This Doohickey ain't New Trivia Quiz

Answer: Paris

Actually two bridges, the Pont Neuf comprises a five-arch span connecting the Left Bank to the Île de la Cité in the middle of the Seine, and a seven arch span connecting the island to the Right Bank. Unusually for its time, the bridge was built with pedestrian pavements on either side of the roadway but without houses. Having undergone both minor repairs and major renovation through the centuries, it remains a vital part of Parisian life.

Answer: New England

New England, the northeasternmost section of the United States, lies on the Atlantic seaboard. Bordered to the north by Canada and to the west and south by New York State, it consists of six states: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. New Jersey, named for the Isle of Jersey in the Channel Islands of the English Channel, lies further south along the coast. New Mexico is in the desert southwest. To the east it borders Oklahoma and Texas. To the south it borders Texas and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, to the west Arizona, and Colorado and Utah to the north.

Answer: Scotland

Both Caledonia and Scotia mean Scotland in Latin.

New Caledonia, whose capital is Nouméa, has been an overseas dependency of France since 1854. It comprises a series of archipelagos and single islands (Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Chesterfield Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines, and a few remote islets) in the southwestern Pacific, 750 miles (1,210 kilometers) east of Australia. The earliest inhabitants were the Lapita people, prehistoric navigators and ancestors of the Polynesians, who flourished from ca. 1600 BC to 500 BC. The current population is diverse, including Kanak (indigenous people), European, people from Wallis and Futuna, and small populations of Tahitians, Ni-Vanuatu, Javanese Indonesian, Vietnamese and other Asians. The United Nations directed the territory to hold a referendum on independence between 2014 and 2018. (As of early 2015, this referendum had not yet taken place.) Besides its ethnic diversity, New Caledonia has breathtaking biodiversity. The territory has a tropical climate somewhat moderated by the Trade Winds and possesses important nickel deposits.

With its capital located at Halifax, Nova Scotia is a Canadian Maritime province, originally chartered in 1621. Today, Nova Scotia has an ethnically diverse population, including Scottish, English, Irish, French, First Nations (aboriginal people), German, Dutch, Black, Italian, and Acadian. The climate is a mix of continental and maritime, with cold winters and warm summers. The province has good biodiversity except in the waters, where over-fishing eventually had its inevitable result. Farming is only possible in the fertile lowlands, and forestry is important. Mineral mining, especially gypsum, is an important contributor to the economy, as is the exploitation of oil and natural gas resources. Nova Scotia also has a significant defense and aerospace industry. Communications and tourism are important, as is manufacturing, driven largely by Michelin.

Answer: The Mississippi

The Mississippi River, often referred to as the Mighty Mississippi, is the fourth longest and the tenth largest river in the world. Though it rises in northern Minnesota (in the north) and runs the whole of its 2,320-mile (3,730 kilometer) course to the Gulf of Mexico in the south, entirely within the contiguous United States, its drainage basin and system of tributaries is so vast it includes thirty-one U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Answer: Yes

There is not now a New North Wales anywhere in the world. Historically though, part of what is now Canada was known as New Wales, with New North Wales comprising mainland Kivalliq in Nunavut and the northern region in Manitoba south to Port Nelson. New South Wales comprised northern Manitoba (south from Port Nelson to James Bay) and included the Kenora District in Ontario.

Not surprisingly, the name New Wales was bestowed by a Welshman, Capt. Thomas Button, who wintered on the shores of Hudson Bay at the mouth of the river he named the Nelson in 1612.

Answer: Oxford

St Mary's College of Winchester in Oxford, founded by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, was not the first Oxford college to be named for the Blessed Virgin. To distinguish it from the Hall of the Blessed Mary, established in 1324 and now customarily known as Oriel College, Bishop William's foundation came to be known as "the "New College of St Mary" or simply "New College."

New College is distinguished by a number of firsts. it was the first college in Oxford to be deliberately designed around a main quadrangle (built in the Perpendicular style of Gothic architecture), and was at the time of its building, larger than the six existing colleges combined. It was the first Oxford college for undergraduates as well as the first to have senior members of the college give tutorials. It was also among the very first and remains among the very few colleges or universities to present its motto, "Manners Makyth Man," in English rather than Latin.

The college's choral tradition dates back to its founding when Bishop William made provision for a choral foundation of lay and academical clerks, along with boy choristers, to sing mass and the daily offices. Today the tradition continues with the choral services of evensong and Eucharist during term. The New College Choir also has a worldwide reputation. They appear at the BBC Proms and tour worldwide. They have recorded some seventy albums and by 2015 had received two Grammy awards. In another first, Edward Higginbottom, Organist and Tutor in Music at New College until the end of the 2013-14 academic year, was made Oxford University's first Choral Professor.

