Our Prayer Was to Fly Trivia Quiz

Answer: Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci wrote the "Codex on the Flight of Birds" about the year 1505.
He tried to emulate how birds could fly with inventions of flying machines and gliders, but they all failed when he tried launching them off hills. Although his ideas were sound, one man could not solve the problem at that time.

When I fly on an airplane, I think of him, and how he would love to be with me.
The Codex is now at the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, Italy.

Answer: A support for Gothic church roofs

A buttress is a support that helps take the weight of the roof on large stone buildings. Regular buttresses were attached to the outside walls and left not much room for windows. Around 1100, the flying buttress was invented (inventor, unknown). The flying buttress meant the supports were away from the walls and attached near the church roof by an arch. The weight of the roof traveled down the arch to the support, to the ground. The support plus arch was the flying buttress. The benefit was that now the churches could be filled with light from
many windows and not be dark and gloomy.

Two examples that you can see (and there are more), are Chartres Cathedral, in Rouen, France, and Westminster Abbey in England.

Answer: Traditional Beijing opera banned women from the stage

The plot of the play (it was also a beautiful movie) was based on the true story of a French diplomat in love with an opera singer in China. In modern day opera, women sang the roles meant for them. This singer was with the diplomat for 20 years, all the time keeping a huge secret from him. The singer
was a spy, whose task was to get classified information from him. I won't give anymore away, try to watch the movie, if you haven't seen it.

The play won many awards, including the 1988 Tony for best play.

Answer: A Parliament

Owls are a large group, both flying, and those that live in the ground. There are many different kinds, about 200 species that belong to the order Strigiformes. An unusual species is the Burrowing Owl, they are more gregarious than other owl species. They have always been of interest to me, as many of their burrows were on land where I grew up in the western U.S. Many times we could hear the little birds calling "who".

In their burrows, they construct nests and use animal dung from animals such as cattle and horses to attract dung beetles who, as you can imagine, make a yummy
meal. They are a cute little bird of the genus Athene cunicularia after the Greek Goddess, Athena, Goddess of Wisdom (wise old owl). Her symbol was the owl.

Other choices were: A muster of crows or peacocks, an unkindness of ravens or a pitying of turtle doves.

Answer: Cuckoo's

One type of cuckoo well-known in the U.S., Is the roadrunner, due to the popular Warner Bros. cartoon character. The Greater Roadrunner's genus is Geococcyx californianus, or Californian Earth-cuckoo. It is of the Cuculidae family with two toes in front, two in back.

Roadrunners have become better suited to walking or running rather than flying.
They live in deserts, and their food does, too. They have a carnivorous diet; they are very fast and can catch small birds in the air as well as dragonflies.
Snakes, including rattlesnakes are part of their diet. This cuckoo is not very good at flying, it has small, rounded wings, but flies to escape danger (from the coyote?). It can only stay aloft for a few seconds. Although it has California in its name, it's the symbol of New Mexico.

Answer: Daring young man on the flying trapeze

Proving there is more than one way to fly, is the trapeze artist; a way I would not care to try. The practitioners are called fliers. The trapeze act was invented in 1859 by Jules Leotard (guess what he wore). He was a Frenchman who
would jump from a high platform over water, with the trapeze. A catcher would wait, and after Jules let go, catch him at the proper time. Back and forth they'd go. After that, many tricks with much variety were developed.

The most famous of these acts has been The Flying Wallendas, a family originally from Germany. The act was started by Karl Wallenda in 1922, and first found fame for performing without a safety net. Although they have had tragedies (for one, Karl was killed in 1978 in a fall) the Flying Wallendas carried on, undeterred.

Answer: Manfred von Richthofen

Von Richthofen was shot down and killed in April 1918. Some have blamed his death on a previous incident where he suffered a head wound from which he seemed to recover, but was never the same. Brain damage may have led to poor judgement in his last battle. In his last battle, he was shot through the heart, but was able to land his plane with little damage. Souvenir hunters took care of that!

The beagle I spoke of was, of course, Snoopy, of the Charles Shultz cartoon, "Peanuts". Snoopy loves to lie on top of his doghouse, dreaming of being The Red Baron, swooping through the skies.

The Red Baron has flown into immortality.

Answer: Howard Hughes

Hughes Aircraft Company, owned by the inimitable Howard Hughes, built this flying behemoth. It was built out of wood due to the shortage of aluminum during the war, and this led to several nicknames by 'clever' newsmen. The Spruce Goose was one nickname that stuck and has gone down in history, but oh, how Howard hated it. He was proud and protective of the Hercules, and described it at a Senate hearing, "...It is the largest aircraft ever built. It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field..."

For years, the aircraft was hidden, but always kept up, in a hangar in Long Beach California. Hughes died in 1975, and in 1980 it was acquired by the Aero Club of Southern California and put on display by the Walt Disney Company. When they didn't want it anymore, it was taken apart and trucked to McMinnville, Oregon, where it was again displayed and enjoyed by the public. Howard Hughes would be pleased.

Answer: They extracted the arsenic in it

In bygone days, flypaper contained arsenic, which could be soaked in water to extract poison. At least two murderers used that method to do their dirty deed.
In 1911 England, Frederick Seddon poisoned his tenant for her money and was hanged. In 1889, also in England, Florence Maybrick bought flypaper and extracted the poison. Her much older husband soon had stomach pains and died.
She was arrested and imprisoned for 14 years. It was unclear then and now, whether or not she did it, and she was released to live out her life in poverty, a recluse.

Don't worry, flypaper, although still used, is not as popular as it used to be
and no longer contains toxic substances.

Answer: Common Housefly

Yep, that's me a common housefly! Most people just call me 'fly', and I can't get any respect. I have lived with humans ever since they came into being. They call me a pest, but surely they know that I help get rid of dead things, how many dead carcasses would be lying around in the world, if it wasn't for me. I'm going to try to help mankind more, maybe in their waste management programs.
So remember, next time you see a sweet little fly like me, give him a pat on the head...Ouch! Not so hard!