Quizology.Online

Tag: literature

  • March 29th Mind Benders: Fart Powder to Firsts in the White House!

    Terracotta Army.
    Wikipedia

    All of the following are connected to today’s date, 29 March.

    1. Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder, originally published in 2007, was the first children’s book by which author whose birthday it is today?
      • Henning Mankell
      • Jo Nesbø
      • Dag Solstad
    2. On this day in 1867, the British North America Act united colonies in a new Dominion of Canada. Which of these was NOT included in this new Dominion?
      • Newfoundland
      • Nova Scotia
      • New Brunswick
    3. A former British prime minister who was born this day, wrote a book about the history of cricket, More Than a Game: The Story of Cricket’s Early Years and another about music hall, My Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall. Who is this prime minister?
      • John Major
      • Tony Blair
      • Gordon Brown
    4. The Terracotta Army, a collection of life-size sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, was discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong County, China. The figures date from when?
      • 210–209 BCE
      • 406–407 CE
      • 1153–1154 CE
    5. A US President born on this day holds the distinction of being connected to two firsts during his tenure in office. Tragically, his wife became the first First Lady to pass away within the White House walls. A few years later, he made history as the first president to marry while in office. Can you identify this president?
      • John Tyler
      • James Buchanan
      • Millard Fillmore
    Doctor Proctor’s Fart Powder,
    Front cover (cropped).

    Good luck! I will post the answers later today.

  • Quirky Queries: A Journey Through Art, History and Curiosities | Answers

    The answers to my earlier post are shown in bold below.

    Ecstasy of St Teresa.
    Wikipedia
    1. Bernini—Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, depicting Teresa of Ávila’s mystical experience is in the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. The chapel was commissioned by Federigo Cardinal Cornaro and St. Teresa is surrounded by sculptures of the cardinal and his family. Teresa of Ávila was born 28 March 1515.
      Istanbul.
      Wikipedia
    2. Istanbul—Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, was the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Located on a peninsula between Europe and Asia, it has been a strategic city for over 2,500 years. The city’s name evolved from Byzantium to Constantinople, and finally to Istanbul in 1930.
      Virginia Woolf. Wikipedia
    3. Virginia Woolf—Virginia Woolf, an English writer, is known for her novels, essays, and letters. Her works, including Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, influenced the genre through their non-linear narrative.
      Three Mile Island on the Susquehanna
      River.
      Wikipedia
    4. Susquehanna River—The Three Mile Island accident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1979 was the most serious nuclear power accident in US history. A valve malfunction caused a partial core meltdown, but fortunately, radioactive gases did not pose a threat to the surrounding population.
    5. Spanish Civil War—The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a conflict between the Nationalists, supported by Italy and Germany, and the Republicans, aided by the Soviet Union and International Brigades. The Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, emerged victorious, establishing a dictatorship that lasted until his death in 1975.
    General Francisco Franco.
    Wikipedia

  • Quirky Queries: A Journey Through Art, History and Curiosities

    All of today’s questions relate to 28 March.

    Ecstasy of St Teresa
    Wikipedia
    1. The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, shown above, is in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. Whose work is the sculpture?
      • Bernini
      • Donatello
      • Michelangelo
    2. This city, dating back to c657 BCE, underwent name changes under the Romans in the 4th century and again in 1930. Can you name it?
      • Baghdad
      • Istanbul
      • Sofia
    3. This author, who passed away on this day in 1941, is best known for her novels Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927). Who is she?
      • Rebecca West
      • Katherine Mansfield
      • Virginia Woolf
    4. The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant experienced an accident on 28 March 1979 that resulted in radioactive leakage. On what river does the plant stand?
      • Atchafalaya River
      • Susquehanna River
      • Willamette River
    5. On this day in 1939, General Franco, the leader of the Nationalist forces during a civil war, captured his nation’s capital city. This was one of the last events before he declared victory. What civil war?
      • Austrian Civil War
      • Greek Civil War
      • Spanish Civil War

    Good luck! I will post the answers later today.

    Three Mile Island nuclear generating station, 1979.
    Wikipedia

  • Confused to Start With | Answers

    J. M. Flagg’s recruiting poster, 1917
    Wikipedia
    1. Luc means—is an anagram of Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam, a national personification of the United States, represents the federal government and is a symbol of patriotic emotion. The character, popularised by a 1917 recruiting poster, originated during the War of 1812 and is distinct from Columbia, representing the nation, and Brother Jonathan, representing the populace.
      Lonesome George.
      Wikipedia
    2. Pinta—Pinta Island tortoise, a subspecies of Galápagos tortoise, was hunted to near extinction by the end of the 19th century. A single male, Lonesome George, was discovered in 1971 but died in 2012, leading to the subspecies’ presumed extinction.
    3. Yesterday—Yesterday was the only “solo” Beatles Track.

      “He [McCartney] played it to John, George and Ringo, who approved but didn’t think it required them to play on it. Yesterday would be a Beatles song with only one Beatle on it.”

      – The Sunday Times, 23 March 2025 © Ian Leslie 2025. Extracted from John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs.

    4. AA Milne—Heffalumps and Woozles appear in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories
    5. Galahad—Sir Galahad, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, is the illegitimate son of Sir Lancelot and Lady Elaine. He is renowned for his gallantry and purity, replacing Percival as the hero in the quest for the Holy Grail.
    6. Arachnophobia—fear of spiders. Shelob is a spider featured in The Lord of the Rings. Emetophobia is the fear of vomiting and pogonophobia is having an extreme dislike of beards.
    Piglet dreams of the Heffalump. E. H. Shepard’s original illustration, from Winnie-the-Pooh.
    Wikipedia

  • Confused to Start With


    Nothing to do with today’s date just a selection of questions.

    Flag of the US
    Wikipedia
    1. Which one of the following can become a personification of the US government?
      • Clean Sue
      • Muscleman
      • Luc means
    2. Lonesome George, the last of his subspecies, died in 2012. His subspecies, now extinct, was named…
      • Niña Island tortoise
      • Pinta Island tortoise
      • Santa Maria Island tortoise
    3. The only Beatles song featuring just one Beatle was…
      • If I Fell
      • This Boy
      • Yesterday
    4. Heffalumps and Woozles appear in books by…
      • AA Milne
      • CS Lewis
      • JRR Tolkien
    5. One of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table; the son of Sir Lancelot du Lac and Lady Elaine of Corbenic; renowned for his gallantry and purity as the most perfect of all knights, is…
      • Bedivere
      • Galahad
      • Percival
    6. An irrational fear of the fictional Shelob is…
      • Arachnophobia
      • Emetophobia
      • Pogonophobia
    The Arming and Departure of the Knights,
    one of the Holy Grail tapestries, 1890s, figures by Edward Burne-Jones
    Wikipedia

    Good luck! The answers will be posted later.

  • Measure for Measure—Answers

    The answers to the questions asked in my earlier post are shown, in bold, below.

