Tidings of Comfort and Joy Trivia Quiz

Answer: The English Channel

Proposed as early as 1802, the tunnel under the English Channel finally became reality in 1990 with the breakthrough ceremony (although a small pilot hole had already been drilled in late October). It marked the first time that a person could move from continental Europe to Britain or vice versa without needing to embark on a sea or air vessel.

The tunnel, consisting of two live and a service tunnels, is a rail only connection and was opened to traffic in 1994. Trains in the tunnel travel at up to 160 kph (100 mph).

Answer: St. Paul's Cathedral

The consecration of St. Paul's Cathedral was a particularly joyful event for Londoners because it marked an important achievement in the rebuilding process after the 1666 Great Fire. Designed by Christopher Wren, the building was only partially complete on this date.

It would take another 11 years for construction to top out with the famous dome and only in 1720 were the last details of the exterior architecture added.

Answer: Heart

While attempts at organ transplants - usually apocryphal - have been recorded in antiquity, successful transplantation of human tissue first occurred in 1883, when Theodor Kocher transplanted part of a thyroid gland to a patient whose thyroid was removed to treat recurring goiter.

The first vital organ to successfully be transplanted was the kidney in the 1950s. After the introduction of dead-donor transplantation in 1962, 1966 and 1967 became break-through years of transplant medicine with the first successful pancreas, liver and heart transplants.

After Dr. Barnard's groundbreaking operation, the recipient only survived for 18 days before dying from pneumonia caused by the required immunosuppression, but the surgical process itself was successful and with better immune system control, the operation soon became a routine procedure with approximately 70% of patients living for at least five years after surgery.

Answer: Council of Trent

At eighteen years, the Council of Trent was the longest of the Ecumenical Councils in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. It spanned the reigns of three different popes - Paul III, Julius III and Pius IV. It was a reaction to the Protestant Reformation of the years following 1517 and addressed all aspects of the Catholic faith, including the exact canon of scripture, liturgy, the role and veneration of saints and the theology of sin and salvation.

The Tridentine creed and Tridentine mass - used by the church for over four hundred years - were codified during this council.

Its effects were so profound that there would not be another council called for 307 years (First Vatican, addressing only the very limited issue of the pope's role in the church).

Answer: The first fully operational ARPANET

ARPANET, a scientific computer network established by the United States military, was established in 1969 with four nodes and existed until 1990. It was not the first network to use the packet-switching concept that defines the internet, but the first to use the two defining protocols of the internet: The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the lower-level Internet Protocol (IP).

The very first transmission attempt on the ARPANET happened on October 29, 1969, but failed after two characters. On the same day, the first full message also was transmitted (the "login" command). Over the next five weeks, permanent links would be established between the four nodes and on December 5, for the first time, the full ability to communicate between any of the four member nodes (three in California, one in Utah) was available.

Answer: Florida

The Everglades are the largest mangrove wetlands in the entire western hemisphere. From the late 19th century, building efforts began in Florida to drain these wetlands and turn them into agricultural areas. To counter these and preserve the unique species and environment of the Everglades, the idea of a National Park was first brought up in 1923.

In 1934, Congress passed the resolution that would allow the creation of Everglades National Park to proceed but it was to take another 13 years, due to lack of funds and World War II, before the park would actually be established and dedicated. Everglades National Park eventually became a World Heritage Site in 1979 and is considered an endangered one.

Answer: Delaware

While Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States constitution, this act did not have any immediate consequences. The reason for this was that for the constitution as a whole to be ratified and for it to go into effect in the states having ratified it, a two thirds majority of the thirteen states (nine) was required.

In the end, the Continental Congress declared this criterion satisfied - and thus the basis for the formation of the United States and its governmental institutions to be laid - on September 13, 1788, with eleven states represented. North Carolina and Rhode Island would follow in 1790, a year after the main federal institutions (the Presidency and Congress) were put in place.

Answer: Poland

After the Baltic states Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania had already declared their independence in 1990, the signs of impending dissolution of the Soviet Union became more and more prominent throughout 1991. This process finally culminated on December 8, 1991 when the leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the largest three of the originally 15 Soviet republics, met and signed an accord to confirm what was essentially already a fact: The Soviet Union was at the end of its existence.

While this had no legally binding effect, it was the final straw and 18 days later, the Supreme Soviet would pass its last resolution, dissolving both itself and the Soviet Union as a national entity.

Answer: Smallpox

The key to overcoming smallpox - a disease with a high fatality rate of 30% and up and no cure except for supportive treatment - was vaccination and the prevention of its spread. This strategy was extremely successful for smallpox because the causative virus can only infect humans and thus there is no reservoir species. Most infections can target multiple species and thus even a successful vaccination campaign cannot eradicate them unless it is also completely eradicated from the wild animal populations carrying it (and often showing no symptoms) - a practical impossibility.

This explains how, in spite of the extraordinary success achieved in defeating smallpox, this feat had not yet been repeated even 45 years later.

