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 aTrivia Quiz. Instead, I am calling it a Knowledge Quiz.
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Knowledge Quiz, No. 58
The answers are at the bottom.
1. What is the most abundant metal in the human body?
2. Where was Archduke Ferdinand assassinated thus leading to the outbreak of World War I?
3. What zodiac sign is represented by the balance or scales?
4. What is escargot?
5. Approximately how long does it take for a plastic water bottle to decompose?
6. Where did the battle known as Custer's Last Stand take place?
7. What country lost nearly four million people in a 1931 flood?
8. Why did East Germany erect the Berlin Wall?
9. Which planet has the shortest day at only 10 hours?
10. Who is Ganesha?
11. What treaty ended World War I?
12. What is stored in a camel's hump?
13. What Is a meteor?
14. How many rooms does Buckingham Palace have?
15. Where is the world's highest waterfall?
16. Nick Carraway is the narrator in what famous novel?
17. What was the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle?
18. Who was Johann Sebastian Bach?
19. Why is a skimpy bathing suit called a bikini?
20. Where on the human body is the patella?
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Answers
1. The most abundant metallic element in the human body is calcium. In its pure form, calcium is a dull gray-colored alkaline metal. Calcium is used to give the skeletal system its rigidity and strength. Calcium comprises half the weight of our bones and most of our teeth. It comprises 1.5% of your total body weight making it the most abundant metallic element in the human body. Calcium is so abundant in the human body that it constitutes a full two pounds of the ash left over after a cremation.
2. On June 28, 1914, a young Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Princip killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Sarajevo, Bosnia. His assassination in Sarajevo precipitated Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife set off a chain of events that would lead to the start of World War I barely one month later.
3. Libra is the seventh astrological sign in the Zodiac. It's the Scales that symbolize Libra. Libra is the only inanimate sign of the zodiac, all the others representing either humans or animals. The symbol of the scales is based on the Scales of Justice held by Themis, the Greek personification of divine law and custom. She became the inspiration for modern depictions of Lady Justice.
4. Escargot, a French dish, uses snails as a main ingredient. In French culture, the snails are typically purged, killed, removed from their shells, and cooked (usually with garlic butter, chicken stock or wine), and then placed back into the shells with the butter and sauce for serving. Additional ingredients may be added, such as garlic, thyme, parsley and pine nuts. Special snail tongs (for holding the shell) and snail forks (for extracting the meat) are also normally provided, and they are served on indented metal trays with places for six or 12 snails.
5. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, a plastic bottle takes about 450 years to decompose. Different kinds of plastic can degrade at different times, but the average time for a plastic bottle to completely degrade is 450 years. By one estimate, approximately 50 billion bottles of water are consumed per year in the U.S. and around 200 billion bottles globally.
6. George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. After the Civil War, Custer was dispatched to the west to fight in the American Indian Wars and appointed lieutenant colonel of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment where he and all his men were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn which took place near the Little Bighorn River in the U.S. state of Montana on July 25, 1876, fighting against a coalition of Native American tribes. The battle is popularly known in American history as "Custer's Last Stand." Custer and his men were defeated so decisively in this battle that the Battle of the Little Bighorn has overshadowed all his prior achievements.
General George Armstrong Custer
7. The 1931 Central China floods were a series of floods that occurred in the Republic of China. The floods are generally considered one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th century (when pandemics and famines are discounted). Estimates of the total death toll range between 3.7 million and 4 million. 34,000 square miles (88,000 square km) of land was completely inundated with water and approximately 8,000 square miles (21,000 square km) more were partially flooded leaving approximately 80 million people homeless. The flood is considered the deadliest natural disaster in recorded history.
8. For nearly 30 years (from 1961 until 1989 ) the Berlin Wall separated East and West Berlin. It was erected by the German Democratic Republic, as East Germany was formally known, ostensibly to protect the East German people from the so-called fascist influences of West Germany and the West in general. However, the real reason for the wall was to help keep the best and the brightest among East Germany's people from fleeing to the West where economic opportunities were far brighter and offered a chance for them to better support themselves and their families. Before the wall's construction, an estimated 3.5 million East Germans had left East Germany for destinations in the West, most of them beginning their journeys by traveling from East to West Berlin where they then could fly to other Western cities.
9. The planet Jupiter has the shortest day of all the eight major planets in the Solar System. It spins around on its axis once every 9 hours, 55 minutes, 29.69 seconds. Jupiter has a small axial tilt of only 3.13 degrees, meaning it has little seasonal variation during its 11.86-year-long orbit of the Sun.
