Quizzical Inclination

Answer: Richard

Born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1888, J. R. R. Tolkien would become one of the most important fantasy authors of the twentieth century, creating the Middle Earth setting found in not only his "Lord of the Rings" series, but all accompanying literature (including "The Hobbit", "The Silmarillion", and others) and establishing a commonly-regarded baseline for the high fantasy genre.

Though his name was shortened for his published works, he was born John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Although born in South Africa, he lived most of his life in England. After World War I he would become an Oxford professor. "The Lord of the Rings" would publish in three volumes in the 1950s.

Answer: Breaststroke

Matthew Webb focused much of his life's achievements on notable feats of athleticism that bordered stunt work, and his most famous of these was his English Channel swim, making him the first man to cross the thirty-four kilometre gap from Dover to Calais without any assistance. Completing the trip solely using breaststrokes, his achievement would take him just under twenty-two hours to accomplish. It would take more than a hundred thirty years before an athlete would be able to complete the swim in a third of the time (Bulgarian Olympian Petar Stoychev would crack the seven hour mark in 2007).

Webb died in Niagara Falls when he attempted to swim the famous Whirlpool Rapids in 1883.

Answer: Uranus

The seventh planet from the sun in our solar system, Uranus was officially discovered as a planet by Herschel who used a homemade telescope to locate it from his English garden. Other astronomers had been seeing the celestial body since the time of Ancient Greece.

Herschel originally named the planet Georgius Sidus after King George III of Great Britain though this name didn't really take outside of England. Seventy years after its discovery in 1781, the planet took the name Uranus after the Greek God of the Sky. Said name was proposed by German astronomer Johann Elert Bode. It's stuck ever since.

Answer: Ville-Marie

The French settlement that would become Montreal was a small port on the edge of the Saint Lawrence River when it formed in the mid-seventeenth century and that small village of Ville-Marie would remain there as part of one of Canada's oldest cities into the modern era. Today, Ville-Marie contains the bulk of Old Montreal, a series of streets up from the banks of the port containing numerous historical buildings and cultural landmarks.

These streets stretch all the way back to Mont Royal itself, containing the financial district and most of Montreal's university campuses as they back onto the hill.

It's one of Canada's busiest city centres to this day.

Answer: Firefighters

Also the patron saint of soap makers and chimney sweeps, Saint Florian lived in the Roman Empire in the third century AD, becoming notable for leading an army of Roman soldiers with the chief purpose of fighting fires. Drowned by Diocletian's forces in an act of Christian persecution, he would also become the patron saint responsible for protecting people from such fates.

Saint Florian is perhaps most revered in Poland and Austria, regions of which he happens to be the patron. In Krakow, the Royal Road stretches through the city's Old Town from the castle gates to the altar inside St. Florian's Church.

Answer: Elton John

Though, for many years, Elton John was cited to be the first Western artist to achieve this feat during the Cold War, Cliff Richard actually beat him to the punch, performing in a series of concerts in 1976 (both in Leningrad and Moscow). Richard was followed shortly after by Boney M (of "Rasputin" fame, of course).

Elton, however, performed fully-sold-out shows in Leningrad before all the other options, and his May 1979 tour, in support of "A Single Man", would hit both Leningrad and Moscow as well. The setlist closed out with a medley of songs including "Crocodile Rock" and both "Get Back" and "Back in the USSR", both of which were massively popular Beatles tracks that found great success there despite the Iron Curtain.

Answer: The slide rule

Considered a simple analog computer, the slide rule is amongst the most primitive of measurement devices, allowing its user to slide a screen or placeholder along a marked ruler to perform more complex calculations than simple addition or subtraction. Though severely outdated by modern standards, it was an effective tool for mathematicians until handheld and personal computing devices became the norm.

Its inventor, Reverend William Oughtred, created the device in 1622. He is perhaps better known for being the first to utilize the 'x' symbol to signify multiplication in a written equation.

Answer: Advance Australia Fair

"Advance Australia Fair" became the nation's permanent anthem in 1984 following the Commonwealth nation's earlier use of "God Save the Queen", which it'd used since its establishment, not unlike Canada. This being said, "Advance Australia Fair" was written as far back as 1878.

As for the others, "God Save the King/Queen" was the earliest, being adopted in the UK in 1745 (and being used in Commonwealth nations until their own independence/anthem adoptions. "The Star-Spangled Banner", written by Francis Scott Key, was determined to be the anthem of the United States in 1931 while "Oh Canada!" was officially declared the anthem with the National Anthem Act in 1980.

Answer: Soviet Union

Found about one hundred kilometres outside the Soviet capital of Moscow, the city of Obninsk was to become host of the first usable nuclear plant in the world and it succeeded in this effort, even though the output was quite low (with the technology being in its relative infancy). Connecting to the national power grid in 1954, it was originally created to fuel local industry. It remained in operation until being decommissioned in 2002.

The U.S. beat the Soviets to the first effective nuclear plant, having created the Experimental Breeder Reactor I in Idaho and using it for tests in 1951. This said, this reactor was never connected to the rest of the power grid. It managed to illuminate four light bulbs when it was first turned on.

Answer: Airplane

A military training pilot who remained stateside in the First World War, Doolittle made a name for himself by achieving his cross-country feat in 1922, managing to cross North America from Jacksonville, Florida to San Diego, California in a de Havilland DH-4. The trip would take him twenty-one hours and change.

Doolittle would continue his piloting career into World War II, being the namesake of the Doolittle Raid in 1942, executing the first air strike on Japan with sixteen B-25 Bombers. He received the Medal of Honor for that one.