Answer: True

"Discovered" by the Spanish in 1606, the South Pacific islands that would come to be known first as the New Hebrides and then as the Republic of Vanuatu, had been inhabited for some four thousand years by Melanesians, a people thought to have originated in south Asia. More European nations rediscovered the archipelago in 1768 (the French) and in 1774 Capt. Cook named it the New Hebrides. There was a short-lived rush of European settlement between 1825 and 1830. Starting in the 1860s, a labor shortage prompted planters in Australia and elsewhere throughout the Pacific to lobby for a trade, not in slaves per se, but indentured servants. This trade, known as blackbirding, continued in the region until the early twentieth century.

Both British and French colonists settled in the New Hebrides, leading in 1906 to a novel and unique scheme known as the British-French Condominium, by which the two countries administered the colony jointly. This arrangement, under which Melanesians were barred from acquiring citizenship in either colonizing nation, continued till independence, obtained after some forty years of political agitation and civil unrest.

Answer: It is an independent country, a member of the British Commonwealth.

Sharing the island of New Guinea with the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua, the Independent state of Papua New Guinea, whose capital is Port Moresby, occupies the eastern half of the island and adjacent islands. The second largest country in Oceania after Australia, it is a land of extremes: Abundant natural resources and almost unimaginable poverty; traditional subsistence farming and modern urban centers; hostile mountain terrain including volcanoes; grasslands; mangrove swamps and broad, sandy beaches.

People first arrived in Papua New Guinea from 45,000 to 42,000 BP. By about 7,000 BC they had domesticated plants in the highlands, one of the very few societies to have independently developed agriculture. To this day, the predominantly rural population depends on subsistence farming, though the introduction of the South American sweet potato by the Portuguese in the eighteenth century and its adoption in place of the native taro greatly facilitated population growth. Around 500 BC, Austronesian speaking peoples came to coastal regions bringing with them pottery, pigs and distinctive fishing techniques. The country's rich cultural diversity is regarded as a national resource as precious as mineral wealth or biodiversity and has been specifically protected in the constitution.

As early as 3,000 BC Southeast Asian traders visited the islands to gather bird of paradise feathers. Spanish and Portuguese traders encountered them in the sixteenth century AD. But the islands did not come under colonial rule till 1884. Germany incorporated the northern part of New Guinea and nearby islands into her Pacific empire, while Great Britain claimed the southern part of the island. To vastly simplify, the country now known as New Guinea was administered by Australia from the end of World War I till independence in 1975. A member of the British Commonwealth, Papua New Guinea retains strong ties with Australia. The economy is based largely on natural resources such as gold, copper, oil, gas, timber, fisheries, tea, coffee and increasingly, tourism.

Answer: New York

Since its founding, The New School for Social Research or simply The New School has developed into a university with seven colleges; Parsons The New School for Design, Mannes College The New School for Music, The New School for Public Engagement, The New School for Social Research, Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts, The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, and The New School for Drama. With its innovative teaching style and emphasis on social engagement, The New School sounds to this quiz maker like a vibrant and thoroughly enjoyable place to study.

Answer: Dutch

Zeeland is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The name, meaning "sea land" is appropriate since it is made up of a series of islands as well as a strip of land bordering Belgium. Of the 1,131 sq mi (2,930 sq km), of its area, almost 440 sq mi (1,140 sq km) is water. The province has a population of about 380,000. The capital, Middelburg, contains one of only two medieval cathedrals in the Netherlands.

The island country in the southwest Pacific, known as New Zealand in English and Aotearoa in Maori, was discovered by the Dutch in the seventeenth century and named Nova Zeelandia. Capt. Cook later anglicized the name to New Zealand. Lying some 900 mi (1,500 km) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 600 mi (1,000 km) south of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga, New Zealand is so remote that it was one of the last landmasses to be occupied by humans. Polynesians, the ancestors of the people now known as the Maori, settled the islands between 1250 and 1300 AD.

The 1840 Treaty of Waitangi signed by representatives of the British Crown and Maori Chiefs made New Zealand a British colony. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with the British monarch (with a Governor General as representative) as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. Because of its geographic isolation, New Zealand has great biodiversity, while over time its ethnic diversity has slowly increased. The great majority of inhabitants are, however, of British or Maori descent. New Zealand's capital is Wellington, the world's most southerly capital city, which was settled in 1839. It replaced Auckland as capital in 1865.