What Happened in ...? (1940s edition) Quiz

Answer: The Lascaux cave complex

The Lascaux caves contain some of the most complete and complex examples of art from the Upper Paleolithic period in human history, and are estimated to be 16,000 years old. The images number about 2000, including representations of humans, stags, a bear, a rhinocerous and black bulls. Since 1998, an invasive fungus has been attacking the caves, and scientists are battling black mold in efforts to preserve the paintings.

Answer: The production and isolation of plutonium

Since Plutonium (specifically the isotope Pu-239) had potential to be used in the production of an atomic bomb, Seaborg and Edwin McMillan thought that it would be a fairly bad idea to publicize the fact. Also in 1941, the United States launched the Manhattan Project, which would utilize the fruits of the men's research.

Answer: Frank

Anne Frank died in March 1945 of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, after her family's location in the attic of her father's office building was betrayed to the Nazis. Otto Frank, the only survivor of the family, got his daughter's book ("The Diary of a Young Girl") published in 1947 in Dutch, and it was translated into English in 1952.

Answer: LTJG John F. Kennedy

Two of Kennedy's crewmen were killed by the ramming, and another two seriously injured, but the survivors managed to paddle on a timber to an island about three miles away. They settled there, then Kennedy swam to ANOTHER island a few miles away to find food. He came back, got his men, and brought them all to the new island where there was fresh water and coconut trees.

Answer: D-Day

D-Day involved the landing of some 175,000 troops on the beaches of Normandy on June 6 (the five sections of beach were code-named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword). By an amazing coincidence, a crossword-puzzle constructor named Leonard Dawe, of Surrey, had made a puzzle that appeared in the "Telegraph" in May; some of the answers to the crossword were "Utah", "Omaha", "Mulberry" (the code name of the floating harbor that would accomodate the supply ships of the invasion), "Neptune" (yet another code name for the invasion's naval support) and, most ominously, "Overlord".

Answer: Telecommunication satellites in geostationary orbits

Clarke was nominated for an Academy Award for 1969's "2001: A Space Odyssey", was knighted in 2000, and in 2001 the Mars orbiter 'Odyssey' was named for his works. He also has an asteroid named for him, a dinosaur called Serendipaceratops arthurcclarkei in his honor, and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

His geosynchronous satellite idea appeared in an article in "Wireless World".

Answer: Benjamin Spock, M.D.

Spock did his undergraduate work at Yale, and received his doctorate from Columbia, then he did his residency at Cornell. He served as a psychiatrist in the Naval Reserve, then taught at the University of Minnesota and the University of Pittsburgh. "Baby and Child Care" sold over 50 million copies by 1998, and has been blamed by many for its 'permissiveness' in its advice to child-rearing.

Answer: Pakistan

The partition was violent--millions of Muslims hastened to get to the new state of Pakistan and millions of Hindus and Sikhs hurried to get back to safe ground in India. In 1956 Pakistan became a republic, and in 1971 part of its territory seceded and became the People's Republic of Bangladesh.

Answer: Israel

Israel declared independence on May 14, and the next day Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq attacked the fledgling state. A year later, a cease-fire was declared, with Israel remaining intact. That same year, Israel became a member of the United Nations.

In 1967 the Six-Day War (against Egypt, Syria and Jordan) gave Israel control of the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip.

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

The "Poe Toaster" wears a black coat and hat, has a silver-tipped cane and hides his face behind a scarf. 1949 was the hundredth anniversary of Poe's death, and every year since then a man (two, so far--the first, according to a note left at the grave, died in 1998 and passed the tradition on to a 'son', who's taken over since) shows up in the early morning, makes a toast and leaves his offerings. No one has ever identified either figure.