Pick n' Mix: Part TWELVE Trivia Quiz

Answer: Frankie Howerd

Alfred Hawthorne "Benny" Hill (1924-1922) was born in Southampton, Hampshire, England. He was known for his slapstick and crude comedy, portrayed in his comedy sketch show, "The Benny Hill Show" which ran from 1955-1989. The show was criticized due to accusations of degrading women, however Benny Hill explained that the men chasing and making fools of themselves over these women, were actually the butt of the joke. Hill suffered a heart attack in 1992, but he refused bypass treatment. A week after his heart attack he had kidney failure and died aged 68 on 20 April 1992 in Teddington, South London.

Frankie Howerd (1917-1992) was born Francis Alick Howard in York, England. He received an OBE in 1977. Like Benny Hill, Frankie Howerd had his own show, "The Frankie Howerd Show" which ran in Canada in 1976 for one season. Howerd had become afflicted with a virus due to his time in the Amazon around 1991. He suffered from breathing issues and died aged 75 on 19 April 1992. He had been speaking to an agent about new concept for a new show two hours before he was discovered dead.

Answer: Elephant excrement

Born in Manchester, England in 1968, Chris Ofili became the first black artist to be awarded the Turner Prize in 1998. He also represented the U.K at the Venice Biennale art show in 2003. The elephant excrement he uses in his work is accompanied by resin, glitter, cut outs of pornographic magazines and paint. He coins his style "punk art." Ofili was inspired during a trip to Zimbabwe when he was 23, where he was astounded by the cave paintings. He saw elephant droppings around the cave and decided to take some back to England to include in his work.

Chris Ofili's career has not been without controversy. In 1999 he displayed a painting called "the Holy Virgin Mary" which depicts the Virgin Mary as a Black Madonna. She is surrounded by cut outs of pornographic images and blaxploitation stills from films, alongside his signature elephant dung. The pornographic images appear to be butterflies from a distance, but upon closer inspection they are revealed to be female genitalia. This caused great offense amongst many, including the Mayor of New York City at the time, Rudy Giuliani, who described the piece as "sick." The painting was sold for Ł2.9 million ($4.6 million) in 2015.

Answer: RMS Oceanic

A transatlantic ocean liner passenger ship, the RMS Oceanic was built for the now defunct British shipping line, White Star Line, and first set sail in 1899 from Liverpool to New York under the captainship of Captain JG Cameron. RMS Oceanic was also the first ship to be longer (but not heavier) than the British ship the SS Great Eastern (which was launched in 1858 and then used for scrap in 1899).

On 13 May 1912, the RMS Oceanic found one of the Titanic's lifeboats a month after it sunk, with three bodies still in it. At the start of World War I, RMS Oceanic was one of the first ships to be recalled for war duties, where she was adapted into an armed merchant cruiser. She got stuck around the Shetland Islands, Scotland, and ran aground in 1914.

The wreck of the RMS Oceanic was partially salvaged for scrap in 1926. Between 1972-1979 most of the wreck was removed from the sea, however, small parts of the wreck still remain in the area today.

Answer: Hydrogen bromide

With the atomic number 35 and a the symbol Br, bromine exists as a dark red liquid whilst stored at room temperature. It is a foul-smelling, volatile chemical element that evaporates easily. Because of its high reactivity, almost every element on the periodic table has formed compounds with bromine, with the exception of non-reactive elements.

An inorganic compound, hydrogen bromide (HBr) is the simplest compound of bromine and exists as a colourless gas with an unpleasant odour, however, it becomes an acid once dissolved in water due to the bond between bromine and hydrogen being weak, which permits hydrogen ions to be released without difficulty. Hydrogen bromide is used as a catalyst in chemistry, for dissolving oils and creating other chemicals.

Answer: Darts

The oche is the line where a darts player must stand before they launch their dart at the board. The World Darts Federation asserts that the oche must be 7 ft 9 and a quarter inches (2.36855 m) away from the dart board. The player's foot must not cross this line.

