Here are the answers to my earlier questions.
All of these questions are related to today’s date, April 19th. They also all start with the letter ‘B’.
Image Wikimedia Commons
One
On 19 April 1999, in politics, what returned to Berlin for the first time in almost fifty years, and where had it returned from?
Answers: Bundestag; Bonn.
The first German Bundestag, the West German parliament, convened in Bonn on 7 September 1949. The Bundestag remained in Bonn until after reunification of Germany, when it returned to Berlin on 19 April 1999.
Two
In 1775, during the opening stages of a revolutionary war, a city was besieged for eleven months from April 19th. What city?
Answer: Boston.
The Siege of Boston (1775-1776) marked the start of the American Revolutionary War. American forces, led by George Washington, besieged the British Army in Boston, ultimately forcing their retreat to Nova Scotia after eleven months.
Three
Observed on April 19th, a celebratory day remembering an experiment where a chemist intentionally ingested LSD, documented it and then went home. What is the day called?
Answer: Bicycle Day.
On 19 April 1943, a few days after accidentally discovering LSD’s effects, which he believed had potential in psychiatry and neurology, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann intentionally ingested it and documented the first acid trip. After this experiment, he cycled home, leading to the observance of Bicycle Day, as Encyclopædia Britannica comments, ‘And now April 19 is observed as Bicycle Day—mostly by LSD enthusiasts, not cyclists’.
Four
A poet and playwright who died this day in 1824, first became a celebrity with the publication of the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage in 1812. Who is this poet?
Answer: Byron.
George Gordon Byron, a prominent British Romantic poet, is renowned for works like Don Juan and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. He lived in Italy for seven years, befriending Percy Bysshe Shelley, and later joined the Greek War of Independence, becoming a folk hero before his death at 36. Byron, along with Shelley and Keats, was a major figure in the second generation of English Romantic writers and was a literary celebrity known for both his poetry and personality.
Five
IIn 2011, Fidel Castro resigned from Cuba’s Communist Party central committee. The following March, in his role as an elder statesman, Castro briefly met a visiting dignitary, the sixteenth of the name. Who was this dignitary?
Answer: (Pope) Benedict XVI.
On 19 April 2011, Castro resigned from the Communist Party central committee, thus stepping down as First Secretary. Raúl was selected as his successor. Now without any official role in the country’s government, he took on the role of an elder statesman. In late March 2012, Pope Benedict XVI visited Cuba for three days, during which time he briefly met with Castro despite the Pope’s vocal opposition to Cuba’s government.
Bits and Bobs
The title is simply another way of saying bits and pieces, an assortment. It was chosen as the title as all the answers begin with the letter B.
Quizology.Online 
Leave a comment