Tuesday, July 25, 2006

BH80ero: Great Quiz Taste, Nearly No Blog Blabber

I'll keep it simple today. Or this morning, as my clock tells me.

Got up at 2.35pm.

I came back to London.

I was sweaty.

Watched two Brain of Britain semi-finals.

Beat Mr & Mrs Stainer and Brewis at a music intros quiz.

In Their Faces.

Obviously, we were too real for them.

It is getting late. One must sleep.

1 Appointed Astronomer Royal in 1742, who is best known for discovering the aberration of light?

2 Sometimes denoted by the Greek letter lambda, what term describes the location of a place on Earth east or west of a north-south line known as the Prime Meridian?

3 Known as Brandenburg-Kustrin when it was an independent state of the Holy Roman Empire (1535-1571), most of which historical region of the Margraviate of Brandenburg east of the Oder river was transferred to Poland and its expelled German population replaced largely with Poles shortly after the World War Two?

4 Taking its name from a ruler's title meaning "the one who leads the warriors", what geographical unit of administration dates to medieval Romania, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia and Serbia and is now used in the native languages for the 16 second-level administration units of Poland and an Autonomous Province in Serbia?

5 Which 18th century French architect, of the international circle that introduced Neoclassicism, is best known for The Pantheon in Paris, which was built in 1755 onwards originally as a church dedicated to St Genevieve?

6 Called Il Moro ("the Moor"), which illegitimate Medici, Duke of Penne, Duke of Florence from 1532 and ruler of Florence from 1530 until his death in 1537, was the last of the "senior" branch to rule the city-state and the first to be a hereditary duke?

7 At which battle of July 21, 1403 did Henry VI defeat the rebels and kill Henry Percy?

8 Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed which treaty on July 21, 1774 to end the Russo-Turkish War that had raged since 1768?

9 Who was inaugurated on July 21, 1831 in order to become the first king of Belgium?

10 Who shot dead Dave Tutt in the market square of Springfield, Missouri on July 21, 1865 in what is seen as the first true western showdown?

11 Where in Iowa on July 21, 1873 did Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West?

12 Which conference partitioned Vietnam into North and South Vietnam in 1954?

13 At which Russian research station in Antarctica was the world's lowest temperature (-89.2 degrees C or -129 degrees F) recorded on July 21, 1983?

14 Impeached by Robert Walpole and kept in close custody between 1715 and 1717, which poet and diplomat wrote his longest humorous poem entitled Alma; or The Progress of the Mind, during his imprisonment, and published it along with his most ambitious work, Solomon, and other Poems on several Occasions, by subscription in 1718?

15 Whose final film as a director, 1949's Hello Out There, was never released, with his previous movie They Dare Not Love coming out in 1941?

16 Having been inspired to produce such works as Odalisque and Leila by Victory Hugo and George Sand respectively, who moved away from literary subjects and into realism after a trip to the Netherlands in 1847 with such paintings as The Man with a Pipe, which the Paris Salon jury rejected?

17 Which Japanese architect was responsible for the recent redesign of New York's Museum of Modern Art?

18 Which organisation awards the Rumford Medal?

19 The Franco-Prussian War began in 1870 over the possible ascension of a candidate from Prussia's Hohenzollern dynasty to the vacant Spanish throne due to whose abdication in 1868?

20 Born Rudolf Willhelm Adolf Ditzen in 1893, which German writer chose his pen name as a reference to a horse in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, The Goose Girl, and is best known for his 1932 novel Little Man, What Now/Kleiner Mann, was nun??

21 Commemorated in the name of the main auditorium of New York's Carnegie Hall, which Ukrainian-born violinist, who died in 2001, was married three times: briefly to the ballerina Nora Kaye, then to Vera Lindenblit for 43 years and finally Linda Reynolds?

22 Born Katherine Laverne Starks of Iroquois Indian and mixed Irish and American Indian heritage, which jazz and popular singer sang such hits as Bonaparte's Retreat, her cover version of the Xmas song The Man with the Bag and her 10-week number one Wheel of Fortune?

23 Which Canadian film director, who made his directorial debut with 40 Pounds of Trouble in 1963, published an autobiography called This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me in 2004?

24 Born to a Dutch couple in Jakarta, which singer gained international stardom in 1982 with his distinctive cover of the Irving Berlin song Puttin' on the Ritz in Germany, which reached number four in the US charts the next year?

25 Winner of three Olympic golds (Normal hill in 1984, Large hill - K120 and Team large hill - K120 in 1994), who is the most successful German ski jumper of all time, with only the Finn Matti Nykanen having won more World Cup victories?

26 Who became a household name in the US in 1999, after scoring the fifth penalty kick that gave her country the win over China in the World Cup final and celebrating by ripping off her jersey and falling to her knees in a sports bra?

27 The singer-songwriter Eivor Palsdottir comes from which autonomous region?

28 Known as "Pepi" to friends and family, which brother of Johann Strauss II wrote the Pizzicato Polka with him as well as, on his own, many waltzes that remain in the classical repertoire including Spharen-Klange (Music of the Spheres), Delirien (Deliriums) Mein Lebenslauft ist Lieb und Lust (My Character is Love and Joy) and Dorfschwalben Aus Osterrieich (Village Swallows from Austria)?