Answer: Green

The flag of Senegal contains three vertical stripes of green, yellow and red respectively, with a green star featuring in the middle. The green, yellow and red are the colours of Pan-Africanism.

Senegal has a Muslim majority population, and green is associated with Paradise in the Quran. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan also incorporate green into their national flags for this reason. A green dome is also built over the site of the prophet Muhammad's burial place, with thousands of Muslims visiting it each year.

Answer: James Lick

Born in 1796 in Philadelphia, James Lick moved to San Francisco in 1848, less than a month after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted California to the U.S.A. California was in the process of a huge economic growth, with the transcontinental railroad incorporating the then young state into its system, with the Gold Rush also contributing to the economy around the time he moved to the state.

Lick was renowned for his eccentric lifestyle, showing little interest in his own appearance. He was known to impose frivolous tests on his staff, for example, instructing them to plant trees upside-down. He was also known for his generosity and habit of buying land. He constructed several buildings including a hotel which was destroyed in a fire in 1906. By 1874, Lick had entrusted $3,000,000 to seven trustees, which was how the Lick Observatory was born in 1888. Several discoveries have since been made at the observatory including moons of Jupiter (such as Elara, Sinope, Amalthea and Himalia) and miscellaneous extrasolar planets.

Answer: Iron Bridge

The Iron Bridge's construction was completed in 1781 and was available for public use the same year. It was the first significant bridge in the world to be constructed out of cast iron (an iron and carbon alloy which has a carbon content surpassing 2%). The bridge spans around 100 feet (30 m).

As this was a new method, the creators of the bridge were unsure about using iron, but the effectiveness of the bridge led to more bridges being constructed using cast iron worldwide, and the Iron Bridge is hailed as a representation for the success of the Industrial Revolution.

Answer: Iowa

With the current monument standing since 1901, the Sergeant Floyd Monument was erected in memory of American explorer, Charles Floyd, famous for his partaking in the Corps of Discovery Expedition. He was the only member of the crew to die during the expedition.

The monument is located on the Missouri River where Floyd died in 1804, with the original monument being erected the same year. The monument built in 1901 was recognised as a National Historic Landmark by 1960. The obelisk is around 100 feet (30 m) high and made from sandstone.

Answer: Sheffield

The Great Sheffield Flood, also known as the Great Inundation, was a natural disaster that wreaked havoc in Sheffield, England, and the closely surrounding areas. The Dale Dyke reservoir was one of the four proposed reservoirs constructed around Bradfield, England, around 8 miles northeast of Sheffield. The dam was almost fully constructed before the storm that caused the flood, which flooded through Loxley valley, then Low Bradfield, then through to Hillsborough and into Sheffield.

At least 240 people died in the Great Sheffield Flood.

Answer: Phobos 2

Phobos 1 and 2 were both spacecraft designed to explore Mars and one of its moons, Phobos. The launch took place in 1988 and the spacecraft was in Mars' orbit by 1989, gaining 37 photos of the moon it was named after, capturing around 80% of its surface.

Phobos 2 had almost completed its task before contact with the vessel was completely lost on Earth. There had been problems with the spacecraft since it had been within Mars' orbit, with two out of its three computers malfunctioning.

Answer: Pope Clement VI

Born Pierre Roger in 1291 at the castle of Maumont, Corrčze, France, Pope Clement VI had been the pope for 5 years when the Black Death arrived in Europe in 1347. He was vocal about his disapproval of the Jews being blamed for the plague, condemning those who committed violent acts against them, stating that the Jews could not possibly be to blame for the plague as their communities were suffering from it also.

Answer: Casimir III the Great

Born in 1310, Casimir III the Great was the last king to rule from the Piast dynasty, and reigned in Poland between 1333-1370. Poland was recovering from war by the time Casimir took the throne, and he used his power to rebuild the country. He was particularly fond of building and creating new institutions with the Jagiellonian University being one of them, located in Kraków.

Jagiellonian University is widely considered to be the most prosperous and prestigious university of Poland. Several well known people have attended Jagiellonian University, including Pope John Paul II, polymath Nicolaus Copernicus, former Prime Minsters of Poland, Beata Szydło and Józef Cyrankiewicz, the chemist who first liquified oxygen and hydrogen, Karol Olszewski, and several winners of the Nobel Prize for literature.

The Jagiellonian Library located within the university is among the largest libraries in Poland, and is open to the public.

Answer: Abu Bakr

The Rashidun Caliphate was the first caliphate established following the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Abu Bakr was a close companion of the prophet Muhammad, and was also his father in law once Muhammad had married his daughter, Aisha. Abu Bakr's reign lasted around 2 years, a time where he saw many rebellions across the Arab peninsula, which were crushed under his orders. He fell ill and died in 634 AD, with Umar ibn al-Khattab succeeding him. Abu Bakr was buried next to the prophet Muhammad.

Answer: Rügen

The MS Jan Heweliusz was built in 1977. On January 14 1993, the ferry was caught in a severe storm early in the morning, and capsized. The ferry was meant to be sailing from Ystad in Sweden to Swinoujscie in Poland. Out of the 63 crew and passengers, only 9 were saved by Danish, Polish and German teams. The survivors were airlifted to hospitals in Germany where they had to be treated for hypothermia.

Situated in the Baltic Sea, Rügen is the largest of Germany's islands.

Answer: Australia

Ronald Ryan (1925-1967) was executed on 3 February 1967, aged 41. Although he was first originally incarcerated because of being caught partaking in robbery (and later admitting to being involved in 9 others), Ryan was given the death sentence for killing a guard by shooting him during his escape from Pentridge Prison. He was hung for this in 1967, with his last words being to the hangman "God bless you, please make it quick."

The death penalty was abolished in Australia in 1985. A law was also put in place in 2010 that would ban the reintroduction of the death penalty in Australia.

Answer: British Raj

The Ghadar Movement was established around 1913 by Indians living abroad from India, with the intention of overthrowing the British Raj in their home country. Sohan Singh Bhakna (1870-1968) led and founded the party. After World War I began, the Ghadar Movement had weapons smuggled to India and encouraged Indians to stage an uprising against the British Raj. The mutiny failed, with over 40 people being executed for partaking in it after being found guilty in the subsequent 1915 trial, the Lahore Conspiracy Case. Sohan Singh Bhakna was imprisoned for his role in the uprising, and was released in 1930.

After the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial, the Ghandar Movement was not without its supporters. Turkey and Germany both supported the cause, which was later dubbed the "Hindu-German Conspiracy."

Answer: Ice hockey

Established in 2008, the Kontinental Hockey League is an international professional ice hockey league in which the Gagarin Cup is awarded to the winners. The cup is named for Soviet astronaut and pilot, Yuri Gagarin. The Kontinental Hockey League involves hockey teams from Russia, China, Kazakhstan and Belarus.

The Gagarin cup is purported to weight about 40 lbs (18 kg).

Answer: Soviet Union

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were found guilty under the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917, of espionage in 1951, and subsequently executed in Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Ossining, New York, in 1953. They had been caught attempting to give Russia classified atomic information, and despite a plea for mercy on the day of her execution from Ethel, President Dwight D. Eisenhower deemed them worthy of execution via electric chair.

Answer: Kannada

Directed by Yaragudipati Varada Rao, "Sati Sulochana" is a film about the perspective of war between the Hindu gods from Sulochana, who is daughter of Shesha, king of the serpents. It was the first film to be shown in what was once the Mysore Kingdom, which was a princely state between 1799-1950. Unfortunately, this film is considered lost media.

Kannada is mainly spoken in the Indian state of Karnataka, southwest India.