Cool Zooms, Part LIX Trivia Quiz

Answer: Spain

The Caves of Nerja ("Cueva de Nerja") are located near the town of Nerja in the province of Málaga in southern Spain. About 5km (3.1 miles) in length, the caves are a major tourist attraction. One of the caves is a natural amphitheatre and the site of regular concerts.

The Caves of Nerja were rediscovered in early 1959, with an additional entrance created a year later for tourists. In 2012, suspected Neanderthal paintings were found in another part of the cave complex. Possibly the only Neanderthal art discovered so far, the pictures of seals have been dated using radiochemical techniques to more than 40,000 years of age.

Phoenix Rising's psnz sank to new lows before sneaking this question into the quiz.

Answer: "Sleeping Beauty" (1959)

Mary Costa entered the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music under the tutelage of maestro Gaston Usigli, after which she appeared in radio broadcasts and in concert with the likes of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. In 1952, Walt Disney called to award Costa her first professional singing job within hours of auditioning for the part of Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). The role would remain her most notable contribution to film, and she was honored for it with the Disney Legends award in 1999.

Snow White was voiced by Adriana Caselotti, but because she went uncredited, the role did not bear much fruit for her career-wise. Ilene Woods voiced Cinderella. Jodi Benson voiced Ariel in "The Little Mermaid". She also voiced Barbie in the "Toy Story" franchise.

This question was spun by Phoenix Rising's JCSon, who is quite ready for some beauty sleep.

Answer: Hans Hedtoft

The MS Hans Hedtoft was, like the Titanic, supposedly the safest ship on the seas at the time of its launch. Its maiden run was from Copenhagen, leaving January 7, 1959, to Julianehaab, Greenland. She made the run in record time. She began her return run later that month, on the 29th of January, with 40 crew members and 55 passengers on board. She was also carrying a load of frozen fish and over three tonnes of historic documents relating to Greenland's history and genealogical records. She collided with an iceberg the very next day about 65 nautical miles beyond (ironically) Cape Farewell, Greenland's southernmost point. The weather conditions were dire and the ship was lost before any meaningful rescue attempt could be launched. The only thing that was recovered from the wreck was a life-buoy that washed up on the shores of Iceland some nine months later.

His Majesty's Yacht Iolaire was launched in 1881, sank in 1919. The SS Yarmouth Castle was launched in 1927 and taken out of service in 1954 and the RMS Titanic, which was launched in 1912, never reached its initial destination, hence didn't get the opportunity to make a return run.

This question was created by Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 who did wish to include some sort of pun in this sign out but, for once, didn't think it appropriate. We think there is hope for him yet.

Answer: Michael McDowell

The 2021 edition of the Daytona 500 resulted in a surprise first win for Michael McDowell in the No. 34 Front Row Motorsports team. It came in his 14th NASCAR season and his 358th Cup Series career start, ending what was at the time the second-longest wait for a maiden victory in NASCAR history. While McDowell had been running well up the field throughout the race, his chance at the win didn't come until the final lap when the two drivers ahead of him, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski, crashed while battling for the lead and took out seven other cars in the process. McDowell's prize for avoiding the melee was not just a first win, but one of the most prestigious.

This question raced into the quiz with JAM6430 at the wheel.

Answer: India

Until a declaration of independence by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1912, Tibet was under the patronage of Mongol kings, then the Qing Dynasty. Born Lhamo Dhondup in Taktser, China in July 1935, Tensin Gyatso became the 14th Dalai Lama in February 1940. He was forced to flee Tibet after an uprising, started in Lhasa in March 1959, was suppressed by the Chinese army. One aspect of the uprising was a fear that the Dalai Lama was about to be arrested. He crossed into India on March 30, 1959 and a little later set up the Tibetan Government in Exile in Dharamshala, in the northern province of Himachal Pradesh. He has campaigned against repression of Tibetans within China and in 1989 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

This question was slipped into the quiz by Mikemaster99, who is in awe of people like the Dalai Lama who continuously strive to make our world a better place despite enormous difficulties confronting them.

