Knowledge Quiz
I dislike the term trivia. No knowledge is trivial. All information contributes to the whole of an intelligent human being. And, it is an essential part of critical thinking. That is why I did not call this a Trivia Quiz. Instead, I am calling it a Knowledge Quiz.
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Knowledge Quiz, No. 79
The answers are at the bottom
1.What is the world's deepest lake?
2."It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen” is the opening line of which iconic book?
3.What type of insect transmits yellow fever?
4.What is the fastest creature on two legs?.
5.Where is the Sahara desert located?
6.What is the main ingredient in the soup called gazpacho?
7.What are the little plastic tips on each end of a shoelace called?
8. What is the name of the largest cut diamond in existence?
9. What is the correct term of address to the Pope?
10. What is the world's deepest oceanic trench?
11. What painter started the impressionist movement?
12. The Japanese art of paper folding is known as what?
13. Who is known as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb"?
14. Who is the month of July named after?
15. Tesla was co-founded by what South African-born inventor?
16. What is the largest known creature that ever existed on planet earth?
17. Who made the famous statement "One small step for man, one giant step for mankind"?
18. How many people have walked on the moon?
19. Which U.S. President made the first telephone call to the moon?
20. Ernest Hemingway won a Pulitzer Prize for which novel?
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Answers
1. Baikal is the world's deepest lake. Also known as the "blue eye of Siberia", Lake Baikal is located in Southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast. Famous for being the deepest lake in the world with a maximum depth of 5,369 feet, it holds a volume of water larger than that of all the great lakes combined. It is considered among the world's clearest lakes and is considered the world's oldest lake.. Geologists estimate that Lake Baikal formed somewhere 20-25 million years ago, during the Mesozoic.
2. On July 7th,1949, George Orwell’s novel of a dystopian future, Nineteen Eighty-four, was published. The novel opens with the following first line: “It was a bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” The reference to a thirteenth stroke of the clock subtly alerts the reader that statements of truth in this fictional society should be called into question. The novel’s all-seeing leader, known as “Big Brother,” becomes a universal symbol for intrusive government surveillance and oppressive bureaucracy.
3. The yellow fever virus is found in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa and South America. The virus is spread through mosquito bites. Symptoms take 3–6 days to develop and include fever, chills, headaches, backache, and muscle aches. About 15% of people who get yellow fever develop serious illness that can lead to bleeding, shock, organ failure, and sometimes death. The disease is caused by the yellow fever virus and is spread by the bite of an infected female mosquito. It infects only humans, other primates, and several species of mosquitoes.
4.The fastest creature on two legs is an ostrich. Ostriches are superb runners that can sprint at speeds of up to 45 mph on average, with a peak 60 mph during short period, with 12 foot strides. The ostrich is the tallest and heaviest species of all living birds. Although its bulky body means that flying is out of the question, the ostrich has adapted to life on the ground with impressive agility. This also makes the ostrich the fastest animal on two legs. The ostrich is also an endurance runner and can jog at 30 mph for as long as half an hour.
5. The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert and one of the harshest environments on the planet. At 3.6 million square miles, the Sahara is located across Northern Africa and covers approximately 31 percent of the African continent. The Sahara covers large sections of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and Tunisia. The Sahara is bordered in the west by the Atlantic Ocean, in the north by the Atlas Mountains and Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea on the east, and the Sudan and the valley of the Niger River on the south.
6. Gazpacho is a tomato-based, raw vegetable soup traditionally served cold. A classic of Spanish cuisine, it originated in the southern region of Andalusia. Gazpacho is widely eaten in Spain and Portugal, particularly during the hot summers, as it is a cool and refreshing soup. Gazpacho has ancient roots. However, when Christopher Columbus brought back tomatoes, and other vegetables from his voyages, the soup evolved to its present state. There is a Spanish saying: You can never get too much of a good thing or too much Gazpacho.
7. Those small plastic tips at the end of your shoelaces are called aglets. An aglet is a small tip often made of plastic or metal, used on each end of a shoelace, a chord or a drawstring. Aglets are believed to have been around since the time of the ancient Romans. The first aglets were made of metal, glass, or stone and many were highly ornamental. Today, most aglets on shoelaces are hard plastic. Although no one knows for sure who invented them, many sources credit it being popularized by an English inventor named Harvey Kennedy who is said to have earned $2.5 million off the modern shoelace.
8. A 3,106 carat diamond was discovered in Pretoria, South Africa by Sir Thomas Cullinan in 1905. Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the “Cullinan,” it was the largest diamond ever found. The Cullinan was later cut into nine large stones and about 100 smaller ones. The largest stone is called the “Star of Africa,” or “Cullinan I,” and at 530 carats, it is the largest-cut fine-quality colorless diamond in the world. The stone is on display in the Tower of London and is mounted in the British Sovereign’s Royal Scepter. The price of this diamond is about $400 million.
