Mixed Bag Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lay protectors of monastic houses

Monophysites and Manichaeans held heretical beliefs in the first thousand years of Christianity, the latter the followers of 4th Century Mani, who taught that all material creation was the work of the Devil. Flagellants were quasi-heretical, in the latter Middle Ages seeking to expiate their sins by self-flagellation. (Anyone for Masochism?!)

Answer: Type of tuba

A helicon is a helical tuba that wraps around the body. The only example I can think of is the sousaphone.

Answer: Stinging sea creature

Irukanji is one of the more-recently recognised Australian nasties. Perhaps only 50 mm long, they cause severe headache and soaring blood pressure. Fortunately for us Southerners, they are endemic to the northern coast of Australia. Little is known of there life-cycle, though they were described first in 1964. Nor is there any anti-venom yet. Perhaps surprisingly, only one death has been documented as due to Irukandji Syndrome.

The name is that of an Australian Aborigine tribe in the Cairns area.

Answer: The world, Ceres.

Apologies to Isaac Asimov who is SOLELY responsible for the pun. Ceres is the largest asteroid and one of the few large enough to be spheroidal. It has a diameter of 485 miles. The next to be discovered was Pallas, then Juno and Vesta, and later so many that they were dubbed "vermin of the skies" by comet-hunters. Only recently have surface features of Ceres been revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope, the most prominent being called after Piazzi.

Answer: Senior wrangler

In the Mathematical Tripos of 1843 (twelve three-hour examinations!), he was awarded double the marks of the next-highest candidate (dubbed the Second Wrangler, the last candidate of course being the Wooden Spoon). His mathematical analysis of perturbations to the orbit of Uranus led to his prediction of the position of the next-furthest planet.

However his report was unaccountably ignored by the Astronomer Royal, George Biddle Airy, so that Neptune was first identified as the eighth planet by the German Galle, on predictions by Urbain Leverrier, a Frenchman. Nationalistic rivalries having been put aside, Adams and Leverrier are now recognized as co-discoverers of Neptune. Adams became Professor of Astronomy and Geometry at Cambridge in 1858.

Answer: True

He was a police officer in Burma for six years in the twilight of the British Empire on the sub-continent. He was to write several stories about this experience, including "Burma Days". His social conscience was torn by the contrast between the lives of the white rulers and the native populace.

Answer: Steamer.

Orwell's novel left a great mark on my teenage mind. The concept of perpetual war, maintained by the world leaders for their own benefit, and the resulting drab, joyless, ignorant society, was in great contrast to the essentially hopeful (if naive) world of the fifties and early sixties. A great, prescient book, becoming a bit dated now, perhaps.

Answer: Lunik-1

Launched from Baikonur, Khazakstan, on 2/1/59, Lunik-1 missed the moon by 5995 kilometers, entering solar orbit between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Sputnik-1,launched on 10/4/57, was in low-earth orbit and never left the Earth's gravitational influence. Pioneer-4, launched from Cape Canaveral on 3/3/59, was the first U.S. spacecraft to enter solar orbit.

Answer: Teutoburger Wald

A combination of Varus's pig-headedness and the duplicity of Arminius, son of a local tribal chieftain, led three Roman legions into a classic ambush in the dense forests near the Weser in north Germany. Varus committed suicide, and his men were either cut down, or sacrificed to the Germanic gods after capture. Rome never again attempted to absorb Germany into the Roman Empire.

Answer: Urban II

The Crusade was called to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre from the Seljuk Turks. But many less lofty reasons existed: politically, for the Western Church to demonstrate solidarity with the Byzantine Empire; to give the warring Princes of Europe licence to plunder infidel lands, rather than those of their co-religionists; and simply to cater for the desire of many peasants for any sort of change, anything probably being better than the life to which they were committed under the Feudal System.