Cool Zooms, Part VIII Trivia Quiz

Answer: Horseshoe Falls

Situated between Terrapin Point in New York State and Table Rock in Ontario, Horseshoe Falls is the biggest of the three falls that make up the Niagara Falls. With a width of 820 metres (2,700 feet) it is estimated that almost ninety percent (90%) of the water that flows over the Niagara escarpment, flows here. The Horseshoe Falls straddles the international border of both the United States and Canada.

Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 put his foot in it and ended up writing this question.

Answer: Avengers: Endgame

"Avengers: Endgame" was the highly anticipated and critically acclaimed culmination of an incredible 22-film story in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It smashed box office records, becoming the highest grossing film of all time earning almost $2.8 billion worldwide. In the movie, the surviving Avengers rally together with a host of allies as they attempt to undo the devastation caused by Thanos, the main antagonist from "Avengers: Infinity War".

"The Lion King" pulled in over $1.6 billion, Frozen II over $1.4 billion, and Captain Marvel over $1.1 billion.

Phoenix Rising Leader JCSon brought this question into existence with the snap of his fingers.

Answer: Erie

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, along the shore of Lake Erie. It was designed by architect I. M. Pei and dedicated on September 1, 1995.

The other lakes listed are in the US but not "Great". Tahoe is on the border of CA and NV, Mead is the largest reservoir in the US and formed by the Hoover Dam, and Winnipesaukee is in central NH and the state's largest lake.

Phoenix Rising team member mike32768 rocked this question into the quiz but was disappointed to find that 1986 inductee Elvis had left the building.

Answer: Persuasion

Jane Austen (1775-1817) was an English author widely acclaimed for her six published novels. Her first novels were published anonymously, initially being credited as written 'by a lady', and later novels were written 'by the author of "Sense and Sensibility"'. "Northanger Abbey" and "Persuasion" were published posthumously as a set, and Austen's brother Henry added a note identifying his sister Jane as the author. All of Austen's novels are still popular, with "Pride and Prejudice" cited by academics and readers as the 'best-selling novel of all time'. In fact, 200 years after the author's death, the novel is still in print. All six of Austen's novels have been adapted to film and television, and inspired fan-fiction sequels and prequels. "Clueless" (1995, based loosely on "Emma") and "Bridget Jones' Diary" (1996 novel and 2001 movie) are among several Austen-inspired adaptations.

"Rebecca" is by Daphne du Maurier, "Cranford" by Elizabeth Gaskell and "Possession" by A.S. Byatt.

This question was penned by Leith90, who, possessing neither sense nor sensibility, had to be persuaded to not post it anonymously.

Answer: Willy Brandt

Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm fled Germany when Hitler came to power and worked as a journalist in Sweden under the pseudonym Willy Brandt, formally adopting that name after the war. Brandt led the right wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1964 to 1987, during which time he also served as the Governing Mayor of West Berlin (1957-66), then as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1969-74). (Note: After German reunification in 1990, West Germany was redesignated as the Bonn Republic.)

Willy Brandt earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971, both for his work to strengthen the European Economic Community and for his policy of reconciliation with Eastern Europe (Ostpolitik). The 'Brandt Report' spotlighted the world economic divide between an affluent North and a poor South. His 'Anti-Radical Decree' (Radikalenerlass) in 1972 attacked domestic communist activity; however, when his close aide Günter Guillaume was exposed two years later as an agent of the Stasi, Chancellor Brandt resigned.

Brandt served for 4 years, 197 days; Schmidt for 8 years, 138 days; Kohl for 16 years, 26 days and Schröder held the position for 7 years, 26 days.

Question submitted by Humanist who spent his unofficial Junior Year Abroad (JYA) in West Germany (1972-73).

Answer: A small room

The word originated in French, and means 'wardrobe', a place for storing clothes, adjacent to a bedroom. Over the years, the meaning shifted to include toilet facilities, and would be roughly equivalent to the modern ensuite.

