Explorers Though Time Multiple Choice Quiz | Explorers

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. By the early 19th century, many societies of Britain and France offered fantastic financial rewards to the first European to return with corroborative reports of a fabled Saharan 'Golden City' known as:

Answer: Timbuktu

All explorers that arrived there were disappointed by the sleepy and thirsty Timbuktu or Tombouctou, the 'Queen of the Desert'. Both Augila and Garama were mysterious ancient cities of the Sahara, known to the Romans but extinct at the 19th century. Zimbabwe is another 'lost city', capital in southern Africa.

2. Who was the first explorer to bring news to Europe from the great fabled city in West Africa at the cross-roads of key trans-Saharan trade-routes?

Answer: Rene Caille

Laing, a Scottish soldier, finally arrived at the city in 1826 after more than forty failed attempts made by other explorers, but was murdered as he left Timbuktu. - Two years later, Rene-Auguste Caille (or Caillie) managed to leave the city and to arrive, infested and diseased, into one oasis of Morocco, and two months later returned to Europe and seized several prizes, pensions and medals from geographical societies and royalty. - Adams, an American sailor shipwrecked off the Atlantic coast and sold as a slave, beat both Laing and Caille by seventeen years, but he arrived by misfortune, not after the prizes. - Barth, a German scholar, visited the city later in the 19th-century.

3. Which great river was discovered by Francisco de Orellana and later explored by Pedro Teixeira, Charles Marie de la Condamine, Alexander von Humboldt and Aime Bonpland?

Answer: Amazonas

In 1637, Teixeira, a Portuguese explorer, ascended the Amazonas with 2000 men in 47 canoes. - De la Condamine and Bonpland were both French botanists who were there too. The former brought the deadly Indian arrow poison curare to Europe and the latter mapped the Amazonas area along with von Humboldt, a German explorer.

4. Who were the opponents in the 1911 race to arrive first to the South Pole?

Answer: Roald Amundsen (Norway) vs. Captain Robert Scott (Royal Navy)

When Scott reached the South Pole, he found that Amundsen had beaten him by about one month. On the retreat his heroic party was beset by illness, lack of food and frostbite. All five members died, the last three overwhelmed by a blizzard when only a few miles from their depot. - Nordeskjold was the first to navigate the Northeast Passage. - Peary and Matthew Henson had beaten Amundsen into arriving first at the North Pole. - Nansen and F. H. Johansen had attempted earlier to make it to the Pole by navigating the Arctic Ocean as near as possible in their ship, the Fram, and set forth to complete the journey to the pole by sledge, but without success. - In 1925 Amundsen and Ellsworth failed to complete a flight across the North Pole, but the next year in the dirigible Norge, built and piloted by Nobile, they succeeded.

It is not known if Byrd and Floyd Bennett had really beaten them in their 1926 attempt. Late in 1929 Byrd and Bernt Balchen (Norway) flew to the South Pole and back.

5. Who was the first European to lead an expedition that arrived at India via the rounding of the Cabo de Boa Esperanca (Cape of Good Hope) in 1497?

Answer: Vasco da Gama

Dias had discovered the Cape in 1486, but turned back to Portugal. - Balboa crossed Central America and discovered the 'Mar del Sur' (South Sea), later named Pacific Ocean by Magellan. - Diogo de Sevilha(or Senill), a pilot of the king of Portugal Henrique o Navegador (Henry the Navigator) discovered the Azores, archipelago composed of nine major islands in the North Atlantic.

6. An easier one. The Apollo XI mission arrived on the Moon on July 20, 1969. We all know that the first man to take that small step was Neil Armstrong, touching the surface 39 seconds past 4:17 p.m., so I will ask about his fellow astronauts for that mission, who were:

Answer: Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins

Collins was the commander and remained in the Apollo space craft while 'Buzz' Aldrin went with Armstrong in the 'Eagle' landing device. - Lovell, Swigert and Fred Haise: Apollo XIII - Shephard, Mitchell and Stewart Roosa: Apollo XIV - Young, Mattingly and Charles Duke: Apollo XVI.

7. When Marco Polo returned to Venezia (Venice) from the Silk Road and Cathay (China), he commanded a galley in a war against the rival city of Genova (Genoa). He was captured and spent a year in a prison where one of his fellow-prisoners was a writer of romances named Rustichello da Pisa, who prompted Marco to dictate to him the story of his travels, known sometimes as 'The Description of the World' but more commonly as 'Il M______'. Can you spell it?

Answer: Il Milione

It meant 'The Million Lies' and Marco earned the nickname of Marco Milione because few believed that his stories were true and most Europeans dismissed the book as mere fable. But at his deathbed, he left the famous epitaph for the world: 'I have only told the half of what I saw'!

