...and Then the Lights Went Out Quiz

Answer: Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder was born six weeks premature, and placed in an incubator. The oxygen-rich atmosphere combined with his underdeveloped eyes resulted in retinopathy of prematurity (the retinas detach, the eyes stop developing, and permanent blindness ensues). This risk is now carefully managed for babies needing incubators.

Thankfully as far as the world of music is concerned, he did not let this hold him back and he has made huge contributions to soul, pop, R & B and rock music.

The incorrect answers are also famous blind musicians but their blindness was from other causes - all three had congenital glaucoma, but Bocelli remained sighted till age 12, when a football accident blinded him.

Answer: The 2012 North and Eastern India blackouts

The American 2003 Northeast power outage was huge. More than 55 million people were without power in Canada and the USA. However, within the first 20 years of the 21st century, this outage was outdone by 10 other major blackouts.

The July 2012 India blackouts affected the north and much of eastern India, after circuit breakers tripped on the Bina-Gwalior line. This started a domino effect, with stations failing throughout the whole northern and eastern grid. This affected approximately 300 million people. The system was mostly restored within 15 hours, but then failed even more disastrously due to a relay problem near the Taj Mahal. This resulted in about 620 million people, nearly half of India's population, being without power.

Regarding the lights going out: spare a thought for the 200 or so miners trapped underground for the duration. It must have been a harrowing experience.

Answer: Benxihu Colliery, China

The conditions for workers in Benxihu mines were brutal and shocking. It began as a joint Chinese / Japanese operation earlier in the 20th century, and then Japanese interests became dominant. During the Sino-Japanese war (concurrent with WWII) the Japanese took over, forcing captured Chinese soldiers and locals to mine for iron and coal.

On April 26, 1942, a gas and coal-dust explosion and fire took the lives of 1,518 Chinese workers and 31 Japanese overseers. All attempted rescues by families were beaten back, the Japanese sealed the air vents and shafts, rendering live recovery impossible, and it took 10 days to remove the bodies allowing mining to resume.

Answer: An Air Canada Boeing 767

They say in aviation that accidents are often caused by several things going wrong at the same time; in the case of the Gimli Glider, an unprecedented number of things went wrong, conspiring to cause a perfect storm. A disaster was avoided due to the superb flying skills of both flight crew and the fortunate fact that a glider pilot, Bob Pearson, was in command.

A faulty fuel gauge, and a misunderstanding caused by the change from lbs to kg in measuring fuel around that time led to the flight from Ottawa to Edmonton departing with less than half the calculated amount of fuel. When both engines stopped, which caused most of their instruments and much of their control system to fail, the airliner immediately changed into a glider, albeit one with a very poor glide angle. The First Officer, Maurice Quintal, had been stationed at Gimli while serving with the Air Force, and directed Pearson towards it. What he didn't realise was that the main runway was now in active use as a drag strip and that a carnival was underway at the time. As the airliner lined up for its final approach, Pearson managed to lower the main undercarriage but the nose wheel failed to deploy, which was fortunate, as the nose scraping the ground provided the additional stopping power needed.

Answer: The bathyscaphe, Trieste

Piccard started developing submersibles while assisting his inventor father, and together they built three bathyscaphes before Jacques approached the US Navy for financial support. Together, he and US Navy Lt. Don Walsh reached the floor of the Mariana Trench at a depth of nearly 36,000ft.

A more robust, camera equipped rebuilt version of the Trieste was instrumental in locating and recovering the remains of two US nuclear submarines, the Thresher and the Scorpion, both of which were tragically lost with all hands.

Answer: Sedated, masked and towed underwater one at a time

The boys and their young coach were on a short excursion to the caves after soccer practice when they became trapped by sudden flooding, and were forced 4 km into the cave to avoid drowning. It took 9 days in darkness before two divers found them, tired and hungry but still in good spirits thanks to the leadership of their young coach.

All the above options were thoroughly explored and discarded as being impracticable other than the frightening prospect of sedating and anaesthetising each child one by one, fitting him with an oxygen mask and bottle, and towing the unconscious boy underwater through the dark cave system to the next 'beach', where the anaesthetic was re-administered for the next underwater stage. It was a harrowing experience for the divers, one of whom was Australian anaesthetist, Richard Harris, who administered the initial anaesthetic and took the first boy to the central cave before returning to continue preparing the children for towing out by other divers. It became a balancing act between too little of the drug and risk the boy starting to wake and struggle, and too much drug, which could prove deadly to the child.

Answer: Directed US Postal Service pilots on their route

In the 1920s, the US Airmail service was in its infancy, with intrepid (mostly former military officers from the First World War) pilots braving foul weather, but lacking navigation instruments other than a simple compass which could malfunction when flying over magnetic ore deposits or in thunderstorms.

Night flying under these conditions, particularly when several refuelling stops were required, necessitated ground based navigation aids. By 1924, some 1500 large concrete arrows, painted bright yellow, dotted the main air routes. Approximately 70 ft in length these were easily visible by day, and 50ft beacons, similar to those used at the time in lighthouses, were lit at night. These were visible for at least 10 miles at night (assuming fairly clear conditions). The arrows were decommissioned in the 1940s when better instrumentation became available.

Answer: Monument to the Black Hole of Calcutta

The obelisk stands in memory of the 123 of 146 British prisoners who died in 1756 after being forced into a tiny prison cell designed to hold three people.

They were only imprisoned for one night, but there was little air, no water, and it was extremely hot. The men began to die during the evening, and by the morning when the cell was opened there were only 23 survivors.

The conflict resulted from the fortification of Fort William against the wishes of the Nawab of Bengal. The soldiers were there to support interests of the East India Company who perceived a threat from the French who were also hoping to carve out a share of the rich Indian trade.

Answer: His boat overturned and sank to the bottom of the sea

Harrison, a cook, was below decks when the tugboat he worked on was overturned and sank in heavy seas, drowning his companions. The boat remained inverted as it sank to the seabed nearly 100 ft beneath the surface. Harrison found a small pocket of air trapped near the bottom of the ship (now over his head).

This was the first thing that made survival possible; another factor was his extraordinary ability to withstand intense pressure, as few people, even experienced divers spend more than 20 minutes at a time in unpressurized suits at a depth of 100 ft. The third chance was the comparatively prompt arrival of a salvage crew, there to recover bodies and assess the damage. They must have thought a ghost was knocking on the hull when they approached. They placed him in decompression for 2 days after rescue.

Answer: Silence in the Library

In "Silence in the Library" Dr Who (played by David Tennant) and Donna arrive on a planet-sized library in response to a summons. They are joined by an archaeologist, River Song, who knows the Doctor, though he has no recollection of her. The hazards of being a Time Lord!

While in the library, they encounter the creepy Vashta Nerada, which strip their victims to the bone. One of River Song's group, Dave, was sealed in his spacesuit, but too late! The Vashta Nerada had got in and when we next saw into Dave's helmet, we saw his grinning skull. AAAHH!