Cumulative PM-based History Quiz III

[vogtmurr]

congrats to Yeekim, and congrats to Richard Cribb (why are you being hospitalized?)

so my original prediction turned out true (without help I might have scored 30 something).

take it easy Mr. Cribbs and happy birthday !

 

[Plotinus]

I must have done badly - didn't even make the scoreboard!

 

[BananaLee]

Mind you, this is not due to any excessive consumption of alcohol

That is unfortunate

Get well soon though, we hope to see you back here again soon

What we need now is a NEW QUIZ!!

 

[Richard Cribb]

I must have done badly - didn't even make the scoreboard!

My most sincere apologies, guv.
Copy-pasting is not my forte by far. I will fix it pronto.

That is unfortunate

Indeed.
Even worse; my alcohol days might be more or less a thing of the past unless I can bribe some people of the medical profession...

Get well soon though, we hope to see you back here again soon

Thanks a lot.

So here is the answers. I have provided a few links for some of the answers with further information for those who want to look further into these topics.

1. Let's start back in ancient Mesopotamia.
1. What does "Mesopotamia" mean?
The land between two rivers.
2. What two major languages was spoken in Bronze Age Mesopotamia?
Akkadian and Sumerian
3. How could one distinguish a slave from the free population?
Armbands, special haircuts, and names.
4.Here is the beginning of the Babylonian creation myth.
What is its name?
Enuma Elish. Those who want to read it, kindly go here:http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm
Also fill in the missing names in the text.
Apsu, Tiamat
5. The patron deity of Babylon is also mentioned in this myth. What was his name?
Marduk

2. On which occasion did a badly wounded Ra have to flee but Ptah and Seth saved the day for a famous ruler? 2 points for giving the occasion, 2 more for naming the ruler.
The battle of Kadesh, Pharaoh Ramesses II. The Egyptian divisions were named after gods.
http://www.geocities.com/athens/styx/7480/

3. In ancient Rome, what was:
1.A tonsor? A slave that was trained to be a barber and a hairdresser (Hence the word "tonsure").
2.A quaestor? A treasurer. From "quiero" - "to ask, inquire". A quaestor inquired into public funds, and kept track of all money that cames in and went out. Usually this would be the first step in a political career.
3.An aedile? A public works administrator. From aedes, aedis - building. They take care of the city, and hand out jobs. This is because government officials couldn't do business, so they hired business people to work on public projects for them.
4.An aquilifer? A senior signifer who carried the standard of a legion. The name derives from the type of standard, aquila meaning "eagle".
5.A janitor? A slave gate keeper. Named after Janus, the god of doors and passages.

4.Which area did the mythical Zingh Empire cover (2 p), and when were it supposed to have existed (2 p)?
From Senegal to India and based on the ancient Saharan region, around 15000 years ago.

5.Which city was known as the "Athens" of the Americas ( 2)?
Not a very good question since it is ambiguous. I accepted both Bogota,Boston and Philadelphia.

6.This is the flag of which country(2 p)?
Liechtenstein.
The crown in the flag was added fairly recently. On which occasion (2 p),
The 1936 Olympic Games.
and why(2 p)?
During the opening ceremonies, athletes from Liechtenstein discovered that their flag was identical to the flag of Haiti. So soon after the games, a yellow crown was added to the flag.

7.Which was the smallest European state to be a colonial power(2 p), where was its colonial territory(2 p)and when did this state possess this colonial area(2 p)?
The state is Courland (Kurland), the territories St.Andrew Island (Courland Gambia) and New Courland (Tobago), the timeframe 1637 -1666.
http://passingstrangeness.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/the-mouse-that-roared-colonized/

8.Who fought the War of Currents(2 p)?
George Westinghouse (with a minor contribution by Nikola Tesla) and Thomas Edison.
The conflict was due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over alternating current (AC) advocated by Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla.
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/dept/Co...g/The_War_of_Currents/The_War_of_Currents.htm

9.Which country did name itself "a people's republic" for the longest period of time(2 p), and which period of time was this(2 p)?
Mongolia (1924 -1992)

10. What does it mean to bowdlerize (2 p)?
To censor an artistic work by purging anything noxious, offensive, or erroneous from it.
It is called after Thomas Bowdler, a physician who in 1818 published a family friendly version of William Shakespeare's works. It might also be of interest to some that Bowdler was a competent chess amateur, who played the first recorded double rook sacrifice.

11.When you have a username like mine, you ought to have some knowledge of the Victorian underworld. I might not be the only one around here. Below are ten words which were used as slang in the Victorian era about people who pursued different activities either on the right or the wrong side of the law. What is a:
Beak - Magistrate
Bludger - A violent criminal. Prone to use a bludgeon.
Cracksman - A Burgler, a safecracker. One who cracks of breaks locks. A whole genre of thief. Raffles, anyone?
Crusher - Policeman
Dipper - Pickpocket
Dollymop -A prostitute, often an amateur or a part-time street girl; like the victims of Jack the Ripper.
Haymarket Hector - Pimp. Especially around the areas of Haymarket and Leicester Square
Lurker - First and foremost a beggar, or someone who uses a beggar's disguise.
But also used as a synonym for a criminal.
Palmer - Shoplifter
Screwsman - A burglar versed in screwing
Screwing was a sub-genre of cracking; burglary by means of skeleton keys, waxing keys, or picking locks.
Trasseno - An evil person.

12.Which famous artistic duo is associated with these pictures? (2 p)
William Schenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan who together made 14 outstanding comic operas in the late 19th century.
http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/index.html
The first two pictures are from two of the most celebrated of these works;
1. The Pirate King from The Pirates of Penanza:

Link to video.

2. Three Little Maids from The Mikado:

Link to video.

I can't resist one further example of the wit and competance this team possessed, a delightful Handel-parody;
This Helmet I Suppose from Princess Ida:

Link to video.

Also, 2 p each for naming correctly the persons on picture 3 and 4.
Mike Leigh(b.1943) English writer and director of film and theater. His movie Topsy-Turvy from 1999 is about the creation of the Gilbert&Sullivan opera "The Mikado". Excellent work, highly recommended!
Gilbert O'Sullivan (b.1946) Irish popular songwriter and artist in the 1970s. Born Raymond Edward O'Sullivan, he changed his first name to Gilbert on his manager's advice.

13. Here are 6 persons. Who are they (1 points for each correct answer)? and what do they have in common (3 points).
1.Walter Hallstein
2.Frank Sinatra
3.Caspar Weinberger
4.Walter Ulbricht
5.James Earl Carter Jr.
6.Leonid Brezhnev
I suppose everybody knows those gentlemen pretty well.
What they have in common is that they all have foreign political doctrines named after them.
The Hallstein Doctrine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallstein_Doctrine
The Sinatra Doctrine:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinatra_Doctrine
The Weinberger Doctrine:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberger_Doctrine
The Ulbricht Doctrine:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulbricht_Doctrine
The Carter Doctrine:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine
The Brezhnev Doctrine:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brezhnev_Doctrine

14. What is this?
It is made from a part of a plant.
Its name might be derived from a city or from a word meaning a sort of drink.
According to a apocryph story, an Ethiopian goatherd discovered it in the 8th century.
The earliest knowledge of it being used comes from Yemen in the 15th century.
It has been banned in both Ethiopia and Turkey for different reasons.
It came to Europe during the 16th century, and the first public house serving it opened in 1645.
Coffee. What else?
A famous composer wrote a song play about it.
2 points for answering what it is, one additional point for naming the famous composer.
Coffee.
Johann Sebastian Bach. Being one of his few humouristic works, the "Coffee cantata" is really a chamber opera and is sometimes performed with costumes. Very charming:

Link to video.

15. Why is the connection between an Ukrainian football club and the result 5-3 a tragic one (2 p)?
On the 9th of august 1942, a match between a reconstituted Dynamo Kiev, under the name of FC Start, defeated a Nazi team and suffered for it.
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2008/08/games-of-life-and-death.html

16. And finally, what is this?
An artificial leech. It was invented in 1840 and used frequently in eye and ear surgery.

 

[Yeekim]

So the winner is Yeekim, who apart from the congratulations of yours truly, also gets the pleasure to make the next quiz.
Unfortunately I am to be hospitalised on Wednesday, but I will try to get the answers with some additional information posted tomorrow.

Thank you - and I hope yours will be a speedy recovery.

5.Which city was known as the "Athens" of the Americas ( 2)?
Not a very good question since it is ambiguous. I accepted both Bogota,Boston and Philadelphia.

Hmm... I offered Philadelphia and got nothing for it.
But looks like it does not matter in the end. I have started to put a quiz together and with any luck will finish within a week or so.

 

[Richard Cribb]

Thank you - and I hope yours will be a speedy recovery.

Thanks. Not too optimistic for the moment though. Might be more serious than I assumed. But that is off-topic.

Hmm... I offered Philadelphia and got nothing for it.
But looks like it does not matter in the end. I have started to put a quiz together and with any luck will finish within a week or so.

Blast! I had my thoughts elsewhere these last few weeks and probably examined your answers without sufficient care.
Have another two points and my humble apologies.

 

[sydhe]

I'm going in for surgery myself on the 27th but I'll only be in the hospital overnight.

 

[sydhe]

As far as confessions go, I did check to make absolutely sure that was Casper Weinberger since I hadn't seen him for many years. I disqualified myself on the flag question because I saw the flag online, which is just as well because I thought the crown had been added in 1918 when Austria-Hungary fell apart. (The prince of Liechtenstein owned a lot of territory in Austria.)

 

[Richard Cribb]

I'm going in for surgery myself on the 27th but I'll only be in the hospital overnight.

Now that's unfortunate, hope it's nothing serious.
Good luck and speedy recovery.

As far as confessions go, I did check to make absolutely sure that was Casper Weinberger since I hadn't seen him for many years. I disqualified myself on the flag question because I saw the flag online, which is just as well because I thought the crown had been added in 1918 when Austria-Hungary fell apart. (The prince of Liechtenstein owned a lot of territory in Austria.)

Must be my new username and avatar that makes people confess in droves.
But I must say I would prefer people to keep their little secrets.
After all, this quiz is not a matter of that great importance.

 

[Yeekim]

The next quiz is attached as .pdf.
Maximum score is 30 points.
Really hope I did not make this too difficult.
14th September is the preliminary deadline for answers.

Good luck!

 

[Richard Cribb]

Capital work, and kudos for the idea of using pdf.
Don't know if I will submit though; can't win anyway.
And yes, it is rather difficult, but as far as I am concerned, not too much so.

 

[Yeekim]

Capital work, and kudos for the idea of using pdf.
Don't know if I will submit though; can't win anyway.
And yes, it is rather difficult, but as far as I am concerned, not too much so.

On the contrary: you can win - and without the risk of having to write a new quiz.
So there is one more reason to submit!

EDIT: And innonimatu is the first to answer, scoring five honorable points.
Also, my attention was drawn to the fact that the gesture mentioned in question 9 was not so unique after all: we have in fact three correct answers here and so the maximum score has risen to 32 points.

 

[BananaLee]

I've got ZERO points.

 

[Plotinus]

I know just one and perhaps two of those, I'm afraid...

 

[Yeekim]

The current scoreboard goes:
Steph - 14,5 points
sydhe - 9,5 +1 points
innonimatu - 5 points
civ_king - 2 points
red_elk - 1 point
@Bananalee and Plotinus: Damnit - it seems I have made it too difficult then. There are couple of questions noone has been able to answer this far. I shall wait for 72 hours and will provide some clues to these questions after that.

Also, to avoid further misfortune like that of Steph who went searching for meaning of carob and found the answer with it, here is a "safe" explanation for non-English speakers:

Spoiler :

Ceratonia siliqua, a shrub like evergreen belonging to the legume (Fabaceae) or pea family. Known as the carob tree, it is native to the Mediterranean areas of southeastern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia. Since prehistoric times the towering carob tree, which can reach 50 feet, has thrived in this climatic area where winters are cool and mild, and summers are hot and arid.
Carob pods are the source of carob powder, flour, chips, syrups, and extract, all popular as natural cocoa substitutes since the 1960s.
Containing 40 to 50 percent natural sugar by dry weight, carob pods were the most widely used source of sugar for centuries before sugarcane and sugar beets became popular. During the Spanish Civil War and World Wars I and II, thousands of people credit their survival to the nutritious carob pod.
Carob has been used for over 5000 years. Its name comes from the Arabic Kharrub or Kharoub, meaning pod or bean pod. It is believed that the fruit of the carob tree was used to feed Mohammed's armies. The Greek word for carob is keras, meaning horn, in reference to its arc shaped pods. It is also known as "St. John's Bread" and, according to the Bible, sustained St. John the Baptist in the wilderness (Mark 1:16). Another Biblical reference to carob is as the "locust bean" which tempted the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:16). The Hebrew word for carob is Charuv and the dried fruity pods are eaten on the Jewish Holiday, Tu Bishvat. The Romans called carob pods the Egyptian fig or date, and enjoyed the naturally sweet fruit when green and juicy. Ancient Egyptians used carob to make the resinous adhesive used in mummification, and both the pods and seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs. Today carob is still eaten in Egypt as a sweetmeat and to make sweet beverages, but the majority of the pods are used in animal feed.Also added picture.

EDIT: sydhe scores another point by being the first one to crack question # 14. Which is great. It would have been difficult to give additional hint for this one.
EDIT: civ_king knows steps on board with two correct answers.
EDIT: Brought about by my aggressive advertising in another thread, red_elk is the first to answer #17.

 

[Dragonlord]

Good quiz! I only had time to skim it today, but I'll submit tomorrow. Just for a change, I actually know a couple of answers ... I think.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Christ, I'd like to know the answer to at least two questions on any given quiz at some point in my life.

 

[Steph]

Here it is:
- What's your name?
- What's your age?

Do you feel better now?

 

[Yeekim]

Updated scoreboard:
Steph - 14,5 points
sydhe - 9,5+1 points
Dragonlord - 10 points
civ_king - 2+7 points
innonimatu - 5 points
Atticus - 5 points
Tabster - 4,5 points
red_elk - 1 point

And after Dragonlord summarily answered #2, the only questions that remain unanswered are #1.3, #15, #16 and #18.

Maybe I won't have to start giving out hints at all...

 

[Atticus]

Here it is:

Hey! You haven't won yet!