10. Ganesha (aka;Ganapati and Vinayaka) is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu religion. His image is found throughout India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Hindu sects worship him and devotion to him extends to Jains and Buddhists. Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of the arts, thesciences, the intellect and wisdom. As the god of beginnings, he is honored at the start of rituals and ceremonies. Several Hindu texts relate mythological anecdotes associated with his birth and exploits and explain his distinct iconography.
Ganesha
11. On June 28th 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed ending World War I. The treaty came down hard on Germany. The country was ordered to pay reparations, a figure that would later come out to 6.6 billion pounds, give away 13.5 percent of German territory including land of significant industrial value, and radically scaled back the size of the German military. And, the Germans had to accept full responsibility for the entire war and the actions of their allies in something called the War Guilt Clause. Germany was humiliated for how they were treated. Some German terrorists even killed some of the politicians viewed as responsible for the treaty. The humiliation and the weakness of Germany helped set the stage for the rise of a man who symbolized that outrage and promised to repair that weakness: Adolf Hitler.
12. A camel's hump does not hold water. The hump is composed primarily of fat. The camel uses it as nourishment when food is scarce. When food is scarce and as the fat is used, the hump will become loose and droopy. With proper food and rest the hump will return to normal. The hump is not used for water storage, but camels can go for long periods of time without water. They drink large amounts of water, up to 20 gallons at one time. The water is stored in the animal's bloodstream.
13. Many people mistakenly think that a meteor is a physical object such as a rock that hurtles through the nighttime skies creating a bit of a show for those of us watching from below. But actually a meteor (aka: a shooting star) is not an object. It is stream of light created when a meteoroid (a chunk of material that has broken off from a much larger asteroid or comet) burns up as it passes through the Earth's atmosphere.
14. Buckingham Palace is the London residence and principal workplace of the monarchy of the United Kingdom. Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms including 19 State rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the center of state occasions and royal hospitality. More than 50,000 people visit the Palace each year as guests to banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and the Royal Garden Parties.
15. The tallest waterfall in the world is Angel Falls in Venezuela. It is 3,212 feet high. The waterfall is named after James Angel, an American aviator who was the first to fly over the falls in a plane. The Spanish name for the waterfall, Salto Ángel, is derived from his surname.
16. Nicholas "Nick" Carraway is the main character and narrator of the 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. The novel was published in 1925 and was written by the American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). It follows characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on the prosperous north shore of Long Island (New York State) in the summer of 1922. Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic and is often called "Great American Novel".
17. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 1748, sometimes called the Treaty of Aachen, ended the War of the Austrian Succession following a congress assembled on 24 April 1748 at the Free Imperial City of Aachen in the west of the Holy Roman Empire. The resulting treaty was signed on October 18,1748, by Great Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic. The War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) involved most of the powers of Europe over the question of Maria Theresa's succession to the realms of the House of Habsburg. The war included King George's War in North America, the War of Jenkins' Ear, the First Carnatic War in India, and the First and Second Silesian Wars. The war began under the pretext that Maria Theresa was ineligible to succeed to the Habsburg thrones of her father, Charles VI, because Salic law precluded royal inheritance by a woman. The war ended with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle by which Maria Theresa was confirmed as Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary, but Prussia retained control of Silesia.
18. Johann Sebastian Bach(1685 -1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and over three hundred cantatas of which nearly two hundred survive. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. In addition, he held several musical posts across Germany including as Kapellmeister (director of music) to Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Köthen and a position of music director at the main Lutheran churches and educator at the Thomasschule. He received the title of "Royal Court Composer" from King Augustus III in 1736.
Johann Sebastian Bach
19. After World War II, French fashion designers set about try to create something reflecting the country's feelings of liberation.And two particular Frenchmen, Louis Reard and Jacques Haim, settled on the category of swimwear. In June, 1946, Heim launched a revealing number that even had a name harkening back to the recent war. He called it the atome (French for atom) and billed it as the world's smallest bathing suit. Three weeks later, Reard then came up with an even more revealing swimsuit whose name was inspired by another weapon of mass destruction, the hydrogen bomb. He named his two piece skimpy female's bathing suit after Bikini Atoll, where the U.S. test of the bomb took place because he said the shape of the atoll and his creation were the same. Reard's design became a global success. He heavily advertised his creation and came up with a rule: you can't call a two-piece bathing suit a bikini "unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring."
20. The patella, also known as the knee cap, is a thick, circular-triangular bone which articulates with the femur and covers and protects the anterior articular surface of the knee joint. It is the largest sesamoid bone in the human body. Babies are born with a patella of soft cartilage which begins to ossify into bone at about three years of age.