Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Walter Arnold is the proud recipient of this ignominious first. Arnold, of Kent, UK, was given the first ever of these in 1896, for which he was fined one shilling after being caught by a policeman on a bicycle.
2. Thomas Selfridge, a lieutenant in the United States Army was the unfortunate victim of this first. Selfridge died while being given a demonstration of this new technology, becoming its first victim.
3. There are many people born on the land that now belongs to the United States today, but who was the first person born in the American colonies to British parents? She was born in what is now North Carolina, despite her name.
4. Richard Lawrence may not be as famous as John Hinckley, Jr. or others, but he has the distinction of being the first to do what in 1835?
5. While robots taking over the world may be far off in our future and best left to film, Robert Williams would probably agree they pose a great threat. Williams became the first human to be killed by a robot when he was hit in the head by a mechanical arm at his job. Where was it that he worked?
6. The first known one of these occurred, not in France as you may think, but in Ancient Egypt in 1152 BC. The bosses must have been confused on what was happening, indeed records show they had no idea!
7. Robert Cornelius is the ultimate hipster, doing this more than 150 years before it was "cool". What did this lamp manufacturer, amateur chemist, and metallurgist do in 1839, the earliest known instance?
8. Just two months after the Camden and Amboy railroad replaced horse drawn carriages along its line, it experienced the first known train derailment. John Quincy Adams, a former US president at the time was onboard, as was this man, who, after being injured in the accident, vowed to never ride by train again, but ironically became a railroad magnate. Who was this man who helped found a namesake university?
9. Barney and Betty Hill were the first to have their claims of this widely publicized, whether you believe their story or not is a different thing entirely. What did they claim happened on a drive back to their New Hampshire home?
10. Swimming pools and baths have been around since at least the third millennium BC, with the first known swimming pool (by archaeological evidence) being built in modern day Pakistan. The first swimming pool may be disputed, but this addition to the pool is not. What did Gaius Maecenas add to the swimming pool for the first time in the 1st century BC?
Source: Author
geowhiz
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bloomsby before going online.
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