Easy Compact Quiz, Mixed Quiz | 10 Questions | General

Answer: Waldorf Astoria Hotel

Construction of the Empire State Building began in March of 1930 on the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at 350 Fifth Avenue at 34th Street. It was completed 14 months later in May, 1931. Designed by the architectural firm of Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon Associates, the Empire State Building, at 102 stories, was the tallest building in the world until the completion of the first tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan in 1972.

The original Waldorf Astoria started life as two separate hotels on Fifth Avenue in 1893 and 1897. The two were separate hotels but were designed to be connected by an alley. The combined buildings were demolished in 1929 to make way for the Empire State Building.

The new Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark was completed in 1931. It was the world's tallest hotel from 1931 until 1963.

Answer: Paris

Paris was in existence by the end of the 3rd century BC as a settlement on an island, the modern Ile de la Cite (though this is disputed because of lack of archaeological evidence), located in the Seine River and inhabited by a Gallic tribe known as the Parisii. The first recorded name for the settlement was Lutetia (from the Latin root of 'Lut' meaning swamp or mud).

The Romans took the settlement by military force in 52BC and called the place Lutetia. They laid out the city radiating from the Ile de la Cite and parallel to the Seine.

In the 5th century, during the end of the western Roman Empire coupled with the rise of the Merovingian dynasty, under Clovis I, the new capital was confirmed as Paris, the city of the Parisii.

The nickname, City of Light (La Ville Lumière) came from the emergence of Paris as a world city in the "Age of Enlightenment" and/or because it was one of the first cities to have gas street lighting which started in 1829. By 1865, the streets of Paris were illuminated by 58,000 gas lamps.

Answer: Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline was an American country singer. She was considered one of the most influential 20th century vocalists and was one of the first country music artists to successfully transfer into pop music. During her eight-year recording career, cut short by a plane crash in 1963, (she was only 30), she had several major hits.

One of Patsy's biggest hits, 'Crazy', was recorded just after she was in a car accident; they spent about four hours in the studio but she couldn't hit the high notes due to the pain from a broken rib. So the musicians went ahead and recorded the music without Patsy. Two weeks later, she completed the song in one take. The song reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. She died at the peak of her popularity two years later.

Answer: Ferdinand Magellan

The archipelago was discovered by the navigator Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, when he sailed through a strait separating the island from the South American mainland.

Magellan named the strait Estrecho de Todos los Santos ('Strait of All Saints'). The King of Spain, Emperor Charles V, who was the sponsor of the Magellan expedition, changed the name to the Strait of Magellan in honour of the Portuguese explorer.

Fuego means fire in Spanish. Whilst sailing through the strait he noticed many fires on the island which he believed were 'Indian' fires and were a threat that his small fleet was about to be ambushed.

In 1525, Francisco de Hoces when sailing through the region, recorded that Tierra del Fuego was one or more islands rather than part of what was then called Terra Australis (unseen great southern land). Francis Drake sailed through the strait in 1578 and later a Dutch East India Company expedition in 1616 named Cape Horn on the mainland. Charles Darwin and Robert Fitzroy visited the islands in the HMS Beagle in 1831.

Answer: Pythagoras

Pythagoras of Samos is often described as the first pure mathematician. He was an extremely important figure in the development of mathematics yet we know relatively little about his mathematical achievements. Unlike many later Greek mathematicians, where at least there are records that could be accessed, there is nothing of Pythagoras's writings. The society which he led, half religious and half scientific, followed a code of secrecy which certainly meant that today Pythagoras is both a mysterious figure and one who may not have been credited for all his achievements.

While he was recognized for his achievement in declaring that the Morning and Evening Star were the one and the same, no records exist showing how he came to this conclusion.

Answer: Jupiter

On 1994 July 16-22, over twenty fragments of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the planet Jupiter. The comet, discovered the previous year by astronomers Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and David Levy, was observed by astronomers at hundreds of observatories around the world as it crashed into Jupiter's southern hemisphere. It was the first active comet seen to be orbiting a solar system planet, and it was deduced that the comet been captured by Jupiter approximately 20-30 years earlier.

The massive tides caused the comet to break up as it orbited close to the planet and the pieces from a few hundred metres across to a few kilometres across hit the plant over a six day period causing an (unexpected) fireball with each impact.

Answer: Carmen

Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875), was a French composer in the Romantic era. He was a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, winning many prizes. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, but he almost never performed in public. His piano compositions were largely ignored and he made a living by arranging and transcribing the music of more well-known pianists.

He wrote two operas before "Carmen". Both reached the stage - "Les Pecheurs de Perles" and "La Jolie Fille de Perth" - but were not considered successful. "Carmen", his final work, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire. In 1875 soon after "Carmen" debuted, he suffered two heart attacks; the second one was fatal. He was only 36. Who knows what other masterpieces this musical genius could have produced if he had lived a reasonable quota of years.

Answer: Delta

Delta Air Lines' long history of service actually began in agriculture, when the company was founded in 1924 as the world's first aerial crop dusting organization - Huff Daland Dusters using a dedicated crop-duster of its own design. The fledgling company moved from Macon GA, to Monroe LA in the summer of 1925. The name was changed to Delta in 1928 to reflect the Mississippi River. Passenger services commenced in 1929 with routes from Jackson MI to Dallas TX via Shreveport LA and Monroe. The route was extended a year later, westward to Fort Worth and eastward to Atlanta Georgia.

Delta absorbed many other smaller airlines in making itself one of the biggest airlines in the world. One of the airlines it took over was Northwest Airlines in 2008. In 2019, the company was flying 5,400 flights daily serving 325 destinations from nine US hubs in 52 countries.

Answer: 4

In this metric-centric world all measurements are in multiples of ten so you do not need to remember "How many x in a y?". However in the imperial measurement system which is much older, divisions were made on practical information and common-sense grouping. To understand why there are four pecks in a bushel, you need to understand the origin of such measurements. Some of these type of measurements were not even standardised until the British parliament tried to do so with the Weights and Measures Act of 1824. Before that, in Scotland the peck had two measurements depending on what was being measured: A peck was equal to about 9 litres (2.0 Imp gal) (in the case of crops, such as wheat, peas, beans and meal) and about 13 litres (2.9 Imp gal) for barley, malt and oats.

The peck can trace its history back through the Pied Piper stories as far back as the Bible (Matthew 5:15). The 1824 legislation defined the peck as 1/4 of a bushel (which was more accurately defined). As it is an imperial measurement, a peck is rarely used in contemporaneous times. However in the US, arguably the last bastion of Imperial measurement, you can still buy apples by the half-peck bag which has the standard dimensions of 20.5x17x11cm.

Answer: Haemoglobin

Red blood cells contain a molecule called haemoglobin, which binds and transports oxygen through our bodies. At the cellular level oxygen is displaced for cellular energy purposes and the waste product carbon dioxide replaces the oxygen. The CO2 is then excreted at the blood-air interface in the lungs.

Haemoglobin is made up of four protein chains that each bind an additional ring-shaped porphyrin. This complex molecule called heme, and contains a central iron (Fe+++) molecule. It is this molecule which gives blood its characteristic red colour. (In some in cold-blooded animals, blood appears blue because copper, not iron, atoms at the centre of the porphyrin ring bind to oxygen).