Old Stuff 1 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Adolf Hitler

This car was the epitome of the company's notion of the "People's Car".

The Beetle was widely recognised as being the brainchild of Adolf Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche.

Nevertheless, a Hungarian engineer by the name of Béla Barényi managed to prove in court in 1953 that Porsche's patents had infringed upon his ideas and, therefore, he has since been credited with first conceiving the original basic design of the car. Furthermore, in 1955, he also successfully sued Volkswagen for copyright infringement whereby his contribution to the creation of the VW Type 1 was legally acknowledged.

1997 saw the release of the Volkswagen New Beetle.

Answer: 12 seconds

Having repaired the plane after the first abortive test flight on 14 December 1903 piloted by Wilbur, who had won the toss to do the first flight, Orville then took charge for the first test flight on the 17 December and successfully flew 120 feet (30 metres) on the first attempt lasting twelve seconds.

All the flights were low altitude and relatively straight. Flights two and three saw the plane reach 175 and 200 ft respectively before the fourth flight saw the plane break the front elevator supports on landing. Hopes to quickly repair the plane were dashed when a heavy gust picked up the plane and somersaulted it end over end damaging it beyond any quick repair. The plane never flew again.

Answer: Spirit of St Louis

The Spirit of St Louis cost $18,000 and financing this was difficult due to Lindbergh's obscurity, however Lindbergh raised $2,000 from his salary as an air mail pilot, $15,000 came from a business loan acquired by two St Louis businessmen and $1,000 from RAC. The success of the crossing from Long Island, New York to Paris, France allowed Lindbergh to win the $25,000 Orteig Prize taking 33 hours and 30 minutes.

The plane was loaded with 450 US gallons (1,700 litres) of fuel which was a thousand pounds heavier than any of the test flights previously done.

Some of the challenges of the journey included skimming over storm clouds at 10,000 ft and dodging wave tops as low as 10 ft as well as fighting off 'icing', and flying blind through fog for several hours.

Navigation was tricky especially as Lindbergh was not proficient at navigating by the sun and stars and refused to use radio navigation as he thought it heavy and unreliable, instead navigating by dead reckoning. He was lucky as the Atlantic winds cancelled each other out on the day providing him with zero wind drift.

Answer: Ruth Wakefield

We have Chef Ruth Graves Wakefield to thank for this, conceived apparently after returning from a trip to Egypt and was the inspiration of her Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie in Whitfield, Massachusetts.

Caesar Cardini rather healthily invented the Caesar salad in 1924 comprising romaine lettuce, with croutons dressed with lemon (or lime) juice, olive oil, egg, Worcestershire sauce, anchovies, garlic, Dijon mustard, Parmesan cheese and black pepper.

Walter Diemer brought some prestige to the world of accounting when he invented Bubblegum in 1928 after experimenting with gum to achieve one which was both less sticky and extremely stretchy. Pink is the most popular bubblegum colour, possibly harking back to his time experimenting as this was the only colour available to him.

Momofuku Ando first marketed his precooked instant noodles on 25 August 1958 at the tender age of 48 in Japan, and later went on to invent Cup Noodles on 18 September 1971.

Answer: Alexei Leonov

A Russian named Alexei Leonov did it on 18 March 1965 as he left the Voskhod 2 capsule and floated freely in space whilst tethered to it for just over twelve minutes. His walk was not without difficulties however, as once in space, his suit ballooned and could not re-enter the airlock. He bled his suit beyond it's safety limits to make it more flexible thus allowing him to get back on board but not without suffering the bends from decompression.

Pavel Balyayev was the Commander of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft which actually saw his co-pilot Alexei Leonov achieve the space walk.

Yuri Gagarin was the first ever person to travel in space on Vostok 1 as it orbited the earth just the once on 12 April 1961 during the 108 minute flight.

Pavel Chekov was a fictional character in the television series "Star Trek" first airing in 1966, although the character itself was first seen in the episode 'Amok Time' shown in 1967.

Answer: Texas

Whilst the first electric wringer clothes washer was developed in the early 1900s, it was unreliable as the motor rotated under the the tub and could cause short circuits and shocks if any of the water dripped down onto it.

The true history of the laundromat began on 18 April 1934 in Fort Worth, Texas where the first ever Laundromat opened. This was named as a "Wash-a-teria" and the name (without the dashes) is the alternative name used for the Laundromat but is rarely known by this name outside of Texas.

The term "Laundromat" is the genericised trademark belonging to the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, latterly known as White Consolidated Industries.

Answer: Will Kellogg

Will Kellogg invented the Corn Flakes whilst working at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, in Michigan along with his brother, John, who was the Superintendent there.