9. “His Holiness” is the official style used to address the Roman Catholic Pope. The associated form of address is "Your Holiness". The use of the term "His Holiness" in addressing or referring to the pope can be traced back several hundred years, although it is difficult to identify any particular event that first occasioned its use. In honoring its supreme religious leader with that title, the Catholic Church is not alone. The same term is used to designate the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as spiritual head of the Orthodox community, as well as the Dalai Lama.
10. Some of Earth's most impressive topological features are hidden under the sea, including mountains higher and valleys deeper than any that exist on land. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, The Mariana Trench is the deepest of all ocean trenches. The deepest part, known as the Challenger Deep, is 35,797 feet below sea level. Hollywood director James Cameron made a solo descent to the bottom of the trench in 2012, but he wasn't the first person to visit. Only four descents have ever been achieved.
11. Claude Monet was a famous French painter whose work gave a name to the art movement Impressionism, which was concerned with capturing light and natural forms. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise. After the art exhibition in 1874, a critic insultingly dubbed Monet's painting style "Impression," since it was more concerned with form and light than realism, and the term stuck. Monet opened the door for further abstraction in art, and he is credited with influencing such later artists as Jackson Pollack, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning.
12. Origami is the art of paper folding, which is often associated with Japanese culture. In modern usage, the word "origami" is used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques. The name origami is derived from the Japanese words 'oru' (to fold) and 'kami' (paper). Although people from other countries knew about various forms of paper folding, it was the Japanese who first used paper as a medium for art.
13. J. Robert Oppenheimer is often referred to as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb". After the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Oppenheimer was selected to administer a laboratory to carry out the Manhattan Project, the program that developed the first nuclear weapon during World War II. On July 16th, 1945, the Manhattan Project came to an explosive end as the first atom bomb was successfully tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The “Father of the Atomic Bomb” died from cancer at the age of 62 in 1967.
14. July was named in honor of Julius Caesar who was born in that month. The month of July was previously called Quintilis in Latin since it was the fifth month in the ancient Roman calendar. The name of the month was changed to July in honor of Julius Caesar during the Julian calendar reform. Unfortunately, Caesar himself was only able to enjoy one July during his life - the very first July, in 45 B.C. The following year he was murdered on the Ides of March. Julius Caesar is also responsible for the year as we know it having 365 days, and for the existence of a leap year every four years.
15. Elon Musk is the co-founder, CEO and product architect at Tesla Motors, a company dedicated to producing affordable, mass-market electric cars as well as battery products and solar roofs. Musk oversees all product development, engineering and design of the company's products. The South African entrepreneur also founded X.com in 1999 (which later became PayPal), and SpaceX in 2002. As of February, 2018, he has a net worth of $20.8 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 53rd-richest person in the world.
16. At 98 feet in length and 180 metric tons or more in weight, the blue whale is the largest known animal to have ever existed. The Blue Whale’s tongue weighs around 5,952 pounds, about the size of an average Asian Elephant and its heart weighs about 1,300 pounds and is the largest known in any animal. Not only is the heart similar in size to a mini-cooper car, but it is also comparable in weight. By comparison, the largest known dinosaur of the Mesozoic Era was Argentinosaurus, which is estimated to have weighed up to about half the weight of the largest blue whales.
17. On July 20th, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, spoke these words to more than a billion people listening at home: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” At 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke his famous quote, which he later contended was slightly garbled by his microphone and meant to be “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong planted his left foot on the gray, powdery surface of the moon and took a cautious step forward. He had just become the first human to walk on the moon.
18. In total twelve people have walked on the Moon. Besides Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin - who were the first two astronauts to leave their boot prints on the Moon - there were also Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Eugene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt. Only four of the 12 Apollo moonwalkers still alive today. Still living are Apollo 17's Harrison "Jack" Schmitt; Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin; Apollo 15's David Scott; and Apollo 16's Charles Duke. All of the men are now in their 80's.
19. On July 20th, 1969, Richard Nixon made the first phone call to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at Tranquility Base on the moon. That ultimate long-distance call, via telephone-to-radio transmission, happened at 11:49 pm in the Oval Office. Nixon began by saying, "Hello, Neil and Buzz. I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office of the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone calls ever made. I just can't tell you how proud we are of what you have done."
20. On July 21st,1899, Ernest Miller Hemingway, was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Hemingway’s last significant work to be published during his lifetime was 1952’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” a novella about an aging Cuban fisherman who had gone 84 days without a catch until finally snagging one in an epic 2 ½ day struggle. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in literature in 1953. In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize. He committed suicide on July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho