1. Within 100 years, when did Alexander the Great die?
2. From 1812 through 1841, who occupied Fort Ross in California? (By “who”, I mean what group. I am not looking for the names of any individuals.)
3. How many US Presidents were Rhodes Scholars? (5 points) Name them (or him) - 5 points
4. What musical instrument is Ben Franklin credited with inventing? (Be very specific. It is a 2 word name. Spelling doesn’t count; if you get close, you’ll probably get it.)
5. From the Norman Conquest and on for the next few hundred years, what was the language used by the English nobility? ( The answer is a language we have all heard of; it is not “just an academic term.”)
6. In what US war did the first woman disguise herself as a man in order to fight? (5 points) What was her name? (5 points)
7. Within 3 years, what year was the first battleship sunk by an airplane bombing it?
8. What was the first nation to officially adopt Christianity as the state religion? (5 points) Within 50 years, what year was this done? (5 points)
9. Which sitting US President was the first to enter the Soviet union?
10. What group is believed to have originated in the Punjab and Rajathstan region of the Indian subcontinent, and, in about 1050, started their migration west into Europe and North Africa? Today, they are found on every continent with a native population.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 17474 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Right again, both Mozart and Leppi, although I have never seen it called a glass harmonica. I have seen Franklin given credit for inventing the harmonica, which is incorrect.
Posts: 17474 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
#2: I guess the answer would be Russians. But in 1828 there was noted a population of about sixty Russians, eighty "Kodiaks," and about eighty Indians. I beleive the word "Creoles" could apply also.
#10" The Roma-Romani-Romanian-Gypsy have your pick.
#7: 1921
Posts: 6335 | Location: u.s.a, south Florida | Registered: 06-03-02
Yes, Mozart, Fort Ross is assumed to be originally Fort Rossiya, and it was manned by Russians.
Yes, it was the Rom, or Roma. However, Romanian is not related to the Rom. Romania gets its name from Rome. Romanian is one of the Romance languages, based on Latin.
Yes, it was in Billy Mitchell's demonstration of air power that the first battleship was sunk.
Posts: 17474 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
Good question, the Soviet Union existed from 1922 till 1991. Nixon was the first to visit( in 1972) since the end of the war (1945). Then it has to be between 1922 and 1945 and I can't think of any US sitting Presidents of that era who would have done it.
Posts: 6335 | Location: u.s.a, south Florida | Registered: 06-03-02
Originally posted by DorianGreyed: Right again, both Mozart and Leppi, although I have never seen it called a glass harmonica. I have seen Franklin given credit for inventing the harmonica, which is incorrect.
Dorian, I just realized that when you wrote 'harmonica' above you italicized the first letter of the word. I think you are correct that the preferred term is armonica. Here's how one or more anonymous authors expound on this at Wikipedia:
quote:
The glass harmonica, also known as glass armonica, "hydrocrystalophone" or simply armonica (derived from "armonia", the Italian word for harmony) is a type of musical instrument that uses a series of glass bowls or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tones by means of friction, making it both a crystallophone and a friction idiophone) ... When Benjamin Franklin invented his mechanical version of the instrument, he called it the "armonica", based on the Italian word "armonia", which means "harmony". The German name for Franklin's instrument is Glasharmonika. The free reed wind instrument called harmonica was not invented until 1821, sixty years later.
Franklin based his invention on the well-known trick of making a wine glass "sing" by rubbing a moistened finger along its rim, producing a pleasing, other-worldy pure tone. Glassy is classy.
Posts: 2032 | Location: U.S. | Registered: 06-03-02
Part of me wants to say that Yalta was (at least according to the Soviets) a part of the Soviet Union at the time FDR visited. But, as usual I am sure I am wrong.
As usual, the part of you that says Roosevelt is right. The Yalta conference took place in 1945. Yalta, a city in Crimea, southern Ukraine, on the north coast of the Black Sea, was part of the Soviet Union from 1921 until 1990.
It was a Yalta that the famous photograph below was taken. Roosevelt died a couple of months later, and the obvious strain of the war is evident in his appearance in the picture.
You can imagine my displeasure at one trivia contest when this question was asked, and the only accepted answer was Nixon. When I challenged it, I was first told that Yalta was part of Russia then, and not the Soviet Union. Then I was told that it was not an official visit (which was not part of the question, but that was apparently unimportant). When I asked if he (the judge) thought the US president's meeting with the US's two biggest allies during the biggest war the US had ever fought was merely a social visit, and was Roosevelt there just to take the waters, the man got a bit angry. When I pointed out that any of the 5 history teachers I recognized on some of the other teams would agree with me, I was told that it didn't matter. I ended up calling him an unacceptable word in Macedonian. It turns out that he was Croatian, and understood it. "Hey! I know what you said!" I replied, "I'm sure you've been called it before."
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 17474 | Location: Lincoln Place, Granite City, IL, USA | Registered: 06-03-02