Before plumbing was common in houses, chamberpots were emptied out the window onto the street, with the warning 'gardyloo!', which was a further corruption of the original word. It flows (sorry!) from the French 'gardez l'eau', meaning 'mind the water'. In Australia, even this word has been shortened, with a toilet often referred to as 'the loo'.

This question and answer were flushed out by ozzz2002, whose Phoenix Rising teammates will probably never let him write another question about toilets!

Answer: Gulliver's Travels

Irish writer Jonathon Swift penned "Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships", shortened to simply "Gulliver's Travels" in 1726. Although not intended to entertain the masses, the novel's satirical wit was immediately popular and has continued to be so almost 300 years later. The first part: "A Voyage to Lilliput" is arguably the most well known of Gulliver's destinations, with the term 'Lilliputian', meaning something small and delicate, entering many a vernacular.

Likewise, "Part IV: A Voyage to the Land of the Houyhnhnms" where the Yahoos were a race of deformed human-like creatures, the term evolved to mean any boorish or crass hooligan. Later the word evolved again to mean an exclamation of joy, long before it became a computer search engine.

Like the imaginary destinations in "Gulliver's Travels", "Lost Horizon", "The Wizard of Lemuria" and "The Dark Frontier" all feature fictional countries or places.

This question was made up by Leith90, who, because of the 2020 pandemic, is unhappily unable to cruise to and visit far-flung islands and countries.

Answer: Whimsical

Verbs are commonly used to indicate time: past, present and future tenses. They also have moods which indicate how they are expressed. The five moods are indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional and subjunctive (also known as conjunctive).

Indicative verbs are used to state facts, statements and opinions. For example 'He is handsome.' This is the most common mood.

The imperative mood is used to indicate an order or request. For example 'count your blessings.' In this mood it isn't necessary to specify the subject.

The interrogative mood is used to make queries, for example: 'Is he handsome?'

The conditional mood uses would, could, or should to indicate what might happen under certain conditions. For example: 'John could have driven today, if he had passed his test.

The subjunctive mood can be used to talk about wishes, doubts, and non factual conditions. For example 'If John had passed his test, he could have driven today.'


This question was brought to you by Phoenix Rising member smpdit, who is known for the whimsical quality of her moods.

Answer: Balalaika

Dmitri Belinskiy, in a newspaper article for the Crimean Truth, discussed the origins of the balalaika. He puts forth that its arrival in Russia is not known and that the first mention of its name is an article entitled (translated) "Memory from Streleckogo Order in Russian Order", which tells of the arrest of two farmers, both of whom were playing the instrument. The name is, reportedly, an alteration of an earlier term, "balabaika" meaning "prattling" talk.

The balalaika is an instrument that is similar to a guitar in appearance, but it only has three strings and its body is triangular in shape.

It was appropriate that Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 submitted this question as he has been known to babble like it.

Answer: Chuck Yeager

In a press release dated September 23, 1975, Mary Brooks (Director of the U.S. Mint) spoke of a bill authorising "the President to present, on behalf of the Congress, a silver medal equivalent to a noncombat Medal of Honor to Brigadier General Charles E. Yeager, U.S. Air Force, for his contributions to aerospace science." Yeager received this medal from President Gerald Ford on December 8, 1976 at the White House.

Charles Emerson (Chuck) Yeager (1923- ) was an Air Force officer and test pilot. On October 14, 1947 he became the first pilot to exceed the speed of sound in level flight. Yeager had seen service during World War 2 in a variety of roles, beginning as a private in the United States Army Air Forces. His historic flight was in the Bell-X1 experimental jet.

The Wright Brothers made the historic first powered flight on December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in their "Wright Flyer".

Charles Lindbergh made a historic non-stop flight from New York to Paris in May 1927. It was the first solo trans-Atlantic flight and covered 3,600 miles (5,800km) in 33½ hours in a single-engine monoplane he called the "Spirit of St. Louis".