8. Which European(s) had travelled to, and brought news from the Silk Road BEFORE Marco Polo, his father and his uncle?

Answer: Giovanni di Piano Carpini and Guillaume de Rubrouck

All of them (save the Polos) were Franciscan priests commissioned by the Holy See to undertake missionary work in the interior of Asia. Dates of travels: Piano Carpini: 1245 - Robrouck, also known as Ruysbroeck: 1253 - The Polos (Niccolo, Maffeo and Marco): a few travels between 1260 and 1295 - Montecorvino: started his journey in 1289 and died at Cambaluc (Beijing) in 1328; Odorico da Pordedone started his voyage to the Far East in 1318 and returned to Italy c. 1329.

9. The Spanish Conquistadores found and destroyed many ancient Inca cities in their insatiable search for gold. However, though they knew of this city's existence, they never discovered its whereabouts. The city was re-discovered by the American archaeologist Hiram Bingham in July, 1911:

Answer: Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu was so difficult to find because it's built on a mountain top and is invisible from the valley floor. It is believed that the city remained inhabited for as long as 200 years after the arrival of the Spanish.

10. On January 23, 1960, Swiss ocean explorer Jacques Piccard and U.S. Navy Lt.Don Walsh descended to the bottom of the Challenger Deep of the Marianas Trench (200 miles southwest of Guam), the deepest place on Earth, in a submersible named:

Answer: the 'Trieste' bathyscape

The 'Trieste' was built by Piccard and his father Auguste Piccard, a notable Belgian physicist and inventor. - In 1932, zoological explorers William Beebe and Otis Barton descended 3,000 ft (914 m) off the coast of Nonsuch Island, Bermuda, in a bathysphere (a pressurized steel sphere). - The Alvin submersible is operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and is considered the world's most productive submersible.

It routinely makes more than 150 dives a year since it was designed in 1964. - 'Nautilus' (SSN-571) was the first nuclear-powered submarine, and in 1958 sailed beneath the Arctic icepack to the North Pole.

11. Back into space. Who was the first woman to become a cosmonaut?

Answer: Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Nikolayeva Tereshkova, a textile worker and amateur parachutist, orbited the earth 48 times in her successful Vostok 6 flight on June 16-19, 1963. - I think we all remember Sharon Christa McAuliffe's short trip in '86. She was to be the first civilian in space, and to have taught two lessons from there, but the Challenger shuttle exploded just 73 seconds after lift-off. - In September, 1992 on the space shuttle Endeavor, Dr. Mae Carol Jemison was the first black woman to enter space. - October 4, 1994 through March 22, 1995, Elena Vladimirovna Kondakova fulfilled her first flight on board the spacecraft 'Soyuz TM-17' and the orbital complex 'Mir' as a flight.

She spent 169 days in space, including 5 days with NASA Astronaut Norman Thagard, and a month long joint flight with German Astronaut Ulf Merbold. Perhaps first spatial love triangle...?? :-)

12. One of the first explorers known is the Greek Pytheas of Massilia (Marseille). He navigated North along the European coasts, and reported having arrived at a distant shore. Since then, that name became synonymous with 'End of the World'.

Answer: Ultima Thule

The land discovered by Pytheas is now believed to be either Iceland, the Shetland or the Orkney islands, or maybe the Norwegian coasts. He also was the first to circumnavigate what he called the Tin Islands (actually Britain) - Cape Finisterre is a rocky promontory, extreme NW Spain, on the Atlantic coast of Galicia, where the English won two naval battles against the French. - I made up the other two names. 'Ge' and 'Akron' mean 'Earth' and 'End' in Ancient Greek. Ragnarok is the Apocalypse of the Norse mythology.

13. As we have already seen, exploration can be a dangerous business. Which of these explorers did NOT die during his voyages?

Answer: Sir Walter Raleigh

Cavendish died in the South Atlantic in 1592, during an attempt to make his second circumnavigation. - Hudson died attempting to find a 'northwest passage' during his fourth voyage, in 1610. His starved and diseased crew mutinied and set him, with his son and seven men, adrift in a shallop, and he was never seen again. - In 1616, Raleigh persuaded the king to release him from imprisonment in the Tower of London on the promise to bring gold from El Dorado, on the Orinoco river.

But he failed, and having attacked the Spaniards disobeying orders, he was beheaded in London in 1618. - During his third voyage (1779), Cook attempted to take the Hawaiian king hostage to force the natives to give back stolen goods.

A large crowd surrounded him and his men, and Cook was clubbed to the ground and repeatedly stabbed by native spears.

14. Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, David Livingstone, Louis de Hennepin: What type of landmark did these explorers discover?

Answer: waterfall

The first Spanish explorer to see Iguazu (native for 'Big Water') falls was Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in 1541. - Father Louis Hennepin, as a member of a Sieur de La Salle's expedition is commonly accepted as the first European to arrive at the Niagara Falls (in 1678), although there are other claims naming either Paul de Ragueneau, Etienne Brule or Joseph de la Roche-Dallion as the first one to arrive. - In 1855, Livingstone became the first European to see Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River. The natives called them 'Mosi-oa-Tunya' (smoke that thunders) and Livingstone renamed them after the British Queen.