Answer: David Niven

The 31st Academy Awards ceremony was held on April 6, 1959, at Pantages Theatre, Hollywood CA. Responding to concerns about the length of ceremony, producer Jerry Wald cut material from the show to ensure that it ran on time. Unfortunately, too much was removed, and the opposite problem occurred with the ceremony ending 20 minutes early and comedian Jerry Lewis left to fill in the gap.

The big winner at the 31st Academy Awards was "Gigi" (1958) which picked up nine Oscars, breaking the record jointly held by "Gone with the Wind" (1939), "From Here to Eternity" (1953) and "On the Waterfront" (1954) which all had won eight. The record did not last long, with "Ben-Hur" (1959) receiving 11.

There were six hosts for the ceremony: Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall and Mort Sahl. Niven won the Best Actor Academy Award for "Separate Tables", a drama based on two of Terence Rattigan's one-act plays, directed by Delbert Mann. From seven nominations, Wendy Hiller also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Others headlining the film were Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster.

This question was presented to you by Phoenix Rising's psnz, working in partnership with Fifiona81.

Answer: Marry into the Imperial Family as a commoner

Michiko Shoda married Crown Prince Akihito in 1959 and became the first commoner and the first Roman Catholic to marry into the Japanese Imperial Family. She was born in 1934 in Tokyo and had both a traditional and western education, interrupted somewhat by World War 2, culminating in her graduation summa cum laude with a BA in English Literature.

She met the man who would become Emperor Akihito on a tennis court in 1957 beating him in a doubles match, and got engaged to him 15 months later. They had three children together. Although she suffered with stress and had numerous nervous breakdowns due to the great differences in her lifestyle, she was amazingly popular and brought about great change in connectivity with the Japanese people and the Imperial Palace. After the death of Akihito she became Empress Emerita.

Phoenix Rising member smpdit is happy she married someone who doesn't have a few palaces in his back pocket.

Answer: Welland Canal

A feat ascribed to St Catharines businessman William Merritt, the Welland Canal was first opened in 1829 with a depth of under 2.5m (8ft). It has been improved and enlarged numerous times since then and now has depth of 8.2m (27ft). It was included as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, and consists of eight locks (one lift and one guard). It is a navigational canal of 43.5km (27 miles) in length, and manages to overcome a height difference of around 100m (328ft) between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

This question was rowed into the quiz by Phoenix Rising member VegemiteKid.

Answer: Mike Pence

Marlon Bundo joined the Pence family in 2013 when Charlotte Pence, the daughter of the 48th Vice President of the United States, adopted him to use in her university student film project. She later wrote a children's book called "Marlon Bundo's A Day in the Life of the Vice President" featuring her rabbit accompanying her father to a typical day at work. The black-and-white rabbit made history as the first leporine creature to be transported on Air Force Two when he was flown from Indianapolis to Washington D.C. in 2017.

His name was apparently inspired by the fact that his former owner said "Make me an offer" when Charlotte inquired about his purchase price.

This comes hopping to you from the pen of Phoenix Rising's Fifiona81.

Answer: Mr Squiggle

The Australian children's television show "Mr Squiggle" (originally called "Mr Squiggle and Friends") ran for 40 years from 1959 to 1999. The titular character was a marionette with a pencil for his nose who would come to Earth from his home on the moon and make drawings from 'squiggles' that viewing children sent in. Quite often the picture would be upside down, because the marionette operator, Norman Hetherington, was drawing from above.

The grumpy Blackboard served as Mr Squiggle's easel, often telling him to "hurry up". Gus the snail used to tell knock-knock jokes and Bill the Steam Shovel told bad jokes that made him snort steam from his nose when he laughed. Of course it wasn't real steam but powder, since the puppet was mostly made from foam.

Ten years after the show finished, the main characters were immortalised on a series of commemorative $2 coins.