29 Which composer, who fulfilled an oft-stated lifelong dream of dying at the console of the great organ of Notre-Dame de Paris when he suffered a stroke while giving his 1750th recital on June 2, 1937, composed six symphonies, "24 Pieces In Free Style" and "24 Fantasy Pieces", which includes his famous Carillon of Westminster?

30 What smokeless propellant made from the high explosives nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin was patented by Alfred Nobel in 1887 whilst he was living in Paris?

31 Known by his middle name "Randal", which MP and pacifist was the first Briton to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1903 for his work as secretary of the International Arbitration League?

32 Which president of the ANC won the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize?

33 In which year was the Nobel Peace Prize last not awarded?

34 The earliest published volume to contain the puported revelations of Joseph Smith, which book is among the most rare and valuable books in American history because the original printing was almost entirely destroyed by an Anti-Mormon mob in Independence, Missouri in 1833?

35 Which July 20, 1866 battle of the Austro-Prussian War saw the Austrian navy led by Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff defeat the Italian navy near the island of Vis in the Adriatic?

36 The 1917 Corfu Declaration led to the creation of which post-war kingdom?

37 Which Middle Eastern capital came under martial law on July 20, 1924 after the American vice-consul Robert Imbrie was killed by a religious mob apparently enraged by rumours he had poisoned a fountain and killed several people?

38 Called Heilong Jiang (Black Dragon River) in pinyin and Sahaliyan Ula (Black River) in Manchu, which river forms the border between the Russian Far East and Manchuria in China and was regarded as sacred by the Manchu and Qing dynasty?

39 What agreement, signed on July 20, 1936, authorised Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, but guarantee free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime?

40 Seen as the man who bridged the Revivalist architecture of Imperial Russia with Stalin's Empire Style, which Russian architect first gained major prominence when he designed Kazan Railway Station in 1913 after winning a contest for a Moscow terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway, then went on to build Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square and the NKVD Headquarters on Lubyanka Square?

41 Which Jordanian king was assassinated while attending Friday prayers in Jerusalem in 1951?

42 What kind of missile was successfully launched for the first time from the submarine USS George Washington on July 20, 1960?

43 The most important portrait painter in the reign of King Louis XIV, which Perpignan-born artist's most famous picture that he painted of "The Sun King" in 1701 today hangs in the Louvre?

44 Author of Elements d'ideologie (1817-1818), which French Enlightenment aristocrat and philosopher coined the term "ideology"?

45 Known for such works as Boys Bathing in Munich's Neue Pinakothek, which German-Jewish painter resigned his presidency of the Prussian academy of arts in 1932 after he was forbidden to paint and is famed for his comment made when he saw the Nazis march through the Brandenburg Gate and celebrate Hitler's takeover: "One cannot eat as much as one would like to vomit"?

46 Born Jeanne Roques, what was the professional stage name of the French silent film actress most remembered for her vamp persona in the roles of Irma Vep and Diana Monti in the early motion picture crime serials Les Vampires (1915) and Judex (1916)?

47 Which Hungarian painter, photographer and Bauhaus professor coined the term "the New Vision" for his belief that photography could create a whole new way of seeing the outside world that the human eye could not and experimented with the photographic process of exposing light sensitive paper with objects overlaid on top of it to create what he called a "photogram"?

48 The Reichstein process, named after the Polish-born Swiss Nobel laureate, is the principal industrial process for the artificial synthesis of which vitamin?

49 Who famously stated that he and his partner had "knocked the bastard off"?

50 Which English snooker player unsuccessfully challenged John Pulman for the world championship in 1964 and 1965 and won the World Professional Billiards Championships seven times from 1968 to 1983?

Answers to BH80
1 James Bradley 2 Longitude 3 The Neumark or the New March of East Brandenburg 4 Voivodship 5 Jacques-Germain Soufflot 6 Alessandro (though Pope Leo XI was also called Alessandro de'Medici) 7 Shrewsbury 8 Kuchuk-Kainarji 9 Leopold I 10 Wild Bill Hickok 11 Adair 12 Geneva Conference or Geneva Accords 13 Vostok Station 14 Matthew Prior 15 James Whale 16 Gustave Courbet 17 Yoshio Taniguchi 18 Royal Society 19 Isabella II 20 Hans Fallada 21 Isaac Stern 22 Kay Starr 23 Norman Jewison 24 Taco Ockerse or Taco 25 Jens Weißflog 26 Brandi Chastain 27 Faroe Islands 28 Josef 29 Louis Vierne 30 Ballistite (composed of 10 per cent camphor and equal parts of nitroglycerin and collodion) 31 Sir William Randal Cremer 32 Albert Lutuli 33 1972 34 Book of Commandments 35 Battle of Lissa 36 Yugoslavia 37 Tehran or Teheran 38 Amur 39 Montreux Convention 40 Aleksey Shchusev 41 Abdullah 42 Polaris 43 Hyacinthe Rigaud 44 Destutt de Tracy or Antoine Louis Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy 45 Max Liebermann 46 Musidora 47 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 48 C 49 Edmund Hillary 50 Rex Williams

2 Comments:

Blogger That Quiz Guy said...

Yeah, that's the WE.

Of course, she played a crucial part.

I didn't say "I" did I?

I'll stop there before I start sounding really self-righteous and idiotic.

5:46 PM  
Blogger That Quiz Guy said...

But suffice to say.

This blog really is about ME, ME and ME.

"We" is almost a concession too far, lacking as it is in me-ness.

5:48 PM  

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