Amazing Adventures Trivia Quiz

Answer: Kon-Tiki

Thor Heyerdahl's aim in sailing from South America to the Polynesian Islands was to prove that people from South America could have settled in Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. He used the only technology and materials that were available at that time and built a raft in Peru from nine Balsa tree trunks and hemp ropes. The main mast was made from mangrove wood, the small cabin was made from plaited bamboo with a banana leaf thatched roof.

The expedition left Callao, Peru, South America on 28 April 1947 and the six-man crew sailed the raft 4,300 miles across the Pacific Ocean, which took 101 days. On 7 August 1947 the raft smashed onto a reef at Raroia in the Taumotu Islands but all the crew were safe. Men from a village on a nearby island came to their rescue after a couple of days, having seen washed-up flotsam from the raft.

Thor Heyerdahl wrote a book on the "Kon-Tiki Expedition" which became a best seller. A documentary motion picture was also made which won an Academy Award in 1951. The Kon-Tiki raft is on exhibition in Oslo in the Kon-Titki Museum.

What an amazing adventure this must have been!

Answer: Tenzing Norgay

Tenzing Norgay was a Sherpa, an ethnic group from the most mountainous region high in the Himalayas in Nepal. "Time" magazine named him as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

He joined his first Everest expedition in 1935 when he was about 19 years of age. He also took part in three official British attempts to climb Everest. He again took part in an unsuccessful Canadian attempt to reach the summit in 1947. He took part in two Swiss attempts in 1952. In 1953 he was part of another British expedition (his own seventh expedition) led by John Hunt which ultimately led to Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reaching the summit on 28 May 1953. He died of a cerebral haemorrhage in 1986, aged 71.

What amazing adventures all of these expeditions must have been!

Answer: Transit of Venus

In 1768 Cook sailed from England in on the "Endeavour". On 13 April 1769 he arrived in Tahiti via Cape Horn, where he carried out his task of observing the Venus Transit. He then opened sealed orders from the British Admiralty for the next part of this voyage. He was instructed to search the South Pacific for an assumed "Terra Australia" (Latin for "unknown land of the south"). He sailed south to New Zealand where he circumnavigated and mapped the complete coastline, and then sailed west. On 19 April 1770 he reached the southeastern coastline of Australia and on 22 August 1770, at Possession Island, he claimed he land for Great Britain. On his return to England he was promoted to the rank of Commander in 1771.

For his second Voyage of Discovery he was again commissioned by the Royal Society to search once again for Terra Australis. Although he had charted the eastern coastline of Australia it was believed that Terra Ausralis was further south. In 1772 he commanded the "HMS Resolution" and circumnavigated the globe, becoming the first person to cross the Antarctic Circle. He almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica before sailing north towards Tahiti for fresh supplies. He then resumed searching for Terra Australia but to no avail. On returning to England he was promoted to the rank of Captain.

In 1777 Captain James Cook, again on the "HMS Resolution" sailed to Cape Town, then to New Zealand, discovered the Hawaiian Islands which he named the Sandwich Islands. He then sailed to the Pacific coast of North America. He charted the west coast northwards but was stopped by ice, so he sailed again southwards to stay in Hawaii for the winter. Due to some conflict between the Hawaiians and the Europeans the crew attempted to return to their ship when Cook was struck on the head and then stabbed to death as he fell into the surf. Four of Cook's crew were also killed. The "Resolution" returned to England in 1780 commanded by John Gore and James King.

Cook's voyages were truly amazing adventures.

Answer: Distinguished Flying Cross

In 1928 Amelia Earhart was asked to accompany two pilots on a flight across the Atlantic Ocean, to keep the flight log. That flight took 20 hours and 40 minutes. She had it in her mind that she would, some day, like to attempt that flight solo.

In May 1932, aged 34, she took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland in a single engine Lockheed Vega 5B, intending to fly to Paris. During the fight there were mechanical problems, strong northerly winds, and icy conditions, and after a flight lasting 14 hours and 56 minuted she landed in a field at Culmore, near Derry, Northern Ireland.

This historic flight made her the first woman to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. She received the Distinguished Flying Cross from US Congress, the Cross of Knight of the Legion of Honour from the French Government, and the National Geographic Society awarded her the Gold Medal.

Amelia Earhart made several other solo flights such as from Honolulu to Oakland California, from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and from Mexico City to New York. She competed in long-distance air racing and set several women's speed and distance aviation records.

She planned to fly around the world following an equatorial route of some 29,000 miles, with two navigators. The first attempt in March 1937 was eventually aborted. Her second attempt followed a few months later with Fred Noonan as her only crew member. When her aircraft was approaching Howland Island, a ship received a transmission from her that fuel was running low. Howland Island received voice transmissions from Earhart indicating what position they were flying at, but she was never heard from again. A search around Howland Island proved fruitless. The search was widened but to no avail. Many differing theories of the unresolved circumstances of Earhart's disappearance have emerged over the years since her disappearance.

What amazing adventures Amelia Earhart had.

Answer: Roald Amundsen

As early as 1820 several expeditions claimed that they had sighted Antarctica. The first landing was by American Captain John Davis, a sealer. British explorer Robert Falcon Scott made the first attempt to find a route from the coastline of Antarctica to the South Pole in 1901-1904. He was accompanied by Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson, but they did not make it because of the bad conditions and had to turn back.

Norwegian Roald Amundsen achieved this feat by reaching the South Pole on 14 December 1911, and he named the plateau surrounding the pole in honour of King Haakon VII of Norway.

Robert Falcon Scott again returned to Antarctica with his team, intending to race Amundsen to the Pole. He and the three other men in his expedition reached the Pole thirty-four days after Amundsen. However, sadly on their return trip, Scott and his four companions perished.

The first person to fly over the South Pole was US Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd and co-pilot Bernt Balchen, on 29 November, 1928.

No other explorer visited the South Pole again until October 1956 when a plane landed there with a party led by Admiral George J Dufek of the U.S. Navy.

Edmund Hillary (of Mt Everest fame) was in a party that reached the Pole overland in January 1958.

What cold, but truly amazing adventures all of these people had.

Answer: Sacagawea

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were both born in Virginia and had both taken part in the Indian wars in Ohio. The then President, Thomas Jefferson, requested that Congress fund an expedition to the Pacific Ocean, such expedition being ultimately named the "Corps of Discovery". U.S. Army Captai, Meriwether Lewis was to lead the expedition and he picked William Clark as his partner.

The aim of this expedition was to establish trade with and sovereignty over native peoples who lived along the Missouri River and to also explore the Louisiana Purchase. The President also wished to establish U.S. discovery of the Pacific Northwest and to have the expedition gather scientific data on plants and animals.

The expedition set out in 1804 accompanied by a Shoshone Indian woman Sacagawea, who was 15 years old at the time and the wife of a French-Canadian fur treader, Toussaint Charbonneau. The expedition followed the Missouri River along a route through what is now Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa before reaching the Great Plains. They befriended various indigenous nations who helped the explorers with food and directions.

They commenced their homeward journey on 23 March 1806, having achieved their objectives of making it to the Pacific Ocean, making maps and establishing a presence for a legal claim to the land. They opened up trade and diplomatic relations with several indigenous nations

They arrived in St Louis on 23 September 1806 after what must have been an amazing adventure.

Answer: De Beers

Cecil John Rhodes was born in 1853 in the UK and when he was 16 he was sent to South Africa, as he was a sickly boy and his father thought the climate would be more beneficial. He began to grow cotton with his brother in Natal, until they realised that they would never make a fortune growing cotton. So they left for the newly discovered diamond fields of Kimberley, South Africa. Rhodes worked in the mine himself, invested in further diamond claims and worked out new mining techniques. In 1880 he formed the De Beers Mining Company.

In 1880 Rhodes was elected to the governing body of South Africa, the Cape Parliament. He had earlier developed a philosophy on British Imperialism where a group of white Anglo-Saxons would rule all of Africa, the Middle East and other countries. In 1890 he became Premier of the Cape and in 1885 he organised a failed plot to take over the Transvaal, which had been settled by the Dutch. He resigned as Premier in 1896.

A new country, Rhodesia was named for him. On his death in 1902 he left most of his fortune of six million pounds to Oxford University and the famous Rhodes Scholarship was established. Some famous people given a Rhodes Scholarship include astronomer Edwin Hubble, former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke, actor/musician Kris Kristofferson, and former U.S. President Bill Clinton

Cecil Rhodes also must have had amazing adventures.

