My True Love Guild to Me - 4th Day Quiz

Answer: Eating bread and honey

The exact origins of the rhyme are unknown. First printed in Volume II of "Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book", in the mid 18th century, the rhyme has since been quite popular with songwriters and authors. Dame Agatha Christie references it in at least two of her works: "A Pocket Full of Rye" (1953) and a short story titled "Four and Twenty Blackbirds" (1960).

Answer: Jack and Jill

"The Little Mother Goose", published around 1912, is a particularly delightful Mother Goose Collection, due to the illustrations of Jessie Willcox Smith. Miss Smith was a student of Howard Pyle, founder of the Brandywine School. She is best known for her cover illustrations for "Good Housekeeping" magazine between 1918 and 1933.

Answer: Titanium alloy

If not for its exhaust, the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird's fuselage shape and radar absorbing paint would have been very hard to detect on radar. It was never hit by missiles, not because of any stealth capabilities, but due to its amazing speed. In 1990, the Blackbird crossed the United States at the record speed of 2,124 mph. Titanium alloy was used in order to survive the heat generated at Mach 3. Aluminum is the most common aircraft skin. ACM is a newer technology not widely in use for aircraft during the SR-71's time of service. Zinc alloy is mostly used in galvanizing steel and iron.

Answer: New World Blackbirds

The Icteridae are a group of small to medium birds restricted to the Americas. The majority of the Icteridae family live in the tropics, but there are a number of more temperate species. These include the American blackbirds and the long-tailed meadowlark.

Included in the Icteridae group are New World blackbirds, New World orioles, the bobolinks, meadowlarks, grackles, cowbirds, oropendolas and caciques.

Answer: A device for venting pies

Pie birds are hollow ceramic devices, traditionally from Europe. Pie birds are used to prevent a pie from boiling over by allowing steam to escape while the pie is baking. Early versions were plain funnels, but later ones were made into birds, inspired by the nursery rhyme "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie". Eventually, they developed into all sorts of animals, characters and objects.

Answer: "Rose Marie"

The 1924 Broadway musical "Rose Marie" has inspired four MGM films with the same title. In the 1936 film starring Eddy and MacDonald, an opera singer goes undercover in the Canadian wilderness to find her escaped criminal brother. The film also features Jimmy Stewart in a small role as MacDonald's brother; his last film before becoming a leading man.

Answer: A coal mine

In the United States, the United Kingdom, and some other countries, a coal mine and its surrounding structures are known as a colliery. Started in 1805, the oldest continuously worked deep-mine in the UK, and possibly the world, was Tower Colliery in the South Wales coalfield.

In the mid 1990's, the mine was bought out by its miners rather than be closed. However, Tower Colliery finally closed in January, 2008.

Answer: Mixtur-Trautonium

The Mixtur-Trautonium was used to produce the eerie bird voices in "The Birds". The "Mixtur-Trautonium" was developed between 1948 and 1952 by Oskar Sala, a student of Friedrich Trautwein, inventor of the trautonium. A predecessor of the modern synthesizer, the trautonium is a monophonic electronic instrument invented in the late 1920's that looks somewhat like an organ.

Answer: The Tower of London

Often thought to be an ancient myth, newer research contends the legend actually began in the 19th century as an invention of Victorian romantics. The government now maintains several ravens on the tower grounds to please the tourists (or is it, perhaps, to provide insurance against the fall of England?).

The tower ravens have their wings clipped periodically to make sure that they will not leave.

Answer: Andrew Jackson Blackbird

"History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan" (1887) is notable for being one of the first authoritative accounts of Ottawa and Ojibwa peoples ever published. Blackbird was baptized Roman Catholic in 1825 but later became a Protestant. Being that his father was a chief, Blackbird received a comprehensive education in traditional Ottawa practices and culture.

He held his Ottawa tribal education as responsible, in part, for his frustration with perfecting his knowledge of the English language.

However, he transformed his frustration with English grammar into his inspiration to write what he knew, appending a basic grammar of both the Ottawa and Ojibwa languages to the conclusion of his volume.