Trivia Quiz

1. Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in 1991 covering the surrounding region in volcanic ash - up to what depth?
a) 2 m/6.6 ft
b) m/13.3 ft
c) 3 m/10 ft
d) 1 m/3.3 ft

2. What area in the borough of Camden, London, is a series of squares between Gower Street and High Holborn?
a) Hampstead
b) Richmond
c) Blackheath
d) Bloomsbury

3. Who wrote the words `A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.`?
a) Jonathan Swift
b) Alexander Pope
c) Kenneth Baker
d) William Wordsworth

4. Which right-wing nationalist organisation was formed in Sydney in 1941 to support the World War II defence of Australia by recalling Australian forces from overseas, even at the expense of the general war effort?
a) Sydney Protection Front
b) 1941 Movement
c) Australian Defensive
d) Australia First Movement

5. Who wrote the words `As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.`?
a) Charles Dickens
b) William Caxton
c) John Milton
d) Samuel Johnson

6. Who said `Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.`?
a) Nicolae Ceausescu
b) Nicolae Ceausescu
c) Joseph Stalin
d) Mao Zedong

7. Which river in northeastern Spain rises in the Cantabrian Mountains and flows some 800 km/500 mi Southeast to meet the Mediterranean Sea Southwest of Barcelona?
a) Sangonera
b) Ebro
c) Ter
d) Guadalete

8. On whose grave would you find the following epitaph `Good friend, for Jesu's sake forbear To dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.`?
a) Sir Walter Raleigh
b) Ben Jonson
c) William Shakespeare
d) François Villon

9. Who said `The whole world is in revolt. Soon there will be only five Kings left - the King of England, the King of Spades, the King of Clubs, the King of Hearts and the King of Diamonds.`?
a) King Farouk of Egypt
b) King Hussein ibn Talal
c) King Hussein ibn Ali
d) Gamal Abdel Nasser

10. Which German motor-racing driver won his first Grand Prix in Belgium in 1992, and his first World Drivers' Championship in 1994?
a) Gerhard Berger
b) Mika Hakkinen
c) Michele Alboreto
d) Michael Schumacher

11. Who wrote the words `No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled.`?
a) Christina Rossetti
b) William Shakespeare
c) Ernest Dowson
d) John Keats

12. What form of transport was Thrust 2, the vehicle used by Richard Noble to set a new world land-speed record in the Nevada Desert in 1983?
a) Stagecoach
b) Wind-powered sandyacht
c) Solar-powered pedalcar
d) Jet-propelled car

13. Who wrote the words `The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!`?
a) Lord Byron
b) Homer
c) Ovid
d) Gaius Valerius Catullus

14. What is the term which describes a system in Australia under which convicts were assigned to settlers as servants and labourers?
a) Coercion method
b) Detention system
c) Slavery
d) Assignment system

15. Who said `The British people have taken for themselves this motto - `Business carried on as usual during alterations on the map of Europe`.`?
a) Napoleon Bonaparte
b) William Pitt the Younger
c) Winston Churchill
d) The Duke of Wellington

16. What is the name of drama that aims to make its audience laugh, usually with a happy or amusing ending, as opposed to tragedy?
a) Comedy
b) Constructivism
c) Melodrama
d) Dialogue

17. What was the surname of the brothers Jakob and Wilhelm who made a collection of German fairy tales including `Hansel and Gretel` and `Rumpelstiltskin`?
a) Carroll
b) Andersen
c) Perrault
d) Grimm

18. Who wrote the words `Sweet are the uses of adversity, ... And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.`?
a) William Shakespeare
b) George Herbert
c) William Blake
d) John Clare

19. What was the site of the massacre in 1244 of the Albigenses; it was the infamous climax to the pope's `Albigensian Crusade`?
a) Le Puy
b) Limoges
c) Rodez
d) Montségur

20. Which legendary all-round English Test cricketer played for Somerset, Worcestershire, Durham, and England before retiring in 1993?
a) Mike Atherton
b) Ian Botham
c) Brian Lara
d) W G Grace

21. Which French general refused to accept Prime Minister Pétain's truce with the Germans and later became president of France?
a) Georges Pompidou
b) Paul Reynaud
c) Pierre Mauroy
d) Charles de Gaulle

22. Which county in southwestern England, named after the river running through it, was created in 1974 and then abolished in 1996?
a) Devon
b) Avon
c) Somerset
d) Dorset

23. What was the surname of the Yorkshire sisters Charlotte, Emily and, Anne. They were all novelist daughters of a parson?
a) Collins
b) Shelley
c) Austen
d) Brontë

24. Which Irish politician advocated violence to obtain Home Rule, was wrongly accused of being involved in the murder of Lord Cavendish, and was cited in a divorce case before resigning?
a) Patrick Pearce
b) Arthur Griffith
c) Charles Parnell
d) Daniel O'Connell

25. What is the name given to the gradual achievement of independence by former colonies of the European imperial powers?
a) Decolonisation
b) Colonisation
c) Imperialisation
d) Integration