The document appears to be a history and geography quiz containing 25 multiple choice questions and their answers. Some key details include:
- Question 1 asks about what is burning in the background of an image of Askia of the Songhai Empire from Civilization V, and the answer is the Great Mosque of Djenne.
- Question 15 explains the importance of the sinking of the HMS Hampshire in 1916 - Lord Kitchener was travelling aboard and was killed.
- Question 20 connects darker shaded areas on a map to smaller regions within countries that the whole country is named after, such as Greater Poland and North/South Holland.
- Question 22 discusses how the Modi script, used widely in India until the
5. Question 2
Delhi had one. The Bahamani kingdom, Berar, Bidar, Bijapur, Golconda
and Ahmednagar had none. In the former kingdom of Touggourt (now
part of Algeria), there was one. Aceh, in Indonesia had five.
What am I talking about?
10. Question 4
This is a quartz-sandstone
mountain in Zhangjiajie
National Forest in Hunan
Province, China and was
previously called the Southern
Sky Column. The mountain
was renamed in 2010 to
capitalise on a wildly popular
pop-culture phenomenon, a
part of which it inspired.
What is the new name?
14. Question 6
This US state is the only part of the US that was acquired voluntarily by
the US, with the consent of its (then) government and by a plebiscite
by all of its citizens (who were eligible to vote). One consequence of
this is that this state did not automatically surrender its public lands to
the federal government - the federal government only owns land which
it has subsequently purchased. The state in question has used the
subsequent windfall in natural resource revenues from these lands to
fund two university systems, one of which has the largest endowment
of any public university in the US.
Which state?
16. Question 7
This is the Richat Structure, in
West-Central Mauritania. Initially
interpreted as an asteroid impact
structure because of its high
degree of circularity, it is now
argued to be a highly
symmetrical and deeply eroded
geologic dome.
What is it's more colloquial
nickname?
18. Question 8
XY (one word) is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it
creates and sustains its own wind system. The phenomenon's
determining characteristic is a X with its own Y-force winds from every
point of the compass. Examples include: Black Saturday, Great Peshtigo,
Dresden, Hiroshima.
ID XY.
20. Question 9
This geographical feature is, depending on who you ask, part of
Shansha city in Heinan province, part of Sabah state, part of Palawan
province, part of Kaohsiung municipality, or part of Khánh Hòa
province. The feature is named after a 19th Century whaling captain
who visited the area in 1843.
Name the feature.
22. Question 10
“The Society for the Prevention of Calling Sleeping Car Porters _________"
was founded as a joke by a lumber baron named Dulany. He formed it in
mock-protest against the practise in the early part of the 20th Century of
calling the porters of the Pullman company (who were predominantly black)
by the given name of the Pullman company's founder.
The president of this society was Spanish-American War hero Admiral
Dewey, and its membership was supposed to include the King of England,
Babe Ruth, and French Prime Minister Clemenceau. Although not actually
formed to combat racism in any way, the Society succeeded in getting
Pullman to provide name cards informing passengers of the name of their
porter.
FITB.
24. Question 11
Katherine McIntosh told CNN that the fame, starting in 1936, had made
the family feel both ashamed and determined never to be as poor
again. Her brother Troy Owens said that more than 2,000 letters
received along with donations for his mother's medical fund led to a re-
appraisal of the cause of the fame: "For Mama and us, it had always
been a bit of curse. After all those letters came in, I think it gave us a
sense of pride."
What are the siblings talking about?
26. Question 12
In a 1813 battle near Leipzig, coalition armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria
and Sweden defeated Napoleon's army which contained French, Polish,
German and Italian troops. The battle was the culmination of the 1813
German campaign and involved nearly 600,000 soldiers, making it the
largest battle in Europe prior to World War I.
Being decisively defeated for the first time in battle, Napoleon was
compelled to return to France while the Coalition invaded France early
the next year. Napoleon was forced to abdicate and was exiled to Elba
in May 1814.
What was this massive battle (that involved nearly every European
ethnicity) called?
30. Question 14
This group of Indo-Scythian rulers in a region that now covers Gujarat,
Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were contemporaneous with the
Satvahana empire and the Kushans, who may have been their
overlords. The name by which they are known to modern scholars
comes from their location in ancient India, and their title, which was a
corruption of an ancient Persian title.
What were these rulers called?