The cereal was originally made in 1894 from wheat and was created for the patients at the sanitarium, and become so popular with them that Will started what became the Kellogg Company producing Corn flakes for the wider public. He obtained the patent for the process of making them but only after a legal battle against his brother. Will continued to experiment with different ingredients and grains and in 1928 produced the cereal known as Rice Krispies.

Answer: IBM

IBM, in the late 1960s, decided to use semiconductor memory as the basis of storage for future systems. Alan Shugart, IBM's Direct Access Storage Product Manager gave the job eventually to Donald L Wartner and Herbert E Thompson after a failed attempt at a new style tape system.

They, and their team, eventually designed the IBM 23FD Floppy Disk Drive System (code name Minnow). Originally the disc was bare and had issues with dirt so the disc became covered with a plastic envelope. The diskette was finally brought to the market in 1971.

Deep Blue (made by IBM) was the first supercomputer to beat a World Chess Champion (Garry Kasparov) in 1997.

Answer: Japan

At 7:48 am Hawaiian Time on 7 December 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service launched a surprise military attack against the American naval base Pearl Harbor base, Oahu Island, Hawaii after months of negotiations between the two countries over the future of the Pacific.

The attack involved 343 aircraft, in two waves, and targeted nearly 100 American naval vessels including the eight US naval battleships present. All eight battleships were damaged and four were sunk. More than 180 US aircraft were destroyed, and 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 were injured in the attack. Japanese losses were light - 29 aircraft and five midget submarines were lost and 64 service men killed.

Japan declared war on the United States and the British Empire later that day although the declarations were not delivered until the following day. Immediately on hearing that their territory was also attacked, the British declared war on Japan whilst the United States Congress did not declare war on Japan until the following day (8 December 1941).

Answer: Pennsylvania

On 28 March 1979, the Unit 2 reactor accident in The Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station began at 4:00am where radioactive gases and radioactive iodine were released into the environment.

It is the worse accident in US commercial nuclear power plant history.

The cause of the accident occurred eleven hours earlier where a blockage in one of the eight condensate polishers (the sophisticated filters cleaning the secondary loop water) was being fixed by operators.

The operators eventually forced the resin out by using blowing compressed air into the water, and using the water to clear the resin, however some of the water forced its way past a stuck-open check valve and found its way into an instrument air line, causing the feedwater pumps, condensate booster pumps, and condensate pumps to turn off around 4:00 a.m. This led to a turbine trip, which automatically instigates a safety shutdown of a power-generation turbine.

Answer: Puck Man

The original Japanese title of Puck Man was derived from the Japanese phrase 'paku paku taberu', which refers to gobbling something up. For the North American release the title was changed to Pac-Man.

The name of the ghosts who tried to catch the player were named Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde.

Interestingly, the 256th level was impossible to complete as an integer overflow caused the level to load improperly.

Still, good value for 25 cents if you ever got that far.

Answer: Columbia

Columbia was the first shuttle used during the programme covering the period 12 April 1981 to 21 July 2011. There were a total of six shuttles built but only five of them were spaceworthy. In order of when they were built - Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour. In all, the space shuttle programme had 135 missions of which 133 returned safely.

Columbia's name came from the the sloop 'Columbia Rediviva'. A privately owned American ship under the command of John Kendrick, and subsequently Captain Robert Gray.

Answer: The Tommy-Gun

Other nicknames for the Tommy-Gun were the 'Chicago Typewriter', 'Chicago Piano', 'Trench Sweeper' or 'Trench Broom'.

The 'Yellow Boy' was the nickname for the Winchester Model 1866 Lever Action Rifle which was probably the best ever shoulder held gun ever made.

The Pig was used for the M60 machine gun due for both it's bulky size as well as its appetite for ammunition.

The Peacemaker was the nickname given to the Colt Single Action Army revolver of 1873.

Answer: Casino Royale

In 1954, CBS Broadcasting paid Ian Fleming $1,000 so that they could adapt his book for the first TV show on Bond. It starred Barry Nelson in the lead role and was directed by William H. Brown and written by Tony Ellis and Charles Bennett. Its run time was 50 minutes.

The roles of Bond was adapted to show him as an American agent working for 'Combined Intelligence' and Felix Leiter became British onscreen and was renamed as 'Clarence Leiter'.

Answer: Dr. No

Whilst "Dr. No" is the first in the movie series made by Eon Production Films, it was actually the sixth book that Ian Fleming wrote.

The film makes references to earlier books as well as later ones such as SPECTRE, the criminal organisation which was not introduced until the 1961 book, "Thunderball".

There were many aspects of the typical James Bond established in this first film such as the introduction of the main character through the view of a gun barrel; a highly stylised main title sequence; the iconic theme music as well as an elaborate visual style that is one of the hallmarks of the film series.

"Casino Royale", whilst the first book written, was the 21st film to be made by Eon Productions Films. "From Russia With Love" was the fifth book written, and the second film made, and "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" was the 11th book written and the sixth film made.