Four - An Interesting Number Trivia Quiz

Answer: Antonio Vivaldi

Of those four composers, Vivaldi (1678-1741) is the only Italian. He studied to become a priest and was ordained in 1703, but had to renounce saying mass because of his ill health. Instead, he concentrated on music. He was a gifted violinist and composer, and directed the girls from an orphanage in several of his own compositions.

Vivaldi's best known work is "The Four Seasons", a set of four concerti for violin, strings and basso continuo portraying the typical emotions linked to each season. These instrumental pieces have sometimes been published with a sonnet each, which sonnets may have been authored by Vivaldi himself. If you find a recording without the sonnets, don't feel too disappointed: the music is far better than the poetry.

Lully (1632-1687) was born in Italy, but is considered one of the greatest French Baroque composers. One of his most famous compositions is "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme", a ballet based on the theatre play by Molière.

Grieg (1843-1907) was a Norwegian composer, famous for his theatre music to Ibsen's play "Peer Gynt".

Mussorgsky (1839-1881) was a Russian composer. Highlights of his oeuvre are the opera "Boris Godunov" and the piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition".

Answer: Kirin

Four Roses was created by the Rose family in 1888. Rufus Rose, his brother Origen, and two of their sons started distilling bourbon in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. In 1943, the company was bought by the international concern Seagram, and later on sold to Diageo. Both Seagram and Diageo concentrated on blended Four Roses bourbon, but the subsequent owner Kirin moved away from this mass product and back to the ancient recipes of straight bourbon.

Honda, Mitsubishi and Nissan are Japanese concerns known for their automobile production. Bourbon and cars don't mix really well.

Answer: Aimee McPherson

All these persons have founded or contributed to founding a "new" Christian denomination.

Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944) was a Pentecostal evangelist. In 1922, she commented on the vision by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4-28) of four creatures: a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle. These four creatures symbolize, according to some theologians, the four Evangelists. McPherson saw in these creatures four aspects of Christ: the man symbolizes Christ the Saviour, the lion stands for Christ the Baptiser, the ox represents Christ carrying the burden of sin, and the eagle represents Christ the future King. This sermon also gave the basis of the belief that the new denomination, the Foursquare Church, is founded upon.

Fox (1624-1661) founded the Society of Friends, better known under the moniker "Quakers".

Ammann (1656-1730) was a Swiss Anabaptist leader. He is considered the founder of the Amish denomination.

Smith (1805-1844) founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a cult better known as the Mormons.

Answer: Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant (born 1960) rose to international fame with the movie "Four Weddings and a Funeral". He had the lead role, the very British (but not upper-class) bachelor Charlie. Charlie attended several weddings of his friends, and kept seeing the American girl Carrie on these occasions. You'll have to watch the movie to find out if they become a couple...

The other actors mentioned here had a small part in this movie. Ronald Herdman was the vicar at the first wedding, and Richard Butler portrayed the vicar at the fourth wedding. Rowan Atkinson played Father Gerald, who introduced a quite new sentence in the marriage ceremony ("Do you take this woman as your awfully wedded wife?").

Answer: Empedocles

Empedocles (490-430 BC) was a philosopher born in Agrigentum (Sicily). His life is not well documented, so the years indicated here are to be taken as an approximation.

His philosophy tries to explain every phenomenon as a mix of air (hot and wet), fire (hot and dry), water (cold and wet) and earth (cold and dry). Later philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, interpreted this Empedoclean philosophy and made way for medical beliefs based upon this theory.

Pericles (495-429 BC) was an Athenian politician and general. Demosthenes (384-322 BC) was a notorious Athenian orator. Heracles was a mythical half-god.

Answer: South Sea

The phrasing of this question might look a bit peculiar, because all of the terms above refer to multiple bodies of water. However, we concentrate here on European geography, and on the seas that wash the shores of multiple countries.
South Sea is usually used for the southern part of the Pacific Ocean. There used to be a Zuiderzee (Southern Sea) in the Netherlands, but this one was dammed and is now renamed Ijsselmeer (Lake Ijssel). Only the Netherlands border this former Zuiderzee.

The North Sea in Europe is a large sea situated between the British Isles and Norway. Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Denmark also have shores on this North Sea. Other bodies of water named the North Sea include the Yellow Sea (near China) and the Arctic Ocean.

The East Sea is a quite common name for the Baltic Sea (between Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland). The name East Sea is also in use for the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan (in Korean tradition) or the Dead Sea (in biblical tradition).

The West Sea is the name the Estonians give to the Baltic Sea, for it lies to their west. The name West Sea can also be used for any of the three largest oceans (Pacific, Atlantic or Indian Ocean).

Answer: Diocletian

Diocletian (244-311 AD) ascended to the Imperial Throne in 284 AD. He abdicated in 305 AD because of his weak health. As he had witnessed several outbursts of civil war during the time his predecessors tried to govern Rome on their own, Diocletian soon appointed Maximian as his co-ruler, responsible for the West. But two rulers was not enough, thought Diocletian. So he finally appointed Constantius Chlorus as Caesar (junior emperor) for Gaul and Britain, Maximian as Augustus (senior emperor) for Italy and Africa, and Galerius as Caesar for Illyricum (Austria and the Balkans). Diocletian kept the eastern most provinces (Asia Minor, later Oriens - nowadays the Middle East).

Trajan (53-117 AD) was the Roman Emperor who gave Rome its largest territory, by conquering Dacia (present day Romania).
Caligula (12-41 AD) was the third Emperor of Rome. Rumour has it that he would have appointed his horse as a Senator, but no such incident was written down in the Annales (the official yearbooks).
Vespasian (9-79 AD) was the ninth Emperor. He is notorious for inventing taxes on public urinals.

Answer: Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) was born as Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, but this name would be far too long to be put on the cover of his novels. So we'll stick to his trimmed name.

Dumas started writing magazine articles and theatre plays. In 1838 he turned to novels, and published them in serial installments (as was the habit in those days: novels were to be published in newspapers and magazines, in short installments).

Dumas' best known works are "The Count of Monte Cristo" and the aforesaid Musketeer novels.

Hugo (1802-1885) is remembered for his novels "Les Misérables" and "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame".

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) was a French poet. The highlight of his career was the book "Les poètes maudits" ("The Cursed Poets").

Anatole France (1844-1924) was another prolific French author, perhaps best known for his novel "Thaïs" (which inspired Jules Massenet for an eponymous opera).

Answer: Beryllium

The periodic table designed by Mendeleev classifies chemical elements based upon their atomic weight (rounded to an integer, the number of protons in the core). The place an element occupies, is also an indication for various properties of the element.

The fourth element is Beryllium, an alkaline earth metal. It can be found in the gem stone beryl. Carbon is number six, Oxygen is number eight and Sulphur is number sixteen in the periodic table.

Answer: Rod Laver

Since 1925, these four tournaments have been chosen as the four major tennis tournaments. In 1933, the term "Grand Slam" was coined for the winner of these four major tournaments in a single calendar year.

The American Fred Budge was the first to win a Grand Slam, in 1938, in Men's Singles. The Australian Rod Laver won the Men's Singles Grand Slam in 1962 and in 1969. The Australian Margaret Court won the Grand Slam in 1963 and 1965 in Mixed Double, and in 1970 in women's Single. She was the first to win three Grand Slams. The German Steffi Graf won the Grand Slam in 1988, as well as the Olympic Games, all in Women's singles. She was the first to add an Olympic title to the Grand Slam. The Swedish Stefan Edberg was the first to win a Grand Slam while playing as a junior (age 13 to 18).