Zero One One Two Three Five and So On Quiz

Answer: Mitsubishi

The Mitsubishi A6M was designed for operating from airplane carrier ships, and combined a long range with an excellent maneuverability. The "Zero" was equipped with two cannons (20mm) and two light machine guns. It could carry two light bombs (60 kg each), and later would carry one single fixed bomb for kamikaze attacks. As Mitsubishi tried to reduce the most weight possible, the "Zero" had no armour at all.

Honda, Suzuki and Toyota are other Japanese car manufacturers. None of these produced any aircraft during World War II.

Answer: The Three Musketeers

Did you notice all of these books were written either by Alexandre Dumas père or by his son Alexandre Dumas fils ("The Lady of the Camellias")? Good for you.
In that case you're familiar enough with their works to spot the slogan "All For One and One For All" in the books that make up the D'Artagnan romances: "The Three Musketeers" (1844), "Twenty Years After" (1845) and "The Vicomte of Bragelonne" (1847). In all these books the musketeers Porthos, Athos and Aramis and their sidekick D'Artagnan fight the forces of Cardinal Richelieu.

"Queen Margot" retells the story of the Saint Bartholomew's Massacre.
"The Count of Monte-Cristo" is all about revenge after many years.
"The Lady of the Camellias" is a love story between a harlot and a bourgeois.

Answer: Richard Wilson

"What in the name of Sanity?" may be your reaction, if you never saw the show. This is one of the recurrent phrases yelled out by Richard Wilson, the actor we're looking for.

Richard Wilson was born Iain Carmichael Wilson in Scotland in 1936. He started his career in 1965 with a minor role in the TV series "Dr. Finlay's Casebook" and the role of father Capulet in the TV movie "Romeo and Juliet". In 1967 he chose Richard as his stage first name. His first major role in a TV series was Jeremy Parsons, QC in "Crown Court", in which he starred in 57 out of the over 400 episodes.

"One Foot in the Grave" was Wilson's greatest success. Other TV series in which he excelled were "Merlin" and "Only When I Laugh". He also performed in some movies (for instance "A Passage to India") and onstage ("Waiting for Godot", "Uncle Vanya", "Twelfth Night").

Clive Swift played Richard Bucket in "Keeping Up Appearances". Andrew Sachs played Manuel in "Fawlty Towers". And Guy Siner played Lieutenant Hubert Gruber in "Allo Allo".

Answer: Bilbo

Most of the missions in this video game are based upon the events from the second book and movie, so roughly from the moment the Fellowship is attacked by Uruk-Hai (who kill Boromir and kidnap Merry and Pippin) until the battle at Orthanc (where the Ents defeat Saruman).

Bilbo has been left in Rivendell and plays no part whatsoever in this phase of the story.

Aragorn and Legolas are two of the characters that players on any platform can select. On the Game Boy Advance, Gimli is only a bonus character who can be unlocked by completing certain missions, whereas he is the third option on the other platforms.

Answer: Fayette Pinkney

The band was founded by Linda Turner, Shirley Porter and Fayette Pinkney. Fayette remained with the band until 1976, and sang one of their greatest hits ("When Will I See You Again" in 1974). After thirteen years with The Three Degrees, Fayette Pinkney recorded only one solo album. She died in 2009, at the age of 61.

Cynthia Garrison was member of The Three Degrees between 1989 and 2010. Sheila Ferguson sang with The Three Degrees between 1966 and 1986. Valerie Holiday joined the band in 1967. In 2012, she celebrated 45 years of collaboration with the same band.

Answer: Timmy

Julian, Dick and Anne Kirrin are brothers and sister, and Georgina (who insists on being called George) is their first cousin. George owns a large dog called Timmy, and she takes him with her on all their adventures.

Enid Blyton's books about "The Famous Five" have inspired several TV series and movies, a few video games, a musical, some comic strip albums and two sets of game books (books in which the reader can choose at various points what happens next).

