Pick n' Mix: Part NINETEEN Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sweden

The Dacke War was named for Nils Dacke, the Swedish farmer who headed the 1542 peasant revolt against King Gustav I of Sweden. Dacke, as well as other peasants, was enraged at the rising taxes imposed by the king, as well as the confiscation of the Catholic Church's wealth in Sweden when Protestantism was made the country's national religion. Smĺland, near Sweden's border with Denmark where the revolt first broke out, was banned from engaging in trade across the national border, which exacerbated the tension between the peasants and King Gustav I.

Dacke and his followers executed any tax collectors of the king that they came across. Gustav I retaliated by sending his army to quash the rebellion. The king's army were unsuccessful at first, suffering casualties at the hands of the enraged peasants. Gustav completely ceased all food supplies and other provisions to the Smĺland area in general, successfully weakening the revolt. With the help of German mercenaries, the rebellion was finally quashed. Dacke managed to flee, but was later shot while attempting to escape abroad from Sweden.

Dacke was so hated by the king that his dead body was hung, drawn and quartered and publicly displayed. Dacke's wife and other family members were executed.

In modern-day Sweden (particularly in the south of the country) the phrase "not since the Dacke War" is used to express when something has not occurred for a long time.

Answer: Strontium carbonate

A carbonate salt of the chemical element strontium, strontium carbonate (SrCO3) is a white/grey powder which produces no odour. It is commonly used as a colourant in fireworks due to it being inexpensive to produce, and to its red plume upon being ignited with flame. This is the most common use of strontium carbonate.

Answer: Omoikane

Omoikane is the Shinto god of knowledge and intellect and regularly gives advice to other gods of Japanese mythology. In Japan, it is a tradition to pray to Omoikane before taking part in an exam or trying to get a promotion at work. Builders pray to him before constructing pillars.

Omoikane is the son of the Shinto god of agriculture, Takamimusubi. In one story, because of his intellect Omoikane is selected to find a way to persuade the Shinto goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu, to leave a cave she is hiding in.

Answer: Comiskey Park

Built in 1910 under the management of former baseball player, manager and owner of the Chicago White Sox, Charles Comiskey (1859-1931), Comiskey Park was located in the south of Chicago in the Armour Park neighbourhood.

The park was the site of over 6,000 baseball games (including four World Series events), was home to the Chicago White Sox for 80 seasons and was also the stage for two infamous boxing matches between Joe Louis and James J. Braddock, where Braddock was knocked out, and again in 1962 when Floyd Patterson was knocked out by Sonny Liston.

Comiskey Park also hosted a variety of notable concerts during its existence, such as the Beatles in 1965, Aerosmith in 1976 and 1978, Eagles in 1978, Blondie in 1979, Rush in 1979, Simon and Garfunkel and the Police in 1983 and the Jacksons in 1984.

The Chicago White Sox had their home ground at South Side Park between 1900-1910. Charles Comiskey bought 14 acres of land in 1909 which was once a city landfill site, and had Comiskey Park built on it. The Chicago White Sox had been successful in winning the American League pennants in 1901 and 1906, and Comiskey thought it would be more fitting for them to have a new and modern stadium as their ballpark as opposed to South Side Park, which was made of wood. The new ballpark took just five months to build.

The Chicago White Sox played their last game at Comiskey Park on 30 September 1990, moving their home ground to Rate Field in 1991. Comiskey Park was demolished in 1990 and turned into a car park. From 1971 until its demolition, Comiskey Park was the oldest baseball venue still in operation by Major League Baseball.

Answer: Kraken Mare

Lakes of liquid methane and ethane have been discovered on the surface of Titan, with Kraken Mare being the largest known body. NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission was able to able to detect that Kraken Mare is around 1,000 feet (300 m) deep, during one of the spacecraft's last flybys of Titan. Kraken Mare however, is so deep that Cassini-Huygens was unable to probe to the lake's very bottom with its radar. Kraken Mare is located in the north of Titan.

Kraken Mare was discovered in 2006 and is named for the Kraken sea monster of Norse mythology.

Answer: Maria Feodorovna

Also known as the Kelch Hen and the Jewelled Hen, the First Hen egg was constructed under the orders of Russian jeweller, Peter Carl Fabergé (1846-1920), who invented the concept of the jewelled eggs. Peter Carl Fabergé was a member of the prestigious House of Fabergé, a jewellery business established in 1842 by Peter's father, Gustav Fabergé (1814-1894).