32. Question 15
In June 1916, the British warship HMS Hampshire struck a naval mine
close to the Orkney Islands and sank with massive loss of life. The
British author Lord Alfred Douglas created scandal by alleging that then
former First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, had conspired to
sink the Hampshire. Churchill’s motivation was supposed to be a
convoluted scheme to cause a crash in the price of British stocks, which
would allow Churchill’s financier friends to buy them cheaply.
Churchill sued Douglas in 1923, in what would be the last successful
use of the law of criminal libel. Douglas went to jail for 6 months.
Why was the sinking of the HMS Hampshire so important?
33. Answer 15
Lord Kitchener was travelling
to Russia on the HMS
Hampshire, and was killed
when she sank
34. Question 16
The ______ _______ Trail is sometimes associated with Western
backpackers who use Lonely Planet travel guides. The Trail is not a fixed
route, but includes popular destinations for backpackers, including Goa
and Manali in India; Krabi and Phuket in Thailand, Siem Reap in
Cambodia (location of Angkor Wat) and Bali in Indonesia.
The idea is that areas frequented by backpackers begin to cater to
them, and serve them what they might consider comfort foods, even
though these foods are otherwise unknown to the region.
FITB
36. Question 17
It is an Arabic word literally meaning, as a noun, "tremor", "shivering",
"shuddering", as a dog might shrug off water, or as one might shake off
sleep, or dirt from one's sandals. Two of these have taken place, one
between December 1987 to 1993 and the other from late September
2000 to around 2005.
What am I talking about?
38. Question 18
The German warship SMS Emden was one of the only factors in the
First World War that touched the lives of civilian Indians in a major city
when it shelled Madras in September 1914.
Similarly, the SS Fort Stikine was one of the only times the Second
World War directly touched the lives of civilians in Bombay.
What happened with the Fort Stikine in 1944 that did this?
39. Answer 18
The Fort Stikine, loaded with war
munitions, exploded in Bombay
Harbour on 14 April 1944, killing up
to 1300 people.
Bonus Fact: India’s National Fire
Safety Week is observed in April
each year in memory of the 66
firemen who died in this incident.
40. Question 19
The state religion of a civilization awaited the fulfilment of an ancient
prophecy: that the wandering tribes would find the destined site for a
great city whose location would be signalled by an Eagle eating a snake
while perched atop a cactus.
The tribe found such a site, founded a city and later, an empire that
lasted 100 years until it was destroyed in 1521.
What modern city is on this site?
45. Answer 20
Smaller regions within countries after which the whole country is
named
Greater Poland
Finland Proper
North Holland and South Holland
Kingdom of Italy
46. Question 21
Belize: Mahogany, Lebanon: Cedar, Equatorial Guinea: Silk Cotton, Haiti:
Palm, Fiji: Coconut.
What are we talking about?
48. Question 22
Balaji Avaji Chitnis was a minister in the court of Chatrapati Shivaji.
While at the Mughal court with his King, he observed that court
proceedings were recorded in the Shikasta Nastaliq modes of writing
Persian, instead of the classical Nastaliq, due to the higher speed of
transcription.
Inspired by this, it is said that he adopted something that had been
invented by Hemadpant, a minister in the court of the Yadava kings of
the 13th Century. Balaji Avaji’s innovation continued to be used widely,
until the Bombay Presidency decided to do away with it for the sake of
conformity and administrative convenience.
What did Balaji Avaji bring into popular use?
50. Question 23
The words "grassy _____" to describe this area were first used by
reporter Albert Smith, in his second dispatch from the press car: "Some
of the Secret Service agents thought the gunfire was from an automatic
weapon fired to the right rear of the president's car, probably from a
grassy ____ to which police rushed.”
Thus the term "grassy ____" has come to also be a modern slang
expression indicating suspicion, conspiracy, or a cover-up.
The blank itself means a small rounded hillock separated from a larger
range.
FITB.
52. Question 24
The name given to this region derives from the ethnonym of the people
living here, and is not related to the Spanish for ‘little fly’.
What is this name, which is shared by a 1986 Harrison Ford movie?
54. Question 25
While it originates in Christianity, the characteristic shift of the centre is
early modern, first described in the Danish Koffardiflaget regulation for
ships, 11 June 1748. It specified the shift as "the two first fields must be
square in form and the two outer fields must be 6/4 lengths of those".
The Danish design was later adopted and altered by other countries via
politics and otherwise.
What is this design?