Answer: Economics

The Nobel prizes, established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, are awarded annually in the five disciplines of physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, literature and peace. Not all prizes were awarded every year; in the years 1940 to 1942, none of them were awarded at all.

The last time that a prize went unawarded was in 1972 when no Nobel Peace prize was given. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was created in 1968 and first awarded in 1969. It is administered by the same organizations that award the other prizes but is, due its different history, not universally considered a true Nobel prize.

Answer: UNICEF

The original intent of UNICEF was to provide aid, particularly with regard to healthcare, to children in the countries most heavily affected by World War II. The official name of the organization has been "United Nations Children's Fund" ever since 1953, but the original acronym was kept (I stood for International and E for Emergency). UNICEF works all around the world with a focus on healthcare and education.

Answer: Kenya

Kenya's road to independence was a long and bloody one. From 1952 to 1960, the country was torn apart by the Mau Mau uprising, initiated by a nationalist group in central Kenya. The Mau Mau were well armed and trained but in the end stood no chance against British colonial forces.

It is estimated that over 20,000 insurgents died while only 200 loyalists fell. After the end of the uprising, Jomo Kenyatta, accused of having been a Mau Mau leader but actually rather a moderate, was released from prison and quickly rose to a position of power in the negotiations for independence.

He became Prime Minister upon the country's independence and president a year later when the Republic of Kenya was official proclaimed.

Answer: People with disabilities

Accepted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 13, 2006, the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities is an international treaty signed and ratified by the vast majority of UN member nations. It provides for minimum standards in all aspects of life for disabled persons, from healthcare and accessibility over education to civil and political rights.

While the United States are a signatory to the convention, ratification narrowly failed to reach the required two thirds Senate majority in 2012.

Answer: Roald Amundsen; the South Pole

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his party were the first to reach the South Pole. Their success, beating out Briton Robert Scott by just over a month, is attributed mostly to their meticulous preparation and willingness to go to extremes to achieve their goal.

As a notable (and, to some, questionable) practice, Amundsen took a rather large number of dogs to pull their sledges, planning to kill many of them for meat as their supplies became lighter. In fact, of the 52 dogs the team originally took along, a mere 11 returned with the men.

Answer: The Chernobyl power plant

It sounds almost impossible given the damage and hazards from the exploded number 4 reactor, but core #3, sharing the turbine building and many support installations with the disastrously molten-down plant, remained operational and producing electricity for fourteen more years after the accident. Reactor cores #1 and 2, the oldest ones installed at the plant, were shut down in 1996 and 1991 respectively, the latter one because of a major fire in the non-nuclear section of the plant.

Originally, Ukraine planned to operate the #3 core for even longer, but political pressure from the EU led to the decommissioning in 2000.

Answer: Pakistan, Bangladesh and India

The territory of what was to become the Republic of Bangladesh was established in 1947 as East Pakistan when India became independent from the British Empire. It formed one nation with West Pakistan (today's Pakistan) even though the two parts were about 1400 km (850 miles) apart. Political power was exercised from West Pakistan. From the 1960s, East Pakistan strove for independence or at least greater autonomy and escalated after the 1970 general election when the winner, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, an East Pakistani, was prevented from taking office as prime minister.

In March 1971, the conflict escalated into a bloody massacre, when military units loyal to the West Pakistan leadership established martial law in East Pakistan. Several hundred thousand people were killed in this war which ended only after India joined in on the side of East Pakistan on December 3, 1971. Thirteen days later, the (West) Pakistani forces surrendered.

Answer: First powered flight of an airplane

In a rare case of pioneering inventors actually seeing their invention to economic success, the Wright brothers became not only the first to achieve controlled, powered flight but also were founding pioneers of the emerging American aircraft industry. Before attempting powered flight, the Wright brothers experimented with gliders for several years in order to construct wings that would give enough lift and control surfaces that would allow the aircraft to climb, descend and make turns.

The last task proved to be the hardest and led to the invention of three-axis control (necessary for any fixed-wing aircraft to achieve stable, controlled flight). Only after their success in controlled glider flight in 1902 did the brothers begin the task of fitting an engine and propellers to it.

In the end, their first Flyer only flew on that one day - it landed with minor damage after the fourth and longest flight of the day, but before it could be retrieved and secured for repairs, it was flipped over and severely damaged by a gust of wind.

Answer: Communications satellite

Today, worldwide communication would be inconceivable without the use of the many satellites orbiting Earth, receiving signals sent up to them, amplifying them and retransmitting them back to Earth to either cover large distances or supply a wide area with the signal.

The top secret project used an entire Atlas-B rocket as the satellite; unlike later launches, the entire vessel would become the orbiter. SCORE was able to both directly retransmit received signals and to store and forward them using two on-board tape recorders. Unlike most commercial communications satellites, it was deployed to a low orbit with only a 1 hour 41 minute period.

It remained functional for 12 days and reentered the atmosphere after a total of 34 days in orbit.