Lassie is a border collie owned by the Martin family in a movie and TV series based upon a short story by Eric Knight. Nana is Peter Pan's dog (a Newfoundlander). In the "Harry Potter" episode "The Prisoner of Azkaban", we meet Padfoot, a huge black dog who is, in fact, the animal apparition of Sirius Black.

Answer: Goliath bird eater

The Goliath bird eater (Teraphosa biondi) can reach a leg span of 28 cm and a weight of 170 g. This makes it the second largest spider by leg span (only the giant huntsman spider has longer legs) and probably the heaviest spider of all living species. Contrary to its name, the Goliath bird eater doesn't feed on birds. Its staple food is various insects, although the Goliath bird eater has been observed consuming small rodents, amphibians and reptiles. I've seen a video on the Internet of a Goliath bird eater attacking a white mouse.

The Mediterranean black widow (Latrodectus tredecimguttatus) can reach a leg span of 2 cm. The assassin spider (Eriauchenius gracilicollis) is very small, with only 2 mm leg span. The Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria fera) can reach a leg span of 15 cm.

Answer: Jean van Hamme

Van Hamme is the scriptwriter we were looking for. He was born in 1939 and started his career as a journalist. In 1976 he became full-time script writer, for comic strip series but also for movies.

Those of you who identify the plot (as described in the question) with Robert Ludlum's book "The Bourne Identity" are not alone. In fact, some allegations of plagiarism have been made against Jean Van Hamme.

The three most popular comic series by Van Hamme are "XIII" (graphics by William Vance), "Thorgal" (graphics by Grezegorz Rosinski) and "Largo Winch" (graphics by Philippe Francq). Van Hamme is also known for his script to the comic strip series "Les Maîtres de l'orge" (graphics by Francis Vallès). "Les Maître de l'Orge" and "Largo Winch" have inspired a TV series, while "Largo Winch" and "XIII" have been the basis for a video game.

Answer: Blackjack

Blackjack is essentially a card game played between the player and the dealer. Although several people play at the same time, they don't compete against each other. So it could happen that a dealer with an average result has to pay out two of the betting players, while winning the stakes of the other player(s).
At the start of blackjack, each player is dealt two cards. The dealer takes one card and shows it face up. The card values are added up (a face card counts for ten, and an ace can be counted as one or eleven). The object of the game is to show the highest number not exceeding twenty-one: every hand that has a card value of more than 21, automatically loses. When one has a low total, one may (in some variations has to) take additional cards. In some cases, one can hold five cards and still be in the game.

Baccarat starts also with a hand of two cards. The total value of the cards is added, and only the right hand number of the total is considered (for instance: 6 and 7 make up a hand of 3). If neither the player nor the dealer has a total of 8 or 9 with the first two cards, then they may (or have to) draw one final card. The highest hand wins.

Poker is played with hands of five cards. The best combination wins (for instance, five successive cards from the same suit are better than four equal cards).

Bingo is a lottery game. Each player has a card with 25 numbers to cross off, and the first to mark off a special pattern (by crossing off the numbers drawn in a lottery) wins.

Answer: Shaquille O'Neal

O'Neal started his professional basketball career with the team Orlando Magic. His best seasons were for the LA Lakers, when he won the NBA Finals three times in a row. From 2004 until 2008 he played for Miami Heat, and he ended his career after one season with the Phoenix Suns, one season with the Cleveland Cavaliers and one final season with the Boston Celtics. Besides his basketball career, O'Neal recorded some rap numbers and acted in at least a dozen movies.

None of the three red herrings ever played for the LA Lakers. Iverson played eleven seasons for the Philadelphia 76'ers. Bird played only for the Boston Celtics. Jordan played mostly for the Chicago Bulls.

Answer: Flora Robson

Flora Robson (1902-1984) was an English actress who specialized in character roles. She played various female monarchs: Empress Elisabeth in "The Rise of Catherine the Great" (1934), Empress Livia in "I Claudius" (1937), Queen Elizabeth in "Fire over England" (1937) and "The Sea Hawk" (1940), and the Queen of Hearts in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (1972).

Katharine Hepburn and Joan Crawford were proposed for the role of Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi, but in the end it was Dame Flora Robson who filled this role. Likewise the role of Baroness Iwanof was thought to go to Jeanne Moreau, Deborah Kerr or Melina Mercouri, but finally Ava Gardner played this role.

Tony Richardson directed "55 Days at Peking", which premiered in 1963. "55 Days in Peking" retold an episode out of the Boxer Rebellion, when Chinese nationalists protested against the foreign legations and the spreading Christianity. The Boxers laid siege to the foreign legations in Beijing, where a coalition of British, Russian, American, French, Japanese, German, Italian and Austrian-Hungarian troops (about 50,000 in total) confronted the rebels (at least 100,000 rebels, joint by 70,000 Chinese soldiers from the Imperial Army).

Tony Curtis may have played a woman brilliantly in the comedy "Some Like It Hot" (1959), but he didn't play a transvestite in any drama.

Lucy Liu (born 1968) and Michelle Yeoh (born 1963) were not yet actresses when "55 Days at Peking" hit the theatres.

Answer: Actinium

Actinium was discovered in 1902 by Friedrich Oskar Giesel. Its name is derived from the Greek aktis, which means ray. As it is very scarce and highly radioactive, there isn't a significant industrial use for it (yet). Some cancers are treated with the rare isotope Ac-225.

Germanium (element 32) is a metalloid, not a metal. Selenium (element 34) is a polyatomic non-metal. Krypton (element 36) is a noble gas. Neither of these three is radioactive.

Answer: Gross

A gross is indeed a dozen of dozens. The significance of this number is due to the fact that early counting methods were frequently based on a scale of twelve (the ten fingers of both hands, plus both the feet). Remnants of the duodecimal system can be found in time indications (60 minutes per hour, 24 hours a day, 12 months a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, and so on) and in the imperial measurement system (for instance twelve inch in a foot).

Grout is a sort of mortar used between bricks to improve the solidity of a wall. Groma is an ancient instrument for land surveying. Grody is a synonym for repulsive.

Answer: Prime

A prime number is a positive integer larger than 1 which has only two divisors: 1 and itself. All other numbers that would be used to divide a prime number, would render a result that is not an integer.

The first prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17. Let's try to divide 233 by these prime numbers:
233 divided by 2 is 116.5; 233 divided by 3 is 77.67; 233 divided by 5 is 46.6; 233 divided by 7 is 33.29; 233 divided by 11 is 21.18, and 233 divided by 13 is 17.92. As you can see, 17 isn't a divisor of 233 either.

A square is a base number multiplied by itself. For instance, 144 is the square of 12 because 12*12=144.

Likewise a cube is a base number to the third power. For instance 8 is the cube of 2 (2*2*2=8).

A perfect number is a number of which the sum of the divisors (except the number itself) is the sought number. The first perfect numbers are 6 (1+2+3=6) and 28 (1+2+4+7+14=28).

The first 25 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence contain several prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 13, 89, 233, 1597 and 28657). The same part of the sequence contains only one square (144) and one cube (8). Not a single perfect number is in this start of the Fibonacci sequence.

Answer: Valerian of Abbenza

Valerian became bishop of Abbenza, in the Roman province of Africa. When the Vandals sacked the town, they threatened him to hand over the sacred vessels used in his church. As Valerian refused, the Vandals kidnapped him and left him crawling in the gutter, where he died from exposure and the harsh treatment.
Valerian is venerated on December 15 as a single saint, and on November 28 as a member of the Martyrs of North Africa, a group of thirteen people who died during the Vandal sack of North Africa.

Saint Sebastian is venerated on January 20. Francis of Assisi has his name day on October 4. Saint Hubert is venerated on November 3.