Completed in 1885, the First Hen egg was gifted to Maria Feodorovna (1847-1928) the same year. She was so thrilled with the gift that her husband, Tsar Alexander III, had one delivered to her every Easter after this, requiring that each egg be different to its predecessor and containing some form of a surprise inside. The First Hen egg consists of gold and has an enamel coating to make it appear like a real egg, and it opens with a golden egg yolk inside. This yolk also opens, with a golden hen with rubies for eyes lying inside.

Maria Feodorovna was the mother of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia.

Answer: Janet Jackson

Working with Virgin Records, Janet Jackson's "The Velvet Rope" earned her $80 million, which in 1997 became the most expensive recording contract in music history. This album was the first of Janet Jackson's to explore darker and more mature subjects (such as domestic violence and sexuality) compared to her previous albums. The album features collaborations with rapper Q-Tip and singer Joni Mitchell.

Five singles were released from the album. The single "Together Again" achieved the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

Answer: Alberto Korda

Born Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez in Havana, Cuba, in 1928, Alberto Korda (1928-2001) began his career in photography by shooting weddings and birthdays. He had to learn from his earlier work which chemicals were appropriate to use, as some of his clients complained their photographs had become yellow with time. His work changed drastically when he began to photograph events during the 1960 Cuban Revolution.

Korda captured "Guerrillero Heroico" on March 5, 1960. He photographed 31 year old Che Guevara during a memorial of the victims of the La Coubre explosion, where around 100 people in Havana Harbour were killed when the La Coubre cargo ship exploded. The photograph soon became famous and a symbol for rebellion worldwide. In 2000, Korda was unhappy about the image being used in an advert for Smirnoff vodka and sued the company that had implemented the photo. He was awarded $50,000 for this, which he gave to Cuba's healthcare system.

Answer: White-lipped snake

The white-lipped snake (Drysdalia coronoides) is the most cold-tolerant snake of Australia, and has even been found living above the snowfall on Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain of the country's mainland. It is one of the three species of Drysdalia snakes, which are relatively small and thin snakes. They feed mainly on skinks and grow to around 16 inches (40cm) in length.

The white-lipped snake is venomous and resides in Australia and neighbouring islands such as Tasmania and New Guinea. Out of the three snake species that inhabit Tasmania, the white-lipped snake is the smallest.

Answer: Sulphuric acid

Sulphuric acid (H2SO4) is composed of sulphur, oxygen and hydrogen. It is used in the industrial production of chemicals, such as phosphoric acid. The production of phosphate fertilizers is the main use of sulphuric acid, but it is also used to create wood preservatives, dyes, glues and other chemicals as well as being used in car batteries. It is also regularly used in the metalworks industry for cleaning rust from metal.

John Roebuck (1718-1794) was an English industrialist who invented the lead chamber process in 1746. He established lead chambers to be used to create sulphuric acid via oxidizing sulfur dioxide with moist air, with gaseous nitrogen oxides being implemented as catalysts. This method was used for around 200 years and by 1946, the lead chamber process produced around a quarter of all sulphuric acid. The lead chamber process is no longer widely in use, and has been replaced by the contact process.

Answer: Squids

"The Sea Raiders" was first published in "The Weekly Sun Literary Supplement" and later included in collections of H.G. Wells' various short stories. The story features a fictional species of giant squid, "Haploteuthis ferox" which is theorised in the book to have been driven from its usual home in the deep sea, in a desperate search for food.

H. G. Wells (1866-1946) wrote over fifty novels in his lifetime. His predictions regarding science of the future were largely accurate, including nuclear weapons and satellite televisions.

Answer: Jesse Owens

The 1936 Summer Olympic Games took place in Berlin. In order to upstage America who had hosted the Olympics in 1932, Adolf Hitler, who was in power in Germany at the time, had a new stadium constructed that had a 100,000 person capacity. Over 40 countries watched the 1936 Summer Olympics; it was the first of the Olympics to be televised. Jewish athletes were banned from competing.

Born in Oakville, Alabama, Jesse Owens (1913-1980) was an American athlete who specialised in track and field. He set three world records in his lifetime. Due to his stellar performance at the Olympic Games, ESPN described his victories as "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy" due to Owens being African-American. Hitler had hoped that the German athletes would be more successful in the games, and speculated that perhaps he should have banned Black athletes as well as Jewish ones.

