The Number Eight Trivia Quiz

Answer: Neptune

The order of the planets is: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Mnemonics are a common way of remembering this - even if the mnemonic hasn't been updated since Pluto became a dwarf planet (e.g. "My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets")!

Neptune was named after the Roman god of the sea. It is the fourth largest planet (by diameter), and it takes 164.8 Earth years for it to orbit the sun. It was discovered in 1846 along with its largest moon (Triton), but the other 12 known moons of Neptune were not discovered until the 20th or 21st century.

Answer: Ushuaia

Reykjavik, Iceland is the northernmost capital city in the world. Gisborne, New Zealand is the furthest city in the east. Fairbanks in Alaska is the westernmost city in the world.

Ushuaia is the capital of the Argentinian province Tierra del Fuego Province. It sits on the southern coast of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego - an island owned partly by Chile and partly by Argentina. To the north of Ushaia are the Martial Mountains, and to the south is the Beagle Channel.

Answer: 1888 A.D.

Victoria was the English queen from 1837 to 1901. By the end of her time on the throne, Queen Victoria's reign was the longest of any British monarch. During 888 A.D., Alfred the Great was ruling England. In 1188, Henry II was in power and Elizabeth I was on the throne in 1588.

Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in 1840. He died 21 years later. She was depressed and would do nothing but mourn for a long time after that, but managed to come to terms with his death and appeared in public again.

Answer: Theta

Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. The phrase "Alpha testing" is used in computer programming to describe the phase software goes through when the creators test it out themselves.

Omega is the last (24th) letter of the Greek alphabet. It is the symbol for an ohm - the unit of electrical resistance.

Pi is the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet. It is most commonly used today as the mathematical number that represents the ratio of a circle's cicumference to its diameter, roughly 3.14159.

In Athens, Theta was once used to represent death, as it vaguely resembles a skull. It was used to warn people the same way that the skull and crossbones symbol does today.

Answer: 19

A prime number is a number divisible by exactly 2 numbers: 1 and itself.

2 is the first prime number, 8 is not a prime number at all (it is divisible by 1, 2, 4 and 8) and 73 is the 21st prime number.

The first eight prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 and 19.

Answer: A chocolate mint

After Eights are described by Nestle as "mint[s] enrobed in dark chocolate". They are after-dinner mints, hence the name ("eight" refers to the time - 8 p.m.). They were first sold in 1962, and they are still very popular today.

Answer: Below

The 2006 American film "Eight Below" was written by David DiGilio and stars Paul Walker, Moon Bloodgood, Bruce Greenwood and Jason Biggs. The movie is about eight dogs who were left to fend for themselves in Antarctica after their owner was forced to leave them behind. It focuses mainly on the dogs' story of survival.

Answer: Eight Days a Week

The song "Eight Days a Week" has been covered many times - by The Supremes, Billy Preston, The Runaways and many other people. However, the original was recorded by the Beatles in 1964.

"Eight Miles High" was sung by The Byrds, "Figure of Eight" is a song from Paul McCartney's album "Flowers in the Dirt" and "Pieces of Eight" was a song by Styx contained in their album of the same name.

Answer: Hanukkah

Hanukkah is a Jewish festival, lasting for eight days and eight nights. It starts on the 25th day of Kislev in the Hebrew calendar, but in the Gregorian calendar, it starts between late November and late December.

Lent lasts for 40 days - the 40 days directly before Easter.

Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day and lasts until 24th December. This means it can start anywhere between November 27th and December 3rd, but it always lasts much longer than eight days.

The religious festival known as the 12 Days of Christmas lasts for (surprise, surprise) 12 days - the 12 days directly after Christmas, with Christmas counting as day 1.

Answer: China

China, the host country, won the 2008 Olympics with 51 gold medals and 100 medals in total. The United States got more overall medals (110), but did not top the table because only 36 of those medals were gold.

Great Britain was fourth with 19 gold medals, South Korea ended up in seventh with 13 gold and Japan ended up in eighth place with nine gold.