Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The advent of automated technology in the 1930s has slowly decreased the need for human operators of what transportation device whose name comes from the Latin word for "rising up"?
2. Who hasn't seen the stirring movies "Gladiator" or "Spartacus" and dreamed of being a gladiator? However since the fall of the Roman Empire there has not been much call for gladiators or their associates. Back in those days what was the job of a "gladiatrix"?
3. Technology strikes again. What once popular job for humans at your favorite ten-pin bowling alley lost out to machines and robots that now do the task?
4. Not all occupational obsolescence is a bad thing. Prior to the advent of automobiles, what position employed thousands of people and required a strong stomach and a muted sense of smell to keep the wheels of commerce moving?
5. The invention of the word processor and the widespread dissemination of personal computers signaled the doom of what once a very common office clerical job?
6. Whether or not you believe that Thomas Edison or Nikolai Tesla is most responsible for creating the modern electric power supply, there is no doubt that the introduction of the electric light bulb made this once respected public works job obsolete?
7. In the 18th and 19th centuries locomotives, factories and ocean liners were powered by coal-fueled steam engines. Until the early 1900s, when a mechanical device automated the process, coal was fed into the engine by a human. What is the common name for this mostly obsolete job?
8. In March 2015, the famed Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced they would phase out the use of endangered Asian pachyderms as part of their touring "three ring circus". What occupation heads towards obsolescence with this change?
9. The once iconic sight of doorstep deliveries of perishable dairy products has been virtually eliminated. Why has the noble profession of the milkman become nearly obsolete?
10. Medical research from the 17th century onwards needed human bodies for study. To obtain fresh bodies to study doctors and researchers had to seek the services of specialized individuals. Often called "grave robbers", what is another more positive metaphysical name for this now obsolete "job"?
Source: Author
adam36
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bloomsby before going online.
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