Amelia Earhart made a historic solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in May 1932. She was the first female aviator to do so.

Having been an "Air Force brat" growing up on several RNZAF bases, Rising Phoenix's psnz was delighted to land this question.

Answer: Dvorak

Antonin Leopold Dvorak (1841-1904), was a Czech composer. His ninth symphony is titled "From the New World" because it was written in the United States when he worked in New York as director of the National Conservatory of Music. The other answers were all composers with Czech origins.

August Dvorak (1894-1975) was an American psychologist and designer and may be a distant cousin of Antonin. In 1936, along with brother-in-law William Dealey, he patented an alternative to the QWERTY keyboard arrangement. Dvorak also designed keyboards for people with the use of only one hand.

Legend has it that typewriter inventor Christopher Sholes originally designed the QWERTY keyboard in 1868 in order to slow down typists because of the limitations of his early machines: if people typed too quickly then key jams would occur. Certainly, the QWERTY layout, named after the first six letters in the top row of keys, inhibits speed.

The Dvorak keyboard places all the vowels under the left hand in the middle row, while the common consonants lie under the right hand. About 70% of keystrokes can be made on the home (middle) row using the Dvorak layout compared to 32% on QWERTY keyboards. Dvorak keyboard proponents claim that it is more ergonomic because it requires less finger motion.

August Dvorak ran into two major obstacles against the widespread adoption of his keyboard layout. The first was that it would have involved the purchase of new equipment during a time of economic depression and the second was the need to retrain people to use the new layout. Nowadays, most operating systems allow users to switch keyboard layouts and several different ones exist, not just QWERTY and Dvorak.

Phoenix Rising's psnz was keyed up with this question and true to type, used his muscle memory to enter the Interesting Information at 65wpm on his QWERTY laptop.

Answer: Gerrymander

After the decennial census in 1810 conducted as required by the United States Constitution, Elbridge Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of the salamander. Hence, the portmanteau term "Gerry-mander" was coined in the Boston Gazette, complete with serpentine illustration, credit divided among Nathan Hale and Benjamin and John Russell. U.S. federal courts lack jurisdiction to hear challenges over partisan gerrymandering.

Types of gerrymander: "cracking" (diluting), "packing" (concentrating) and also "homogenization" (cracking to prevent the minority party from ever attaining a majority in any district). It alters political demographics, but also those based on ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, or class divisions. A corruption of the democratic process, gerrymandering resists reform in countries all over the world. Wayne Dawkings calls it "Politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians."

Question written by Phoenix Rising member Humanist who has meandered through politics since junior high school.

Answer: Currant

Ribes is a genus of plants that covers approximately 150 different flowering plants. Amongst them are the ones bearing the edible fruits blackcurrants, red currants and white currants. You will also find gooseberries within this lot. They are native to the temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere. If you're wondering where you may have seen something similar to "Ribes" before, think about the well known blackcurrant drink "Ribena"; that's where it derived its name. Also, those little dried currants that you see in cakes and puddings... not the same, so don't confuse them. Those dried ones are called Zante currants.

Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 wrote this question but is currently (pun not intended) sulking in the Naughty Corner... he thought he'd be telling his sunburnt zebra joke (black and white and red all over).

Answer: Pig

The Empress of Blandings was a laidback Berkshire sow. Her life's maxim was "nil admirari" ("to be surprised by nothing", or "let nothing astonish you"). She owned Clarence Threepwood, the 9th Earl of Emsworth (or did he own her?) and queened over the pigsty at Blandings Castle. She knew her worth - after all, she had won three consecutive Fat Pigs silver medals at the Shropshire Agricultural Show! Amongst the adventures she encountered in the numerous novels she graced were being kidnapped in the dicky seat of a car, being forced to reduce her calorific intake, and she was hidden in a bathroom and squirrelled away in a gamekeeper's cottage in the woods. She came through all these adventures smelling like - well - smelling like sludge.

