Tip of the Iceberg Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Soviet Union

More than two full days after the Chernobyl reactor disaster, the world outside the Soviet Union was still unaware of what had happened and might have remained so for much longer, had there not been easterly winds blowing some of the fallout across the Soviet border into Sweden. Ironically, the disaster was caused primarily by the decision of the operators to continue an experiment designed to verify the safety of the reactor in the situation of an electrical grid failure while the reactor was in a state that made it unsafe to do so. Several design failures and operator inexperience then ultimately led to the reactor reaching over 100 times its design power for a brief time before the excess heat caused it to melt down.

Answer: Poland attacked Germany

In the last days of August 1939, Nazi Germany staged a number of alleged minor Polish attacks along the border to ensure that when it would attack Poland on September 1, the attack would be perceived as justified both nationally and internationally. This strategy failed with declarations of war by Britain and France on Germany on September 3, and for the next six years, Europe and the world were plunged into the violence that was World War II.

Answer: July 28, 1945

In what was an almost eerie parallel to the attacks of September 11 in many ways, a US Air Force B-25 bomber (not carrying any bombs) crashed into the Empire State building at the level of the 78th floor at about 9:40 am on July 28, 1945. The three crew in the plane as well as 11 people in the building died. Twenty-four people were injured, among them elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver, who was in the cabin alone at 75th floor level when the elevator's cable above her was severed.

The cabin fell all the way to the ground floor, but, miraculously, she survived.

The two airplane strikes of 1945 and 2001 are sometimes compared as evidence of the Twin Towers' weakness, but the 1945 impact involved a plane much lighter and slower just before landing - the Boeing 767 carried thirty times more impact energy and a much greater amount of fuel was dispersed.

Answer: a tsunami

The event described in this question is the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake - a massive seismic event in which a fault line of almost a thousand miles broke up and re-settled over the course of several minutes. As the quake happened far out on the sea, it did not do much direct damage and on the first islands hit, the native tribes recognized the tsunami warning signs in time to save their lives.

However, those living in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were less fortunate as the waves, some over 10 meters high, hit their shores with violent force.

In the aftermath of this earthquake, a tsunami warning system similar to the one already in operation in the Pacific (where tsunamis are much more common) was installed in the Indian Ocean as well.

Answer: AIDS

It was to take three years from this first discovery until it was clear that this pneumonia, normally affecting only patients with a very weak immune system, was actually only a secondary infection to an insidious, slow-acting viral disease called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or, for short, AIDS. With AIDS being communicable practically only through the contact of infected bodily fluids with an uninfected person's open wound, at first it was mostly seen in drug users sharing needles, people requiring frequent blood transfusions and those engaging in unsafe intimate practices.

It took the general population much longer to realize that, in reality, everyone is at risk, during which time the disease was able to spread unchecked. The long time interval between infection and the appearance of symptoms also contributed to the infection's wide spread, reaching over 25% of the population in some African nations. (Yes, I am aware that various infections dating back all the way to the 1950s were later classified as AIDS, but the 1981 cases were the first that were identified as a new and unusual disease as they actually happened.)

Answer: Bastille

The French Revolution was hardly a single revolution but a sequence of revolutions and counter-revolutions. Also, the foundations had been laid significantly before the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, but the fall of the infamous prison-fortress was an outward sign for the population to revolt.

The king, Louis XVI, actually reigned for another three years as the figurehead of a constitutional monarchy before this moderate government was in turn again overthrown by radicals. A reign of terror began in which public executions were conducted by the hundred every day, to be replaced by a moderate republican government in 1795.

In 1799, a man by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte became part of yet another coup and ruled France first as Consul, then, from 1804 as Emperor.

He was forced to abdicate by his own army in 1814 and was exiled to Elba, but returned to France to reclaim his empire once more in early 1815. This empire however lasted only for 100 days until finally defeated in the Battle of Waterloo, 18 June 1815.

Answer: 17th century

In spite of this defenestration incident being widely recognized as the triggering event for the Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648), tensions had been mounting for decades before the war erupted and any other local uprising could have had the same effect. Largely a conflict between Catholic and Protestant nations, the origins of the war lay in the 1555 peace of Augsburg stating that the ruler of any of the over 200 states that had formed within the German territory could dictate the religion of his subjects to be either Catholic or Lutheran.

The tensions between the many small states as well as the interests of several major neighbors (chiefly Sweden, Denmark, France, England and Spain) led to all-out warfare characterized by cruelty, heavy plundering and extreme civilian losses of life and property. Serious negotiations towards a peace began in 1643 but it took five more years to finally arrive at a series of treaties that would end both the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War (the latter of which was the ultimately successful Dutch struggle for independence from Spain).

Answer: Islam

The Kaaba, the holiest site in Islam, actually predates the religion itself by at least several decades. The building is credited to Abraham, although Abraham himself had definitely not erected the stone building, but a simpler building. At the time of its construction, estimated to be approximately 500 CE, the Kaaba was host to many idols representing Arabian pagan gods as well as some key Christian figures, among them Jesus and Mary.

Some scholars hold that there were actually many Kaaba-like buildings at the time, but the one at Mecca was special for having been made out of solid granite and because Mecca was a neutral place, with an area around the Kaaba having been protected by a contractual peace. Muhammad Ibn Abdullah, prophet of Allah, rededicated the Kaaba building to Islam and declared it a focal point - Muslims do not worship the Kaaba itself but face it to remember the expulsion of falsehood and as a sign of reverence to the one and only Allah. (I hope to have presented everything correctly from the limited sources available to me - if anyone has deeper insights into early Islamic history, please correct me!)

Answer: Berlin

The press conference in this question initiated the fall of the Berlin Wall. While the leaders of the failing East German government did intend to change procedures and gradually open their country to the West in November 1989, they had not counted on their people.

As soon as the new procedures had been announced, tens of thousands assembled at the uninformed and overcrowded border posts to make use of the new rules for a visit to West Berlin. Within a matter of hours, the commanders, receiving no guidance from their government, had no choice but to simply open the border and let the people pass.

In the following weeks, public pressure, mostly from inside Germany, but also from the US and USSR, forced the governments to pursue an extremely ambitious reunification schedule, designed to be completed in less than a year.

The country was finally reunited in the night from 2nd to 3rd October, 1990, with a huge celebration in Berlin. I was personally there, viewing the official festivities from a good location only a few hundred meters away as well as being able to see the details on a large video screen.

The most moving moment was the singing of the anthem, when all of Berlin was united as one impromptu choir.

Answer: About one square meter

A single square meter of missing metal - less than 1/5000th of its under-water surface - was enough to cause the entire huge ship to sink because it formed a gash that extended over the length of six of the Titanic's sixteen water-proof segments. Had only the first five of the segments been damaged, the Titanic would likely have been able to stay afloat, with damage to only four, she would probably even have been able to reach port on her own. Had the first officer (who was manning the bridge at that time) not tried to evade the iceberg but rammed it head on, there would have been a smaller loss of life, however, the very small collision area showed that the evasive maneuver failed only by the narrowest of margins - under the circumstances, the decision to evade was as correct as it was fatal.