A Caveman's Radio & Other 'Eventful' Anachronisms Quiz

Answer: Zero

A caravan in a more modern concept, is a mobile home of sorts. In the Bronze Era, it was simply a group of people, possibly traders or pilgrims, travelling together, usually across a desert in the Middle East or North Africa. (See (Judges 5:6 [KJV] "highways"], Job 6:18 [KJV). Camels and donkeys were used as pack animals to increase speed. 1 Kings 10:2 described Solomon fortifying Arad to protect a caravan route to the spice/incense markets of southern Arabia.

The potter's wheel was invented sometime before the spoked wheel but definitive evidence of use the the spoked wheel appears in the latter half of the 4th millennium BC.

Travel trailers or caravans can be traced back to Gypsies who built their 'homes' in horse drawn caravans. The first leisure trailer was built by the Bristol Wagon & Carriage Works in 1880 for Dr. William Gordon Stables, a physician and author who described his vehicle as a "gentleman's caravan". It had four wheels. Modern caravans/trailers have two, larger ones four.

Answer: Violin

The year is 1666. Of the four instruments, only the violin was known at this time so was the only instrument he could have taken

Violins were invented in the 1500s and these early types are referred to as Renaissance violins. In the 1600s Baroque violins were popular. These differed from modern violins by not having a shoulder rest or a chin rest. The strings were nearly always made of gut.

The piano was invented in 1709, the saxophone in 1846 and harmonica around 1821 though this date is debatable. Clearly these were all anachronisms at the time of the 1666 Great Fire of London.

Answer: Bifocals

Whilst eye spectacles as we know them were first used in Italy in the late 1200s, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) invented the bifocals in 1784. There has been some conjecture they were invented before this time but there is no proof of this.

Benjamin Franklin also invented the lightning rod also called a lightning attractor or Franklin rod in 1749 as part of a series of experiments on electricity.

Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first mercury thermometer in 1724, and whilst a form of the seed drill was known in ancient Sumeria, the first effective and durable seed drill was invented by Jethro Tull in 1701. It was this invention that started the Agricultural Revolution.

As the Lisbon earthquake occurred in 1755, bifocals were an anachronism at this time.

Answer: Sextant

The first fleet arrived in Botany Bay but settled a few miles further north in Sydney Cove in January 1788: America had declared independence in 1776, but the battle of Austerlitz (1805), the death Of Admiral Nelson during The Battle of Trafalgar (also 1805), and Napoleon's Waterloo (1815) were yet to occur.
The sextant was invented in 1757 and was likely to have been taken on the first fleet for navigation.
The cotton gin was patented by Eli Whitney in 1795 (and ironically the making of the early New South Wales economy was on the back of the wool trade).
Francois Appert invented the preserving jar for food in 1795 and Edward Jenner proved vaccinations for smallpox worked in 1796.

Answer: 3

Putting these events in chronological order we have:
Texan Independence from Mexico 1836
Start of the California gold rush 1849
South Carolina is the first state To secede from the Union 1860
The Gettysburg Address 1863 (November 19 to be precise)
Abraham Lincoln assassinated 1865
Chicago Great Fire 1871
Brooklyn Bridge opened 1883.
The Gettysburg Address delivered by Mr Abraham Lincoln in that small Pennsylvanian town in 1863 was one of the noblest speeches in history though at the time it gained little attention. The address started as "Four score and seven years" which refers to American independence in 1776 and defines the starting point of this question as 1863.

Answer: Model A Ford

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre occurred on February 14 1929. In Chicago seven men from the Irish North Side Gang were murdered by the the South Side Italian gang in a bid to control organised crime trade in the city. Given this was on the news, anything that happened subsequently must be considered an anachronism.

The Wall Street Crash was the single most devastating day in Stock Market history when it happened on Tuesday 29th October 1929. The car radio was invented by Motorola in 1930. The first parking meter was designed and installed in Oklahoma City in 1932.

The Model A Ford replaced the Model T ford in 1927 and was produced up to 1931. Therefore this automobile is the only artefact that was not an anachronism in February 1929.

Answer: Microwave oven

Sputnik 1 was launched by the Soviets in 1957. It was a tense time for Americans as this was the height of the Cold War and Americans were worried they were being spied upon by the first satellite in space.
Burger King was founded in 1953 in Jacksonville Florida as InstaBurger King. After the restaurant chain ran into financial problems in 1954, it was sold to Miami investors who renamed it and renamed the venture "Burger King".
Tail fins first appeared on the 1948 Cadillac. Their size peaked between 1955 and 1960 and the fin no longer a appeared on American cars after 1961. All full size American cars had them in the late 50s but the biggest were on the '59 Cadillac.
TV dinners were developed in 1953 by C.A. Swanson & Sons. The name referred to the shape of the aluminium foil tray the frozen meal came in. These dinners were popular until the early 80s when the microwave oven, ironically, became popular. The metal trays could not be used in the newer ovens.
Percy Spencer invented the first microwave oven in 1946 using the same principle as RADAR. However the development of microwave technology was slow and ovens were far too big for domestic use until the counter top model was developed in 1967 ten years later than our present scenario.

Answer: Release of the Ford Mustang

The first successful cornea (eye) transplant was performed in 1905, the first kidney transplant in 1954 and the first heart transplant in 1967 in Cape Town.

The Ford Mustang was released in 1964; Woodstock and the first moon walk occurred in 1969, and the final Beatles' album (sniff) album was released a month after the Beatles broke up (sniff, sniff). However most of Let it be was recorded before the 1969 release of "Abbey Road"

Only the Mustang was known in 1967. The others are anachronisms.

Answer: "The Wall" / Three Mile Island Nuclear Incident

"The Wall" was released in 1979 I was actually playing Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon (1973) when I heard Elvis had died. Also in 1973, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" was released, "The Stranger" followed in 1975 and, "Hotel California", a year later. (I still have all four (vinyl) records - and they are all still favourites).

All four events happened in the 70s and all resonated with me: I was shocked to find out about the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972; I was disconcerted by the resignation of Richard Nixon; and I was fascinated by the opening of the 1800 foot (gosh!) CN Tower in 1976. However as a naive 17 year old I was badly discombobulated by the nuclear meltdown that occurred near Harrisburg Pennsylvania in 1979. "The China Syndrome" a fictional movie about such an accident, was released 12 days before Three Mile Island, but I saw it immediately after. I have never been moved more by a single movie than that that one because of its prescient theme.

Answer: Each platform is an anachronism

Technology has come a long way in a short time. The first iPod was released in October 2001, a month after that horrible tragic day in New York City in September 2001. However to get CNN News on an iPod you needed WiFi which was introduced on the iPod Touch in 2007. Similarly the iPhone was launched in 2007, Twitter was launched a year earlier, and the iPad was first released in 2010 with the Huffington Post first airing in 2005 (now HuffPost).

The tragedy of 9/11 will never be forgotten.

(This question was in no-way meant to be a plug for Apple but it is their technological success that has transformed into leading products in their class, in sales at least).