The Empress was introduced by P G Wodehouse in the short story 'Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey' first published in the United Kingdom in 1927.

Phoenix Rising member VegemiteKid went the whole hog in sniffing out this question.

Answer: Quarks

A quark is a really small particle which are present in protons and neutrons but not electrons.

An electron is a fundamental particle which means it cannot be made into a smaller particle but neutrons and protons are not. Neutrons and protons are comprised of quarks, which are held together by gluons.

Quarks come in six flavours which are up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom. Up, charm and top quarks have a charge of two thirds of a positive charge, while down, strange and bottom quarks have a charge of negative one third of a charge. Two up quarks and one down comprise a proton (+1 charge) while two down quarks and one up comprise a neutron (no net charge).

Up and down are the only quarks found inside atoms of normal matter. The other four flavours can only be produced in a particle accelerator.

This question was accelerated into the quiz by Phoenix Rising team member 1nn1 who can confirm he is comprised of up and down quarks, he certainly has no charm quarks, but is rumoured to have more than his fair share of strange quarks.

Answer: Yes, he had at least another six sons

According to Genesis 25:1-2 "Abraham had taken another wife, whose name was Keturah. 2 She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah." and 1 Chronicles 1:32 "The sons born to Keturah, Abraham's concubine: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah." Abraham definitely had six more sons after Ishmael and Isaac. It is possible that he had more children that are not listed, which was not unusual if they were daughters.

This question was written for the Phoenix Rising Team Quiz by lg549 whose name may disappear from the annals as she is a daughter.

Answer: Each team must have male and female players

In 1902, Nico Broekhuysen, an Amsterdam school teacher saw a Swedish game of 'Ringbol' and returned home to The Netherlands, inspired. He developed Korfball where the ring was replaced by a korf (basket) three meters off the ground and players had to score more Korfs than the other team. A unique feature is that there must be four male and four female players per side. There are strict rules to obviate physical strength differences between genders (eg only a female player can defend against a female offensive player).

There are organised competitions in 69 countries around the world mainly in Europe but also in the US and parts of Asia. Korfball was a demonstration sport at the 1920 Olympics. Between 1978 and 2020 IKF World Korfball Championship and the World games has been won by either The Netherlands or Belgium.

This question was finally completed by Phoenix Rising team member 1nn1 who had to throw many drafts of this question in the 'waste-korf' before finally getting the question good enough to go online.

Answer: Beaker Breaker

Beaker (no, not the famous Muppet scientist) is a small cup, that is (usually) made of plastic and comes complete with a lid. It is generally used by small children. A beaker can also be found in laboratories. There they are generally cylindrical in shape, made of glass and come with a small spout for ease of pouring.

Breaker (no, not the CB radio call out) is a heavy sea wave that breaks into white foam near the shore.

This question was brought to you by Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 and the letter "B"... or was it "R"?

Answer: Kahuna

To be more specific, "Kahuna" means a respected person in the Hawaiian language. Priests and shamans held positions of great respect in the community, however, the term can also be applied to ministers or people gifted in particular fields. There is no distinction between male and female. Outside of Hawaii, the term became synonymous with surfing thanks to the 1959 film "Gidget" in which Cliff Robertson, as Burt Veil, the leader of a surf group, was labelled "The Big Kahuna".

Wahine means lady or female, Keiki is a child or children and Mahalo means thank you.

This question was created by Phoenix Rising's resident Big Kahuna... ahh, in your dreams pollucci19.

Answer: Cameroon

Cameroon is a Central African country. Yaoundé is its second largest and capital city. Armenia in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia has its capital in Yerevan.

Nauru is a tiny and fully sovereign island nation in the region of Micronesia just northeast of Australia. While Yaren is often considered its capital, officially there are in fact no cities in Nauru, nor an actual capital.

Phoenix Rising's JCSon had a capital idea. I know, I know...Y?