Answer: Sumatinatha

Sumatinatha is the fifth Tirthankara (divine preacher, teacher or savior) of the Jain religion. Traditionally, he is said to have been a prince of the legendary Solar Dynasty (also known as the Ikshvaku dynasty) of India. Sumatinatha is revered in Jainism for his wisdom and intellect, as he emphasised the need for knowledge in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment and living a moral life.

Bhandasar Jain Temple was constructed around the 12th century. A legend surrounding the temple states that instead of water being used in the mortar used during construction, ghee was used. The temple is famous for its beautiful artwork inside.

Answer: Vreta Abbey

Constructed in the early 1100s under the orders of the Stenkilska dynasty, Vreta Abbey had various monarchs donate to establish the building. King Inge the Elder and Queen Helena gave land in Vreta to the church was the purpose of constructing the abbey around 1100, and King Karl Sverkersson donated to the abbey's reconstruction in 1162 after a fire destroyed the building. The abbey was originally part of the Order of Saint Benedict, but was later used by the Order of Cistercians shortly after Sverkersson's financial contribution. King Karl Sverkersson's sister, Ingegerd, was the first abbess of Vreta Abbey's Cisterian Order.

The nunnery was dissolved in the 1580s when the last remaining nuns of the abbey passed away. Due to the Reformation, Vreta Abbey was restricted from acquiring any new or novice nuns. The remnants of the abbey have been fully accessible to the public since 2019.

Answer: Assefa Gebre-Mariam Tessema

Born in 1936, Assefa Gebre-Mariam Tessema is a poet who studied in Ethiopia's oldest university, the University of Addis Ababa. He taught at university also, before being sent to the Soviet Union to teach Amharic, one of the official languages of Ethiopia.

"Ethiopia, Ethiopia, Ethiopia be first" was first performed in public on Revolution Day in 1975. Tessema wrote the lyrics and the music was composed by Daniel Yohannes Haggos.

In 1992, Ethiopia's communist regime fell, and the anthem was to be changed - the lyrics had included "In socialism - flourish, be fertile!" The anthem was replaced with "March Forward, Dear Mother Ethiopia" in 1992, which was written by Dereje Melaku Mengesha and had its music composed by Solomon Lulu Mitiku.

Answer: Bridget Bishop

Bridget Bishop (died in 1692) was not the first person to be accused of witchcraft during this time, but in 1692 she became the first person to be executed for it. Born in Norwich, England, she had already been married twice by the time she married Edward Bishop. This was one of the reasons she was accused of witchcraft, as gossip around the town of Salem asserted that she had somehow been involved in the deaths of her two previous husbands.

The two young girls who began the panic of witchcraft in Salem with their unidentified sickness were said to have been pressured by Bridget to sign their names in the Devil's book. A slave in Salem said that her spectre had pinched him and that her presence frightened horses. Rumours escalated to the point where it was said that Bridget was spotted levitating and flying around the town.

Bridget Bishop was executed by hanging on June 10 1692. She was exonerated in 2001.

Answer: Manchester

Construction of Beetham Tower, Manchester, began in 2004 and was completed in 2006. Beetham Tower is around 550 feet (170 m) tall and was hailed by the Financial Times as "the UK's first proper skyscraper outside London." It is among the thinnest skyscrapers in the world and is visible from ten counties outside the county of Greater Manchester on a clear day.

The tower's architect, Ian Simpson, resides in the top floor of the building.

Answer: China

Flowing for around 900 miles (1,459 km) through three countries, the Sutlej River is the Indus River's easternmost tributary. It enters India through the state of Himachal Pradesh and is the longest main river of the Punjab area.

Lake Rakshastal in the Tibet Autonomous Region is the source of Sutlej River and was once part of the river's basin until tectonic shifts changed this. In India the Bhakra Nangal Dam is located on the River, which is a gravity dam that supplies the Indian states of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab with irrigated water.

Answer: Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) was a Danish-French artist known for his works in Impressionism. His paintings are known for their beautiful depictions of nature, starting with sketching the harbour outside his father's business, painting the West Indies from memory and later many depictions of various areas of France.

"The Garden of the Tuileries on a Winter Afternoon" is an oil painting of the Tuileries Garden in Paris, and is part of eight paintings Pissarro created around the area near the Louvre.

Answer: Honduras

Standing at around 9,420 feet (2,870 m) tall, Cerro Las Minas is in the west of Honduras, in the Lempira Department. The Celaque National Park surrounds the mountain and this terrain is known to be rough and uneven to climb. The hike to the mountain's summit is said to be particularly difficult.