Answer: Calypso

Jacques-Yves Cousteau was born in Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac, France, in 1910. He learned to swim in his early childhood when he developed his love for the ocean. In 1930 he entered the Ecole Navale (Naval Academy) and after three years graduated and joined the French Navy.

After being given a pair of underwater goggles his life changed when he saw what lay beneath the sea. Wanting to stay under water longer, he decided he would try to invent a device that would allow humans to breathe underwater.

On the outbreak of World War II, he became a Naval heavy gun Officer and also worked with the French resistance. Still thinking about a device for breathing underwater, in 1942 he designed the Aqua-Lung and used this to help remove underwater mines that had been placed during the war.

When in Malta he found an old ferry named "Calypso" that had been a former Royal Navy mine-sweeper. He leased the boat "for one franc a year" in 1950, had it transformed into an oceanographic ship, and began carrying out underwater excavations in the Mediterranean Sea.

Cousteau and his "Calypso" explored the oceans of the world and brought attention to the problems of pollution and over-exploitation of resources. By making films of his adventures he drew the public's attention to these problems.

He made more than 100 TV films and wrote at least 50 books. He died on 25 June 1997. He was 87 years of age.

Jacque Cousteau most certainly had the most amazing adventures spanning many years.

Answer: Wales

Sir Henry Morton Stanley was born in January 1841 as John Rowlands. Until the age of five he was brought up by his grandfather and was sent to a workhouse for the poor following his grandfather's death. He left the workhouse when he was 15, and in 1859 at age 18, he made his way to the United States seeking a new life. He asked for a job at a store owned by Henry Hope Staley and the two became close friends, with the young John Rowlands taking the name "Stanley".

Stanley joined the Confederate Army in 1862 and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Shiloh and was then "recruited" and joined the Union Army but was discharged soon after due to illness. Thereafter, he then began a career as a journalist, and in 1867 was recruited to serve as a correspondent, travelling extensively in the U.S. and Asia.

In 1869 he took on the task by the "New York Herald" to find David Livingstone, a Scottish missionary and explorer who was living in Africa but had not been heard from for some years, so in 1871 Stanley travelled to Zanzibar and set about getting an expedition together to search for Livingstone. On 10 November 1871 he found Livingstone in Ujiji near Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania (as it is today). Stanley and Livingstone then joined forces and explored the region together.

In 1874 Stanley traced the course of the Congo River to the sea. It took him 999 days to achieve this feat. He led further expeditions to the Congo and Sudan before returning to London, where he entered Parliament and in 1899 he became Sir Henry Morton Stanley when he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. He died in London in 1904.

This Welshman truly had amazing adventures.

Answer: Pelican

Sir Francis Drake changed the name of the "Pelican" to the "Golden Hind" in 1578 during his circumnavigation of the globe when he reached the Strait of Magellan, naming it in honour of his patron and one of the principal sponsors of his voyage, Sir Christopher Hatton, whose armorial crest was a golden hind (a female deer).

Sir Francis Drake had been chosen by Queen Elizabeth I of England to lead an expedition to explore the "new world" and he had "unofficial" support from her to act as a privateer to benefit himself and the Queen and to inflict damage on the Spanish.

Upon leaving England in December 1577, he reached Brazil and in 1578 he passed through the Strait of Magellan. When he was off the coast of Ecuador in 1579, he captured a Spanish galleon "Nuestra Senora de la Concepcion" which contained a rich treasure of over 360,000 Pesos weighing over six tons. This treasure took six days to transfer from the galleon to the "Golden Hind". This was the largest treasure captured to that date.

On his arrival back in England at Plymouth Harbour, Queen Elizabeth I boarded the "Golden Hind" and knighted him. Her share of the treasure was one hundred and sixty thousand pounds. For every pound invested in the trip by the various backers, they received forty-seven pounds in return.

After Drake's circumnavigation the "Golden Hind" went on public display, where it remained for approximately 100 years, before it eventually rotted and was finally broken up.

This was just one of Sir Francis Drake's amazing adventures. He was also famous for his defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died in 1596.