Trivia Quiz

1. In which year did Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon discover Tutankhamen's tomb?
a) 1922
b) 1928
c) 1916
d) 1934

2. Which famous small island is in San Francisco Bay, California, USA?
a) Farallon
b) San Miguel Island
c) Alcatraz
d) Santa Rosa Island

3. Who wrote the words `Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.`?
a) W H Davies
b) Dylan Thomas
c) Robert Frost
d) Dorothy Parker

4. In which team game can players stop the ball with their hands and kick it if they are a goalkeeper, but never hold it or pick it up?
a) Hockey
b) Soccer
c) Lacrosse
d) Netball

5. What was the nickname of William Cody who toured the USA and Europe with a famous `Wild West` show?
a) Davy Crockett
b) Chief Sitting Bull
c) Wild Bill Hickok
d) Buffalo Bill

6. Who wrote the words `Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.`?
a) Emily Dickinson
b) Christina Rossetti
c) Anna Akhmatova
d) Ernest Dowson

8. The Korean War began in 1950. In which year did it end?
a) 1954
b) 1956
c) 1951
d) 1953

9. In which country does the Indus rise?
a) Nepal
b) Tibet
c) Bangladesh
d) Bhutan

11. Which Labour Party leader, twice British Prime Minister in the 1960s and 70s, was famous for smoking a pipe?
a) Neil Kinnock
b) John Smith
c) Ramsay Macdonald
d) Harold Wilson

12. Which Essex cricketer captained England on 34 occasions and became one of the select few to score 100 centuries in first-class cricket?
a) Graham Gooch
b) Mike Gatting
c) Ian Botham
d) David Gower

13. Who wrote the words `Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman pass by!`?
a) Alfred, Lord Tennyson
b) W B Yeats
c) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
d) Thomas Malory

15. Of which country is Katmandu the capital?
a) Laos
b) Bhutan
c) Bangladesh
d) Nepal

16. In which country did the English poets Keats and Shelley both die?
a) Spain
b) Greece
c) Portugal
d) Italy

17. What 1923 peace settlement was agreed between Greece and Turkey after Turkey refused to accept the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres 1920?
a) Lateran Treaty
b) Treaty of Lausanne
c) Treaty of Breda
d) Treaty of Brétigny

18. Who wrote the words `Imperious Caesar, dead, and turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.`?
a) William Shakespeare
b) Juvenal
c) Alexander Pope
d) Robert Browning

19. Which international aid agency is known as the Red Crescent in Muslim countries?
a) Oxfam
b) Save the Children
c) The Red Cross
d) Christian Aid

21. Who became king of Scotland in 1040 when he killed Duncan I, but was himself killed by Malcolm, Duncan's son in 1057?
a) Alexander I
b) Donald Bane
c) Robert I
d) Macbeth

23. What is the name of the autonomous district of the Russian Federation, which was part of the Krasnodar Province from 1936?
a) Moscow
b) St Petersburg
c) Adygea
d) Kiev

25. What was held in Seoul in 1988, in Barcelona in 1992, and in Atlanta in 1996?
a) Baseball World Series
b) Olympic Games
c) Formula 1 Grand Prix
d) Football World Cup

26. What is the title of Kenneth Grahame's book, on which A A Milne based his play Toad of Toad Hall?
a) Poop Poop
b) The Wraggle-taggle Gipsies
c) The Wind In the Willows
d) Duck's Ditty

27. