therefore is one of the very few places on earth unclaimed by any state?
Bir Tawil
By contrast, which much larger triangle of land east of Bir Tawil is claimed by both Egypt and Sudan, but is currently administered by Egypt?
Hala’ib triangle
Bir Tawil is an example of which Latin legal term?
Terra nullius