Phoenix Rising's leith90, who grew up watching "Mr Squiggle" (in black and white), sketched this question in a hurry and upside down.

Answer: Billie Holiday

The film in question is "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972) which borrowed generously from Billie Holliday's 1956 autobiography. It picks up Billie's life as a cleaner in a brothel, to being a prostitute, before finding success as a nightclub singer. It also marked the film debut for Diana Ross (as Billie) who so impressed the New York Times that they wrote; "an actress of exceptional beauty and wit, who is very much involved in trying to make a bad movie work". Whilst nominated for an Oscar, Ross missed out on the award, which went to Liza Minelli for her performance in the film "Cabaret".

This question required a supreme effort from Phoenix Rising's pollucci19.

Answer: Hovercraft

Louis Charles Joseph Blériot (1872-1936) is best remembered as a French aviator, but he was also an inventor and engineer. On July 25, 1909, he made the first successful aeroplane crossing of the English Channel in his Type XI monoplane from Calais in France to Dover in England. A heavy landing on a field near Dover Castle saw both the aeroplane's undercarriage and a propellor blade damaged. This trip had taken 36.5 minutes. For his efforts, Blériot won a prize of Ł1,000 offered by The Daily Mail newspaper.

Fifty years later, one of the activities marking the 50th anniversary of Blériot's flight was a hovercraft journey from Calais to Dover. The SR.N1 (Saunders-Roe Nautical 1) was the first practical hovercraft model and on July 25, 1959 the vessel had a crew of three: pilot, navigator and designer Christopher Cockerell. The two hours and three minutes crossing time was nearly four times as long as the original trip it commemorated.

Phoenix Rising's psnz flew this question into the quiz with a minimum of crowing.

Answer: False

While both songs were recorded and released by the Isley Brothers, only "Shout" (1959) was written and originally performed by the group. "Shout" gave the Isley Brothers their first chart success when it reached number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 and went on to be covered by numerous other artists - perhaps most famously by the Scottish singer Lulu in 1964.

The Isley Brothers' version of "Twist and Shout" made it to number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1962. The song had been written by Phil Medley and Bert Berns in 1961 and was originally released by the Top Notes. The Beatles also covered the song for their "Please Please Me" album and that version became one of five Beatles songs that for one week in 1964 occupied the top five places on the Billboard Hot 100.

This question was created by Phoenix Rising's JAM6430, twisting and shouting all the way.

Answer: Oahu

Oahu is the third largest Hawaiian island and home to roughly two-thirds of the state's population. The state capital Honolulu can be found on Oahu. Although many claim Oahu is Hawaiian for 'The Gathering Place', there is no confirmed meaning for the word in Hawaiian. Ancient tradition maintains that the Polynesian navigator Hawai'iloa named the island after his daughter. The use of the term 'The Gathering Place' for Oahu can be traced back to 1922 and Hawaiian Almanac author Thomas Thrum.

Well-known places on Oahu include Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, Diamond Head, the North Shore, and the Dole Plantation. Diamond Head is a tuff cone and is known in Hawaiian as Le'ahi. It is part of the Honolulu Volcanics, a group of volcanos and vents that helped form the island from 1 million years ago to around 35,000 years ago.

The information provided in this question was gathered by Phoenix Rising member tazman6619.

Answer: The Italian Job

The 2003 film "The Italian Job" was a critical and commercial success; in addition to Wahlberg and Theron, other big name cast members included Edward Norton, Jason Statham, Seth Green, Mos Def and Donald Sutherland. The film followed a team of criminals that stole $35 million in gold bars from a safe owned by Italian gangsters in Venice.

Although the movie shares its name with the 1969 film "The Italian Job", some of its plot and many of its characters are different than the original. Starring Michael Caine, the 1969 version involved a gold heist and featured an iconic chase with classic Mini Cooper cars.

This question was safecracked into the quiz by Phoenix Rising team member Triviaballer who prefers high speed gaming on FunTrivia rather than real-life car chases.