    Grains of barley
    Wikipedia
    1. Wheat or barleycorn—Grain (abbreviation gr.), the smallest unit of weight in the troy and avoirdupois systems; originally, the weight was equivalent to that of a grain of corn.
      Surveyor’s chain.
      Gunter’s chain photographed at Campus Martius Museum/Wikipedia
    2. Chain—The chain, a unit of length equal to 66 feet, is used in both the US customary and Imperial unit systems. It is subdivided into 100 links and has been used since the early 17th century in England. The UK used 80 chains to the mile, but Scotland and Ireland used longer chains until 1824. India uses metric chains of 20 metres.
    3. Rod—which is a measure of length equal to a quarter of a chain or 5.5 yards (approximately 5.029 m).  Also called perch or pole, it was especially used for measuring land.
      Illustration of Carob (Ceratonia siliqua)
      Wikipedia
    4. Carob seed—The carat (ct) is a unit of mass equal to 200 mg, used to measure gemstones and pearls. The current definition, adopted in 1907, is divisible into 100 points of 2 mg. Carob seeds, historically used to measure jewellery due to their believed consistent mass, actually vary in mass like other seeds.
      A woodcut of Noah’s Ark from Anton Koberger’s German Bible
      University of Edinburgh Image Collections/Wikipedia
    5. 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high—Genesis 6:14–16 King James Bible reads, 
      • “14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 
      • 15 And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 
      • 16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.”
      Snow leopard
      Wikipedia
    6. Snow leopard—which is also known as the Ounce. The Old French word “once,” originally intended for the Eurasian lynx, is the source of the Latin name “uncia” and the English word “ounce”. An ounce is also a unit of weight equal to 437.5 grains or 1/16 pound (28.35 grams) avoirdupois. Another unit is 480 grains, which is 1/12 pound (31.1 grams) troy or apothecaries’ weight.
      The Nippur cubit-rod.
      Archeological Museum of Istanbul, Turkey/Wikipedia
    7. Euphrates—The Nippur cubit, one of the oldest known units of length, dates back to 2650 BCE. A copper bar standard for this Sumerian unit was discovered in Nippur, on the banks of the Euphrates, and is housed in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.
      Nautilus’s route through the Atlantic. Wikipedia
      Nautilus’s route through the Pacific.Wikipedia
    8. Jules Verne—Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas is a science fiction adventure novel by Jules Verne. It was originally serialised in a French periodical and later published in a deluxe edition with illustrations.
    9. Grain—The grain, based on barley weight, is the only unit equal across troy, avoirdupois, and apothecaries’ systems. It was the fundamental unit of the pre-1527 English weight system, Tower weight, based on wheat grain, was defined as exactly 45⁄64 (≈+3⁄4) of the troy “barley” grain.
    10. AU—Astronomical unit, defined as exactly equal to 149,597,870,700 m (92,955,807.3 miles) and effectively equal to the average, or mean, distance between the Earth and the Sun.
    1 Astronomical Unit.
    NASA/JPL-Caltech

  • Measure for Measure

    Four measuring instruments calibrated in metric units
    Wikipedia

    Ten questions, all to do with measurements.

    1. The grain was the earliest unit of mass, initially, it referred to a grain of …
      • Rice
      • Salt
      • Wheat or barleycorn
    2. What unit of length is equivalent to 66 feet (20.1168 m)?
      • Cana
      • Chain
      • Cubit
    3. Of these three choices what is NOT a unit for measuring how heavy something is?
      • Rod
      • Shekel
      • Talent
    4. The carat, a unit for measuring gemstones, had its origin in what?
      • Carrot seed
      • Carob seed
      • Caraway seed
      Noah’s Ark by Edward Hicks
      Wikipedia
    5. According to the bible (Genesis 6:14–16) God decreed the dimensions for Noah to build his ark. In modern measurements the ark would be approximately 450 x 75 x 45 feet (137 x 23 x 14 m) but what were the original sizes as given in Genesis?
      • 100 cubits long, 30 cubits wide and 10 cubits high
      • 200 cubits long, 40 cubits wide and 20 cubits high
      • 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide and 30 cubits high
    6. Which of these cats shares its alternative name with a unit of mass or weight?
      • Margay
      • Ocelot
      • Snow leopard
    7. The Nippur cubit, one of the oldest known units of length, dates from 2650 BCE. It was discovered on the banks of what river?
      • Euphrates
      • Nile
      • Yangtze
    8. What author used the measurement “leagues” in the title of a work written in 1870?
      • Arthur Conan Doyle
      • Jules Verne
      • HG Wells
    9. What is the only unit which is equal across the troy, avoirdupois and apothecaries’ systems?
      • Dram
      • Grain
      • Scruple
    10. What is an abbreviation for a unit of length which is defined to be exactly equal to 149,597,870,700 m?
      • AG
      • AR
      • AU
    Balance scale
    Wikipedia

  • Truth or Consequence—Answers

    Truth and Consequence City Hall.
    Wikipedia

    Here, in bold, are the answers to my earlier post.