Answer: BBC World Service

Originally named the BBC Empire Service, the BBC's international news network was created in 1932 with the intent of providing citizens of Britain's many colonies and those even more remote, like explorers, with a reliable news and information channel from the home country.

Its main medium of distribution was (and in many areas still is today) short-wave radio. Beginning from 1938, the service began broadcasting in languages other than English. In World War II, the service was the only way for many citizens of the fascist states to receive news (and propaganda) not controlled by their own government; at that time it was actually considered a crime in Germany to tune in to the BBC. Available languages on the service change with time as the service focuses on areas and languages that have either poor regional radio availability in general or are subject to heavy radio censorship.

Answer: France

The main reason for the Louisiana Purchase was the vitally important port city of New Orleans. Controlling access to the Mississippi river from the Gulf of Mexico, this city was a key to trade with the middle and western area of the United States. Prior to 1803, the city and surrounding territory had changed hands between Spain and France several times.

At that time, Thomas Jefferson pushed for a quick purchase of New Orleans to avoid the risk of the city and territory falling into the wrong hands.

However, instead of the expected offer, the French offered the United States essentially their entire territory in North America, comprising almost a third of today's United States as well as a small part of what is today Canadian territory at a price hardly higher than what the US were prepared to pay for just New Orleans. Jefferson and his negotiator accepted the deal and the rest, as they say, is history.

Answer: The end of the world

The prediction of the end of the world (or at least some massive change) comes from the Mayan Calendar and creation myth. According to Mayan lore, we are living in the fourth creation after the third creation had failed at the end of its 13th b'ak'tun (a unit of time spanning 144,000 days or roughly 394 years).

At this point, equivalent to Aug 11, 3114 BCE, a new creation was begun and the calendar was reset. December 21, 2012 CE was the end of the 13th b'ak'tun of the current fourth creation. There was no actual basis in the original material for the belief that this creation would last just as long or short as the previous one, the "end of the world" theory was only inspired by the numerical similarity.

As we're still here today, we can safely say we've done better than the previous creation, but mind March 26, 2407 - that day will end the next (14th) b'ak'tun.

Answer: His shoes

Just months after 9/11, Richard Reid's failed attempt at detonating an airliner with all aboard on a transatlantic flight made headlines and led to further increases in airport security. Reid was a habitual offender from early youth, following in his father's footsteps.

He became a Muslim in 1995 and radicalized from there, training in Pakistan to become an al Qaeda fighter. Reid originally intended to board a plane towards the United States on December 21 but was denied boarding due to suspicions and delayed for a day while background checks were carried out.

He was allowed to fly the next day. When he tried to ignite the fuse to the bomb built into the sole of his shoes, his activities were noticed and, in a combined effort of several passengers and flight attendants, he was subdued.

The one-day delay in his flight was likely instrumental in the good outcome of the situation: during the extra time, the fuse had become damp and thus did not immediately ignite. Reid was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole.

Answer: Chile and Argentina

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 was a passenger flight from Montevideo to Santiago de Chile. Due to a pilot error, the flight crashed into a mountain on October 13, 1972. Out of the 45 on the plane, 17 died within a day of impact. The other 28 survived but found themselves in extremely hostile territory, with freezing temperatures and no access to food except for the few snacks they could pull from the wreck. Rescue efforts focused on the wrong territory, believing the plane to have crashed about 90 km further along its flight path.

After the few supplies were exhausted, the survivors had only the option to either starve or feed on the bodies of those killed. Eight more survivors were killed in an avalanche on October 29. After a first expedition attempting to find help located the tail of the plane with some luggage containing important supplies, it returned to the crashed fuselage. Finally, on December 12, two survivors set out to find help. On the ninth day (Dec 20), they spotted signs of civilization, made contact the next day, and the last eight survivors were flown to safety by helicopter on December 23.

Answer: Ghent

The War of 1812 was an offshoot of the Napoleonic Wars. Beyond naval skirmishes with both sides attacking the other's merchant vessels, the war mostly involved British attacks into the United States executed from Canadian territory and attacks by native Americans in the South.

At first, the British forces made substantial gains, even capturing Washington D.C. in August 1814, but after the Battle of Plattsburgh in September, the tide turned. Diplomatic efforts resulted in a peace agreement that restored the status before the war.

It was signed in Ghent on Christmas Eve, 1814, but due to lack of any telecommunications, it was February 1815 before news reached all parties and the last hostilities ceased.

Answer: Rome

After coming to power in the year 306, Emperor Constantine the Great quickly abandoned the de facto polytheistic state religion and, by 313, had granted the citizens of the Roman Empire religions freedom. This was most important for the early Christians who could from then on practice their religion without fear of having their religious materials confiscated or themselves imprisoned or killed. Constantine himself converted to Christianity and, from the 310s onward, referred to himself as a Christian. Christmas celebrations became more widespread during his reign and, unlike in the more eastern regions, where Christmas has been celebrated on January 6, in Rome, the date of celebration became December 25.