15. Which Viking navigator spent the winter in a country where wild grapes grew (he named it Vinland)?

Answer: Leif 'the Lucky' Erikkson

About 920?: Blown off course between Norway and Iceland, Gunnbjorn Ulfsson sights lands west of Iceland, probably Greenland, but does not land there. - 982?: Erik the Red sails with his exiled father from Iceland in search of the land reported by Gunnbjorn, and discovers and settles in the frozen country he names Greenland to tempt future colonizers. - 986: Bjarni Herjulfsson undertakes a cruise from Iceland to find his father who had joined Eirik in Greenland, but instead discovers Nantucket, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland without making any attempts to land. - 1001 to 1002: When Leif, the son of Erik, learns of the lands sighted by Bjarni, he purchases Bjarni's ship and navigates to Vinland (modern day Newfoundland) and settles at Leifsbudir (Leif's Booth, in what is now L'Anse aux Meadows) where he spends the winter. - 1002 to 1011: News of Leif's discovery attracted later expeditions, one of which stayed three years in Vinland until native attacks forced them to leave, never to return.

16. The first expedition to circumnavigate the globe was initiated by Portuguese navigator Fernao de Magalhaes (Ferdinand Magellan). After his death, the voyage was completed by Sebastian Elcano, with only one ship and a small percentage of the more than 240 men that initiated the trip. The ship was the ____, with only ___ crewmen on board:

Answer: Victoria, 18 survivors

Magellan attempted to find a Western passage to the Spice Islands for the King of Spain. He was killed in a fight with the sultan of Mactan. - The first of the five ships lost was the tiny Santiago (75 tons), destroyed by a storm while searching a passage ahead of the fleet in what's now southern Argentina. - Next was the big San Antonio (120 tons), the depot ship, which secretly deserted the expedition before crossing Magellan's Strait, taking with her one third of the total supplies. - After Magalhaes' death, and with only about 110 remaining sailors to man the three ships, the damaged Concepcion (90 tons) was abandoned and set afire. - Of the two remaining ships, the Trinidad (110 tons), Magalhaes' admiral ship, attempted to reach Panama crossing the Pacific again, but was captured by the Portuguese who jailed her crewmen. - Only the small Victoria (85 tons) returned to Spain, nearly three years after the voyage had begun.

17. On which plane did great aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan disappear while attempting the first equatorial round-the-world flight?

Answer: Lockheed Electra

Amelia Earhart bought her first airplane -a Kinner Airstar- in 1921, at age 24. - In 1928, in an Avro Avian, she became the first woman to make a solo-return transcontinental flight. - In 1932, she became the first woman -and second person-to fly solo across the Atlantic, on a Lockheed Vega from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland to Londonderry, Ireland. - On July 2, 1937 Earhart and Noonan took off from Lae on the Electra.

Their intended destination was Howland Island, a tiny piece of land a few miles long and 2556 miles away. Contact was lost forever: researchers generally believe that the plane ran out of fuel and that Amelia and Noonan perished at sea.

18. From 1905 until the early '30s, pioneer speleologist Benjamin Franklin Einbigler performed a series of explorations of the world's largest known cave system, now known to have a length of more than 350 miles. Can you name this Kentucky's World Heritage Site?

Answer: Mammoth Cave

Einbigler explored spots with names such as Cleaveland Avenue, Serena's Arbor, The Cathedral and The Maelstrom (a ninety-foot pit in whose bottom he and guide John Nelson erected a monument with their names inscripted). There are three domes named after them: Einbigler's Dome, Nelson's Dome and the even more spectacular Edna's Dome, named after Benjamin's sister.

19. There is an ancient Polynesian voyaging legend about King Hotu Matu'a coming from far away to become the founding father of a Pacific Ocean island which he named 'Te Pito Te Henua' (the Navel of the World). Can you name that island?

Answer: Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Legend says Hotu Matu'a disembarked from his Va'a Kaulua (double-hulled canoe) at Anakena Bay, a white beach with warm peaceful water, lined with coconut palms. - The tradition says that Tuamotu islands were discovered by navigator Prince Rata from North Tahiti, Aotearoa by Tahitian Great Chief Kupe and Hawaii and Maui by Hawai'i Loa, who named them after himself and his eldest son.

20. Last one about a non-human explorer. Which was the first man-made object to pass beyond the known limits of the solar system?

Answer: Pioneer 10

Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972 and reached outer space beyond our system's border on June 13, 1983. - Viking 1 landed on Mars' surface in 1976. - Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 and is expected to continue operating well into the 21st century and periodically to transmit information from beyond the outer edge of the solar system. - In 1983 the Soviet Union launched the Venera 16 probe, which deposited a lander on the surface of Venus.

Source: Author qazuhb

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
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Explorers Though Time Trivia Quiz

A tribute to the first ones to arrive...

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