    1. False—It changed name to Truth or Consequence (not Tacos or Chocolate) in 1950 after the radio show of the same name ran a competition for a town or city to do so; the prize being that the show would be broadcast from the winner—the first settlement to change their town’s name. 
    2. False—Nothing to do with First Lady’s. It was chosen because it sounded like the French for help me, m’aider and was picked in 1920 by the head of radio in air traffic control at Croydon Aerodrome (then the world’s busiest) as most of their flights were from France.
    3. False—No, not Martin Luther King. It was about the assassination of JFK.
    4. False—Not the Inca Empire. Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec Empire in what is now central Mexico in 1521 not the Inca’s in what is now Peru.
      Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
      Wikipedia
    5. True—Lucy was named after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
    6. False—Pete Conrad, Apollo 12 was the third person to walk on the Moon. Michael Collins was the command module pilot of Apollo 11 and did not land on the Moon but remained in orbit while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the lunar surface.
      Goldeneye Estate
      Wikipedia
    7. False—Not Skyfall. Fleming’s house and estate were both named GoldenEye and are now a hotel complex.
    8. True—It is a neighbourhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan.
    9. False—Not Coprophagia which is dung-eating. Lalochezia is the release of stress etc by swearing.
    10. False—It wasn’t Please Mister Postman. The third number one, I Want to Hold Your Hand, was released in November 1963 with the B-side This Boy.
    Pete Conrad
    Conrad descends the Lunar Module ladder, moments before becoming the third human to walk on the Moon.
    Wikipedia

  • Truth or Consequence

    For some variety a selection of true or false questions unconnected to today.

    Hot Springs, New Mexico.
    Wikipedia
    1. True or false: the American city of Hot Springs, New Mexico is now known as ‘T or C’ after changing its name to Tacos or Chocolate in 1950.
    2. True or false: Mayday, the international distress signal, was chosen in honour of the then US First Lady.
    3. True or false: in 2020, Murder Most Foul was released as a single by Bob Dylan. The murder referred to in the title was the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1967.
    4. True or false: Hernán Cortés was a Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire in the Americas in 1521.
    5. True or false: Lucy the 3.2 million-year-old skeleton found in Ethiopia was named after a Beatles song.
    6. True or false: the Apollo astronaut Michael Collins was the third person to walk on the Moon.
    7. True or false: Ian Fleming, the author who created James Bond, had a home on Jamaica’s north coast named Skyfall.
    8. True or false: there is a neighbourhood of New York City called Hell’s Kitchen.
    9. True or false: relief of stress, pain and frustration by swearing is known as coprophagia.
    10. True or false: The Beatles third UK No. 1 hit I Want to Hold Your Hand was released with the B-side Please Mister Postman.

    Good luck! The answers will be posted later today.

  • From House Demolition to Dining Out—Answers

    Douglas Hydro.
    Wikipedia

    Below, in bold, are the answers to my earlier post.

    1. Douglas Adams—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a renowned science fiction comedy series created by British writer Douglas Adams.
    2. Paranoid Android—Marvin the Paranoid Android. A robot endowed with a “brain the size of a planet” but cursed with chronic depression. Often providing dry, sardonic humour, Marvin’s character contrasts sharply with the other characters’ antics.
    3. Agrajag—A tragic figure who is continually reincarnated and inadvertently killed by Arthur Dent in various lifetimes, harbouring a grudge that adds a darkly comedic layer to the narrative.
    4. Eaten—The concept of an Ameglian Major Cow is that it genuinely desires to be consumed and satirises ethical debates around eating meat.
    5. Mattress—An inhabitant of the planet Squornshellous Zeta, Zem is a sentient, albeit somewhat dim-witted, swamp-dwelling mattress, showcasing Adams’ flair for the absurd.
    6. Ford Prefect-—Arthur’s eccentric friend who masquerades as an out-of-work actor but is actually an alien researcher for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who is here to write an entry for Earth for inclusion in the next edition of the guide. His quick wit and knowledge of the intergalactic landscape often prove invaluable.
    7. Infinite Improbability Drive—A revolutionary propulsion system aboard the Heart of Gold spaceship. It allows the craft to traverse vast interstellar distances instantaneously by passing through every conceivable point in the universe simultaneously. Its unpredictability leads to many of the series’ most absurd and humorous moments.
    8. Slartibartfast—A Magrathean planet designer passionate about crafting coastlines, notably Norway’s fjords. His calm, methodical approach adds depth to the exploration of cosmic mysteries.
    9. Arthur Dent—The quintessential everyman protagonist whose mundane life is upended when Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Arthur’s bewildered journey through space forms the heart of the narrative.
    10. Radio series—Initially debuting as a radio series on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it gained immense popularity, subsequently evolving into a series of novels, a television adaptation, stage shows, a text adventure game, and a feature film released in 2005.