Trivia Quiz

2. What was the name of the autobiography of the US left-wing writer Richard Wright, published 1945, which gives a vivid and harrowing account of a black boy's experience of growing up in the USA?
a) Roots
b) Black Boy
c) To Kill a Mockingbird
d) The Catcher in the Rye

3. What is the highest point in England's Peak District?
a) Striding Edge
b) Pen-y-Ghent
c) Kinder Scout
d) Ben Nevis

4. Which of the following is a river in East Asia?
a) Nile
b) Euphrates
c) Tigris
d) Amur

5. What former region on the east coast of the Baltic Sea comprises most of present-day Latvia and Estonia?
a) Livonia
b) Laois
c) Cavan
d) Nova Scotia

7. Ralph Ellison wrote a novel about the problems of a black man in American society. What is its title?
a) Flesh and Soul
b) Black Man, White World
c) Invisible Man
d) Shadow and Act

8. In 1497 Vasco da Gama reached Natal in South Africa and in 1643 Capt W Mynars reached Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. On which date?
a) February 14th
b) October 31st
c) April 1st
d) December 25th

9. Which president ended the US participation in the Vietnam War?
a) Jimmy Carter
b) Richard Nixon
c) Lyndon B Johnson
d) Gerald Ford

10. What is the nickname for a US infantry soldier in the two world wars, especially World War I?
a) Hoplite
b) Doughboy
c) GI
d) Dragoon

11. The US Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery was made in 1863, but could not be enforced until 1865. What prevented its enforcement?
a) The Mexican War
b) The Depression
c) Disastrous storms and flooding
d) The American Civil War

13. Who wrote `The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.`?
a) Alan Sillitoe
b) Arnold Wesker
c) Sebastian Coe
d) Keith Waterhouse

15. Which Scottish village is supposedly named after the Dutchman John De Groot?
a) Gretna
b) Greenock
c) John o'Groats
d) Johnson Lea

17. Who said `I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning.`?
a) Izaak Walton
b) John Evelyn
c) Ben Jonson
d) Samuel Pepys

18. What western part of the Atlantic Ocean lies between the southern coast of North America and the northern coasts of South America?
a) Caribbean Sea
b) Tasman Sea
c) Coral Sea
d) Baffin Bay

19. What is the name for the members of the nonconformist Christian movement founded by John Wesley?
a) Mormons
b) Evangelists
c) Baptists
d) Methodists

20. Which great charter granted by King John, was signed at Runnymede in 1215?
a) Bill of Rights
b) Divine Right of Kings
c) Book of English Law
d) Magna Carta

21. In which country were 1,524 people killed by a cloud of poisonous gas after an underwater explosion in 1986?
a) Chad
b) Cameroon
c) Ghana
d) Liberia

22. What is the word for a letter written as a poem. It is also used to describe 21 New Testament books, letters to members of various churches, of which 13 were written by Paul?
a) Manuscript
b) Epistle
c) Missive
d) Scripture

23. What is the name for the art and practice of mountain climbing?
a) Mountaineering
b) Orienteering
c) Curling
d) Rambling

24. In World War I, which British attack took place on 7-15 June 1917 on a German-held Belgian village and ridge in West Flanders?
a) Battle of Metz
b) Battle of Messines
c) Battle of Milne Bay
d) Battle of Midway

25. Who said `Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen.`?
a) Auberon Waugh
b) Enoch Powell
c) Compton Mackenzie
d) Kingsley Amis

26. What is the name of the industrial city on Honshu Island, Japan, and also that of a motorcycle manufactured there?
a) Yamaha
b) Honda
c) Suzuki
d) Kawasaki

27. Who said `Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.`?
a) James Matthew Barrie
b) Niccolò Machiavelli
c) Phineas Barnum
d) P G Wodehouse

28. How much of his ten-year reign did Richard the Lionheart spend in England?
a) Eight years
b) Six months
c) One year
d) Two years

29. Which midlands city is associated with Lady Godiva?
a) Birmingham
b) Cheltenham
c) Coventry
d) Stratford-upon-Avon

30. `The Great White Shark` is the nickname of which golfer?
a) Seve Ballesteros
b) Jack Nicklaus
c) Arnold Palmer
d) Greg Norman

32. Which American state was bought from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867?
a) New Mexico
b) Hawaii
c) Alaska
d) California

33. Emperor Hirohito of Japan died in 1989 aged 88. Until his death, he was the longest reigning monarch in the world. When did he come to the throne?
a) 1943
b) 1946
c) 1926
d) 1936

34. What is the highest-rank of a naval officer?
a) Captain
b) Marine
c) Admiral
d) Petty officer

35. Which of the following novels was written by Joseph Conrad in 1900?
a) Lord Jim
b) The Secret Agent
c) Typhoon
d) Nostromo

36. Situated in the Karakoram range of mountains, which mountain is the second highest in the world at 8,611 m/28,261 ft?
a) Kilimanjaro
b) K2
c) Ketone
d) Everest

37. What was the name of the empire ruled by the Turks from 1453 to 1922?
a) Roman Empire
b) Carthaginian Empire
c) Ottoman Empire
d) Mongol Empire

38. In which city could you cross the Jacques Cartier Bridge?
a) Ottawa
b) Paris
c) Marseille
d) Montréal

39. What was the alliance between Scotland and France that lasted from the end of the 13th century until 1560, when Protestantism displaced Catholicism as the dominant faith in Scotland?
a) Auld Alliance
b) Alliance of Scotland
c) Scottish French Alliance
d) Catholic Alliance

40. What is the main ingredient in the German dish sauerkraut?
a) Beetroot
b) Pickled cabbage
c) Onion
d) Potato

42. Which city, the Austrian capital, is known for music and opera?
a) Zurich
b) Strasbourg
c) Salzburg
d) Vienna

44. Australian Capital Territory is enclosed by which state?
a) South Australia
b) New South Wales
c) Victoria
d) Queensland

45. Which river of northern France, length 282 km/175 mi, gives its name to a département?
a) Allier
b) Ebro
c) Aisne
d) Garonne

46. What is the name of unenclosed wasteland, forest, and pasture used in common by the community at large?
a) Farmland
b) Moorland
c) Private land
d) Common land

47. Who wrote the words `I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills.`?
a) William Wordsworth
b) Percy Bysshe Shelley
c) Alfred, Lord Tennyson
d) T S Eliot

48. Which witty man of the theatre wrote plays and revues, composed musicals and songs, many of which he acted in and performed himself, from 1923 till his death?
a) Nöel Coward
b) Laurence Olivier
c) John Lennon
d) Andrew Lloyd Webber

50. Which ancient town in northeastern Italy is at the head of the Adriatic Sea?
a) Aquileia
b) Naples
c) Gallipoli
d) Anzio