Stuff Flashcards
Scientific classification
Kingdom (Animalia) Phylum Class (Mammalia) Order (Primates) Family (Hominid/great apes) Genus (Homo) Species (H. sapiens)
Tierra del Fuego
Land of Fire
Archipelago at the tip of South America, split between Chile and Argentina
Chile
Santiago
Guyana
Georgetown
Peru
Lima
Uruguay
Montevideo
Paraguay
Asunción
Suriname
Paramaribo
sea cow
manatee
Barbados
Bridgetown
Burkina Faso
Ouagadougou
Solomon Islands
Honiara
Tajikistan
Dushanbe
Montenegro
Podgorica
Moldova
Chisinau
Mauritius
Port Louis (named after Louis XV)
Angola
Luanda
Zambia
Lusaka
Solomon
King of Israel (c.970-931 BC)
Son of David
Hellenistic period
From death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) to emergence of Roman Empire (Battle of Actium 31 BC)
From Ancient Greek “Hellas” meaning Greece.
The only Prime Minister to have been murdered. (1809-1812)
Spencer Perceval
Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg
Co-founders of the Spartacist League and German Communist Party
Appian Way
Strategically important road that connected Rome to Brindisi in southeast Italy.
Construction began in 312 BC by Appius Claudius Caecus.
The Trimurti
Hindu trinity of Gods
Brahma - the creator
Vishnu - the preserver
Shiva - the destroyer
Hoover Dam
Built on Colorado river on border between Nevada and Arizona
Constructed between 1931-1936
hajj
Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca
traditional religion of Japan
Shinto
Ganymede
Moon orbiting Jupiter.
Largest moon in the solar system
Galilean moons
Four largest moons orbiting Jupiter:
Io
Europa
Ganymede
Callisto
quinine
Medication used to treat malaria.
Also an ingredient in tonic water.
Pronounced: QUIN-een
Pentateuch (Torah)
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Hebrew Bible
Tanakh
IQ
Intelligence Quotient
Abstract expressionism
Post-world war II art movement developed in New York in the 1940s.
Emphasis on spontaneous, automatic, or subconscious creation.
E.g. Jackson Pollock
Author of Dracula
Bram Stoker (1897)
Southern capital of China
Nanjing
Beijing - Northern capital
World’s deepest lake
Lake Baikal
Also largest freshwater lake by volume
Four largest islands of Japan
Honshu
Hokkaido
Kyushu
Shikoku
Israeli national intelligence agency
Mossad
banana republic
A politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the exportation of a limited-resource product, such as bananas or minerals.
Coined by American writer O. Henry in 1901 when referring to Honduras.
Angel of the North
Sculpture designed by Antony Gormley, located in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England.
Completed in 1998.
Origin of word “History”
From Greek “historia” meaning: inquiry or knowledge acquired by investigation.
The Father of History
Herodotus - 5th-century Greek historian
His book “historia” details the origin of the Greco-Persian Wars
Mario Puzo
Wrote the novel ‘The Godfather’ in 1969.
Later won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for the film in 1972.
Indus River
Long river which flows through Pakistan and into the Arabian Sea.
Indus Valley Civilisation which existed c. 2000 BC
Molasses
American English for black treacle.
Syrupy substance made by refining sugarcane
Zaire
1971-1997
Ruled by Mobutu Sese Seko. Currently the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Pronounced: zye-eer
Hippopotamus
Name comes from the Ancient Greek for “river horse”
Author of War and Peace
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
Longest river in Asia
Yangtze.
Flows through Nanjing and Shanghai.
Third longest river in the world
American overseas territories (permanently inhabited)
American Samoa Guam Northern Mariana Islands Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands
Major inland Asian sea almost entirely dried up
Aral Sea.
On border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Moa
Nine species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand.
Hunted to extinction by the Maori.
The Golden Hind
English galleon captained by Sir Francis Drake.
Circumnavigated the globe 1577-1580.
Hind = female red deer
Shangri-La
Fictional place described in James Hilton’s novel Lost Horizon (1933).
An earthly paradise, exotic, mythical Himalayan utopia.
Appalachian Mountains
Mountain range in North America stretching from Quebec and Maine in the north to Georgia and Alabama in the south.
Pronounced: app-ah-LAY-shun
Mason-Dixon Line
Boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland in the US.
In the pre-Civil War period it was regarded as the dividing line between slave states and free-soil states (along with Ohio River).
Caledonia
Latin name given to the land north of Brittania, roughly corresponding to modern-day Scotland.
Romantic or poetic name for Scotland.
Calabria
Region in Southern Italy.
The toe of Italy
Female equivalent of bar mitzvah
Bat mitzvah
shogun
Military dictators of Japan during most of the period 1185-1868. Nominally appointed by the emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country.
caribou
Large North American reindeer
The thinker
Bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).
Le Penseur (French)
Painter of “The Scream”
Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. (pronounced “munk”)
Expressionism
Composer of Canon in D
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)
Baroque composer
Free Imperial City of Nuremberg
“If a lion could speak, we could not understand him”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
Austrian philosopher
Aswan Dam
Built on the river Nile between 1960 and 1970 in Aswan, Egypt.
Largest asteroid in the solar system
Ceres (pronounces “series”)
Lies in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
What city is situated on the Golden Horn?
Istanbul
Also on the inlet of the Bosphorous. Strait which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara
Sahel
A vast semi-arid region of North Africa, to the south of the Sahara, that forms a transitional zone at the south of the desert and comprises the northern part of the region known as Sudan.
Most expensive painting ever sold at auction
Salvator Mundi (Latin for Saviour of the World)
By Leonardo DaVinci
Sold in 2017 for $450.3 million
Motto for the Olympic Games
“Citius, Altius, Fortius.”
Latin for “faster, higher, stronger”.
LCD
Light-Crystal Display
Joseph Lister (1827-1912)
Promoted the idea of sterile surgery. Disinfected his instruments in carbolic acid (now known as phenol).
Known as the “father of modern surgery”.
First to climb Everest
Edmund Hillary (New Zealand) Tenzing Norgay (Nepali Sherpa)
1953
First deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor in Arts degree
Helen Keller (1880-1968)
Teacher: Anne Sullivan
Jewish skullcap
Kippah or Yarmulke
Author who created James Bond
Ian Fleming
Major river delta located in southern Vietnam
Mekong
Pronounced: mee-kong
Corpse used for medical or scientific research
cadaver
Observation tower in Seattle
The Space Needle
Completed in 1962
Richard Owen
Palaeontologist who coined the word “dinosaur” (terrible lizard) in 1842.
Darwin’s Bulldog
Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)
Coined the term “agnostic” in 1869. “It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe”.
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”
Nathan Hale - American soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Captured by the British and executed in 1776.
Short traditional Japanese poem
Haiku
Cerberus
Greek mythology - the three-headed dog that guards the Underworld. Referred to as the hound of Hades.
Plant used to make tequila
Blue agave (pronounced “a-GAV-ay”)
OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer
MOU
Memorandum of Understanding
A document that describes the broad outlines of an agreement that two or more parties have reached. MOUs communicate the mutually accepted expectations of all of the parties involved in a negotiation.
