For What Does it Stand? Trivia Quiz

Answer: National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations

Opened on February 4, 1971, the "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations" was founded by the National Association of Securities Dealers. Its headquarters are at 165 Broadway, New York NY.

In 1992, Nasdaq joined forces with the London Stock Exchange to form the first linked intercontinental securities market. For its first 35 years, Nasdaq was officially classified as a stock market but, in 2006, this was amended to became a 'licensed national securities exchange'.

Answer: National Earthquake Information Center

The National Earthquake Information Center was originally set up as part of the national Ocean Survey. Coming under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior, it was relocated to Boulder CO in 1972 before settling at its current location on the Colorado School of Mines campus in Golden CO two years later.

Free public tours of the facility are available on Mondays and Thursdays by reservation.

Answer: Association of Chartered Certified Accountants

Founded on November 13, 1904, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants has its headquarters in the Adelphi district of the City of Westminster and its administrative centre is Glasgow. The association issues qualifications to public accountants and in so doing establishes a standard of professionalism that can be expected by the public.

Answer: Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

In the early days of computing, programs had to be written in some form of machine code, a series of ones and zeros (or ons and offs), a tediously slow process indeed. Then came numerous what were termed 'high-level' programming languages to make programming accessible to people who were not specialists. Designed at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire in 1964, Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code was one of the earliest 'general-purpose' languages designed primarily for ease of use.

With the spread of mini-computers in the early 1970s, people with relatively little training could create elementary programs using BASIC. The very first widely-available computer game, 'Pong', would seem absurdly simple to today's younger generation. At the time, though, even such a relatively simple game required thousands of lines of programming. Debugging a BASIC program was a serious undertaking, though -- just one small typo would usually cause the program to crash completely.

Answer: Distinguished Service Cross

The three countries that award the Distinguished Service Cross each do so for slightly different acts.

In the UK, the DSC is the third-highest award for "... gallantry during active operations against the enemy at sea." Originally given only to officers in British and other Commonwealth forces, it has also been awarded to non-commissioned ranks since 1993.

In Australia, the DSC is the country's highest distinguished service decoration. Introduced in 1991, it recognizes "distinguished command and leadership in action".

In the U.S., the DSC is the second-highest (after the Medal of Honor) award given for "extreme gallantry and risk of life in actual combat with an armed enemy force." It was first awarded in WWI.

Answer: NKVD

The 'Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del' (NKVD) ran regular services such as traffic police, the fire service and customs and immigration in Stalin's Russia. It was also responsible for managing the Gulag system (forced labour camps), conducting mass extrajudicial executions, enforcing policy in other communist countries, and handling espionage, including political assassinations abroad. The headquarters of the NKVD was at the notorious Lubyanka Square in Moscow (from whence few people returned).

The NKVD was dissolved in 1946 and succeeded by the 'Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) ("Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation").

Of the alternatives, all versions of state police forces, ZOMO was Polish, STASI East German and KATPOL Hungarian.

Answer: Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service

The British government first launched a voluntary service to offer advice in labour disputes in 1896. Today, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service is a Crown non-departmental public body that provides a range of services to employers, trade unions or individual employees.

ACAS became a familiar name to everyone during the Thatcher-era of large-scale industrial disputes. Although it still gets involved in similar situations today, most of its work now involves training or offering advice to avoid disputes reaching such impasses. It also deals with numerous individual complaints to Employment Tribunals.

Answer: International Air Transport Association

Essentially a trade association for airlines, with more than 250 members, the International Air Transport Association was established in Havana, Cuba in 1945, although it is now headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

The successor to the International Air Traffic Association (founded in The Netherlands in 1919), the IATA has no legislative powers but it is still actively involved with improving both the safety and the security of airline travel.

Answer: Bay Area Rapid Transit

The Bay Area Rapid Transit system runs on five lines, with more than 100 miles of tracks serving 45 stations. Generally referred to as the "Bart" (rather than the "B-A-R-T"), it is an acronym rather than an initialization. It is now one of America's busiest heavy rail rapid transit systems.

The lines all pass through Oakland, with services outwards to Daley City, Millbrae and San Francisco Airport in the southwest, Freemont in the southeast, Richmond in the northwest and Pittsburg and Bay Point in the northeast.

Answer: GUM

Officially named 'Gosudarstvennyi Universalnyi Magazin", it is widely known simply as the GUM department store.

The Red Square site was home to more than 1,200 stores at the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and these were amalgamated and was nationalized as the GUM department store in the 1920s.