20th Century Analogies Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pele

Joe DiMaggio played baseball for the New York Yankees from 1936 through to his retirement in 1951. DiMaggio claims one of baseball's most famous feats, hitting safely in 56 consecutive games. He is also known for his brief marriage to Marilyn Monroe.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento became known to the world as Pele and is regarded as the greatest soccer player of all time. Such was Pele's aura during his playing days that even opposing sides in Nigeria's civil war called a 48 hour ceasefire so "the Black Pearl" could play an exhibition match in Lagos in 1967.

Answer: Bannister

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier flying the Bell X-1 on October 14, 1947. Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile on the 6th May 1954. Assisted by pace keepers Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway he ran a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.

Answer: Fat Man

On the 6th of August 1945 a Boeing B-29 dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The bomb detonated some 500 meters above the city killing at least 78,000 people. Nagasaki was struck by a second bomb called "Fat Man" three days later at 11.02am.

The first atom bomb tested was also nicknamed "Fat Man" apparently due to its shape resembling that of the British wartime leader, Winston Churchill.

Answer: McDonald's

Ray Kroc was so impressed by the small chain on hamburger stores run by the McDonald brothers that he first purchased franchising rights and then bought out the brothers in 1961 for $2.7 million dollars. He founded the McDonald's Corporation in 1955. He died in 1984.
In 1975 Bill Gates founded Microsoft Corporation with Paul Allen. When IBM entered the personal computer market Microsoft was able to provide MS-DOS as a cheap operating system and soon dominated the market.

Answer: Guernica

Jackson Pollock is considered one of the most influential of America's twentieth century artists. His work, described as Abstract Expressionism, includes the famous "Blue Poles" work painted in 1952, which was purchased by the Australian National Gallery in 1973 for $1.3 million. Pablo Picasso painted his masterpiece "Guernica" in 1937 as a response to the Spanish Civil War in particular the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica by the Nazis on behalf of the Nationalist forces.

After the deaths of both Franco and Picasso "Guernica" was returned to Spanish soil in 1981.

Answer: Cats

Erwin Schrodinger proposed the quantum theory of superposition in 1935 and attempted to explain the theory with the help of a hypothetical cat in a box. Schrodinger suggested that a cat hidden in a box is both alive and dead. It is not until the box is opened and the cat observed that the cat becomes either alive or dead. Later in his life Schrodinger wished he had never "met" his famous cat.
Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov is best remembered for his work on conditioned reflexes. His most famous experiments involved recording the salivating reaction of dogs to a ringing bell that had previously been associated with food.
Pavlov received the Nobel Prize in 1904 and Schrodinger received the Nobel Prize in 1933.

Answer: Bangladesh

In the 1930s thousands of Jews fled Hitler's Germany. Some were able to settle in Palestine, then governed by the British. After World War Two the British mandate to govern Palestine ended and the United Nations voted to partition Palestine. On the same day the British officially withdrew, and the Jewish National Council proclaimed the State of Israel.

The next day combined Arab forces attacked the new nation but by the time hostilities ended in a ceasefire on January 7th 1949 Israel had expanded its territory by nearly 50 percent. Previously East Pakistan, Bangladesh seceded from Pakistan after it gained a majority of seats at the National Assembly but President Yahya Khan postponed its opening in an attempt to prevent demands for greater East Pakistani autonomy. East Pakistan defeated West Pakistan a civil war in which one million Bengalis were killed.

In February 1974 Pakistan recognized the independent state of Bangladesh.

Answer: Nevil Shute

Nevil Shute's most famous novel tells the story of a group of survivors from World War Three living out their lives in southern Australia. It was made into a film featuring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire.
Jack Kerouac's cult classic "On the Road" became a defining work of America's beat generation. It tells the tale of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty and their journeys across America. The original manuscript for the book was written on a scroll of Teletype paper and was purchased for $2.4 million by Jim Irsay in 2001.

Answer: Porsche Spyder

James Dean died in a car accident while driving his Porsche Spyder on September 30th 1955. The star of "East of Eden", "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant", James Dean was nominated for an Oscar twice after he died. Princess Diana's famous demise occurred on 31st August 1997 in Paris shortly after she and her companions departed from the Ritz Hotel, pursued by photographers. Also killed in the crash were her driver Henri Paul and her companion Dodi Al-Fayed.

Answer: Leon Trotsky

Mark Chapman fired five shots from his .38 pistol at John Lennon on the night of December 8th 1980. Three bullets struck Lennon and he died that evening at the Roosevelt Hospital having lost 80 percent of his blood. Chapman remained at the scene of the shooting reading "Catcher in the Rye" until police arrived. Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1929.

He lived briefly in Turkey, France and Norway before being moving to Mexico. On 20th August 1940 having survived one assassination attempt a few months earlier, Trotsky was attacked by Ramon Mercader wielding an ice pick. Trotsky told his bodyguards, as they burst into the room "Do not kill him.

This man has a story to tell." Trotsky died the following day and was buried on the grounds of his home, which is now a museum.

Answer: Chile

On September 11th 1973 Augustine Pinochet led a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. The constitution was suspended, the country's Congress dissolved and all political parties banned. During Pinochet's rule an estimated 3000 Chileans were killed while many more were imprisoned or forced to flee the country. Pinochet remained in power until 1990 when he transferred power to democratically elected Patricio Aylwin. In 1936 an attempted coup against the Spanish government failed to seize control and rsulted in the Spanish Civil War. Franco became head of the Nationalist army.

In October 1936 he was elected Head of State and soon became undisputed leader of the Nationalist forces. With assistance from Nazi Germany and Salazar's Portugal Franco's Nationalists claimed victory in the Spanish Civil War in April 1939. Franco remained in power until his death in 1975.

It was said that on the day he died, November 20th 1975, champagne sold out throughout Spain.

Answer: Cube

Richard Kneer and Arthur Melin created the Hula Hoop in 1958 and sold 100 million hoops in two years. Their company Wham-O also produced the Frisbee.
Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian professor, invented his famous cube in 1974, but it wasn't until the 1980s that it came a craze. Over 100 million Rubik's Cubes or imitation have been sold. The cube can have 43 quintillion different positions (43,000,000,000,000,000,000).

Answer: Sri Lanka

Golda Meir was Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She was born in Kiev in 1898, before immigrating to the US in 1906 and then to Palestine in 1921. Ben Gurion once described her as "the only man in the Cabinet."
Sirimavo Bandaranaike was Prime Minister of Sri Lanka three times between 1960 and 2000 for a total of eighteen years. She was married to Solomon Bandaranaike also a Prime Minister and mother to Chandrika Kumaratunga who became Sri Lankan President.

Answer: Le Havre

The Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937. The distance between the two towers is 4,200 feet. The Pont de Normandie is a cable-stayed bridge connecting Le Havre and Honfleur in France. Completed in 1995 at a cost of $465 million, the bridge has a main span 2,800 feet long.

Answer: Pope John Paul II

Achille Ratti was elected Pope in 1922 and took the name Pius XI. Polish born Karol Wojtyla was elected the first non-Italian pope for 456 years on 16th October 1978 and took the name Pope John Paul II. He succeeded Pope John Paul I, who died after only 33 days in office.