Blunders Galore! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pisa

The leaning tower of Pisa took 177 years to build. It is just over 183 feet high on the lower side and just over 186 high on the high side. It also has either 294 or 296 steps, depending which way you're facing. With a weight of some 16,000 tons, the engineers who designed this flawed edifice only gave it foundations ten feet deep - and built on unstable soil at that. Work began on the tower in 1173, and within ten years of its completion it began its famous lean.

It wasn't until early in the 21st century, after frantic work by modern engineers that the tower finally stopped leaning for the first time in its history. And how's this for some lovely history: The tower has seven bells installed - each one representing a note of a major musical scale. Perhaps one of the songs they play is "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet".

Answer: The Beatles

Oh dear, and how unfortunate for Decca Records! The Beatles went on to become one of the most successful bands in history. During their time together as a group, they received seven Grammy Awards and fifteen Ivor Novello Awards. As an indication of their selling power, in the United States alone, they sold 6 Diamond albums, 24 Multi-platinum albums, 39 Platinum albums and 45 Gold albums. Decca Records well and truly hit the deck with that blunder.

Answer: Julius Caesar

Roman general and statesman, Gaius Julius Caesar lived from 100-44 BC. He helped transform the Roman Republic into a great empire, conquered Gaul, extended the Roman Empire on all sides, and invaded Britain. He also greatly reformed Roman life, and, so great was his power and influence, he was named dictator in perpetuity. On the Ides of March 44 BC, he was assassinated by a group of senators as he arrived at the senate. Alas, this great general and leader had failed to listen to the little woman who, following a bad dream about his death the night before, had begged him not to go to the Senate that day. Tsk, tsk. Now there's one wife who was well and truly entitled to say "I told you so, dear, but would you listen, oh no."

Answer: Telephone

When Alexander Graham Bell offered the patent of his new invention to Western Union, the reply he received was that it was just a toy and that "this 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us". Oh, what fools these mortals be! Bell had asked $100,000 to sell the rights to the company. Two years later, when Western Union realised their mistake, they offered to buy it for US$25 million and were turned down flat. You could even say Bell hung up on them.

Answer: Hitler

And on such trivial decisions, the entire world spins. As a youth Hitler always wanted to become an artist and spent several years of his early adult life in Vienna struggling to attain that goal. On twice being given the brush-off by the Academy who cited his "unfitness for painting" Hitler finally ran out of money, spent time living in an establishment for the homeless - and becoming very bitter. We all know what followed next.

The rather sad thing is that those early paintings of his, some of which have survived, are really quite good.

Answer: Neville Chamberlain

Chamberlain, hoping to pacify Germany by conciliatory methods, convinced his country to hold back in the face of Hitler's rising aggression. He overlooked the Rhineland crisis when Hitler's troops invaded that area in 1936, turned a blind eye to Germany's continuing remilitarisation, ignored Austria's pleas for help as the Anschluss loomed, and gave way when Germany annexed the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia. Haunted still by memories of the tragic first world war, he was backed in all this by the British press and people. Only Churchill and a few other far-sighted thinkers dared to oppose this policy of appeasement.

It would be on the 1st September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, with whom Britain had signed a Defence Pact, that a reluctant Britain was finally forced to take action.

The allied forces declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 - and World War II was underway.

Answer: Philip II

The Armada set out to invade England with 151 ships, 8,000 sailors and 18,000 soldiers. It was to collect another 30,000 soldiers in the Spanish Netherlands. In the interim however, its experienced sea commander died and he was replaced by a high class Spanish courtier with no experience of the sea at all. And then they met the English, the tides, incredibly bad weather, and shipwreck.

They limped back to Spain with only 67 ships and 10,000 men, many of whom died shortly afterwards of fever and wounds. Though 6,000-8,000 English men would die later of fever and illness, English losses immediately following the defeat of the Armada were only 50-100 killed, 400 wounded and no loss of ships at all. Philip II of Spain declared in despair of his country's dreadful defeat, "I sent the Armada against men, not against God's winds and waves!"

Answer: Space travel is bunk

Two weeks later, Sputnik, the first human-made space object to orbit our earth, was successfully launched. Oh, to have seen the good Astronomer Royal's face when he heard that. No doubt it turned a right royal shade of red.

Answer: We stand on the threshold of rocket mail

The only mail that rockets to my letter box are bills. The office of the US Postmaster General is quite an honourable one, and in that country, it is actually older than its Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin was the first US Postmaster General. Arthur Summerfield was Postmaster General from 1953 to 1961 and though he was out on his estimate about rocket mail, he did at least he possess the vision to see the possibilities that space travel could one day offer. I have such a vision in my head right now of my mailman, in a little rocket ship, whizzing past my letterbox with a look of desperation on his little tubby face.

Answer: Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote!

Cleveland was President of the United States on two separate occasions, from 1885 to 1889, and again from 1893 to 1897. It seems contradictory that such a forward thinking leader who worked unceasingly for political reform, should have such an old-fashioned attitude to one half of his country's citizens.

It took seventy years of struggle for American women before, in 1920, voting rights were achieved with the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution under President Woodrow Wilson. Surprisingly women in New Jersey were allowed to vote from 1790 until 1807 - but then that right was taken from them. So ladies, keep those placards dusted off. You never know when they may be needed again.