Answer: Solomon Bandaranaike

Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (S. W. R. D.) Bandaranaike was the fourth Prime Minister of Ceylon - the country that later became known as Sri Lanka. He held the role from 1956 to September 1959, when he was assassinated by a Buddhist monk. The following year his widow, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, became the world's first female prime minister.

Luis Carrero Blanco was assassinated when his car was bombed by the Basque separatist group ETA in December 1973, having held the position of Prime Minister of Spain for just six months. Indira Gandhi had two periods in office as Prime Minister of India and was assassinated by two of her bodyguards in October 1984. Olof Palme was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1972 and began a second term in 1982. He was shot by an unknown assassin while walking home from the cinema with his wife in February 1986. The investigation into his murder wasn't closed until 2020 when Swedish prosecutors named a deceased eyewitness called Stig Engström as the killer.

This question was investigated by Phoenix Rising's Fifiona81.

Answer: The Guggenheim

The museum had its beginnings as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in 1939, but the official Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, located at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street, New York City opened in 1959. It contains one of the most comprehensive collections of Modern art, from mid-19th-century Realism to Postmodern. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as a Modernist 'cathedral' for all types of 19th- and 20th-century art, not just to house non-objective (abstract) paintings.

This question was brushed into the quiz by Phoenix Rising team member 1nn1 who visited this museum in 2013 to admire the the FLW architecture rather than the art inside.

Answer: Vitalstatistix

The "Asterix" series of comic books were, initially, written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. They first appeared in 1959 and centre on the adventures of a Gaulish village who continue to hold out against the Romans in the time of Julius Caesar. The chief protagonist is Asterix who appears to be the wisest of the men in the village and is aided, firstly, by a magic potion created by their druid that endows him with superhuman strength, and, secondly, by his best friend Obelix, a large lump of a man who doesn't need the potion thanks to his falling into a cauldron of it when he was a baby.

The series is laced with wry humour and this, initially, reveals itself within the names of the characters in the village, which are puns of their personalities. For example, the village chief is Vitalstatistix because of his large frame and the extra weight that he's carrying. His wife, who is constantly at odds with him, is known as Impedimenta. Dogmatix is, as the name implies, a dog and he belongs to Obelix. Geriatrix is the village's oldest person and Getafix is the druid and the creator of the magic potion.

Thankfully Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 only wrote this question and didn't decide to sing it. If he had he would have sounded like the village's resident bard... Cacofonix.

Answer: Clutter

Four members of the Clutter family (Herb, Bonnie, and their teenage children, Nancy and Kenyon) were brutally murdered in their rural Kansas home in the early hours of November 15, 1959. The killers, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, thinking there was a large sum of money in the house, broke in, and, finding no such treasure, killed the Clutters. The pair was found a few weeks later in Nevada, tried, convicted and both eventually executed on April 14, 1965.

Truman Capote, hearing of the crime, traveled to Kansas, with his good friend Harper Lee (author of "To Kill a Mockingbird") well before the capture of Smith and Hickock to interview the locals and officials. He took extensive notes and spent six years working on the book, "In Cold Blood", which was an instant success and remains the second-most popular "true crime" novel ever, behind Vincent Bugliosi's book about the Manson murders, "Helter Skelter".

This story has always haunted Phoenix Rising's mike32768 since learning about it as a young man. He has no glib saying with which to conclude.

Answer: Adios

A lovely little song, performed by the von Trapp children at a party that their father is hosting. The seven kids take turns in saying "goodnight" to the assembled guests. The song is reprised at the end of the movie, when the Captain and his new wife, Maria, join the children at the Festival concert, which they duly won. While the runner-up awards are being made, the von Trapps escape, and make their way to Switzerland, and freedom.

The movie, released in 1965, is rated as one of the best of all time. It was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won five, including Best Picture.

This question written by ozzz2002, who is not ashamed to admit that he loves musicals.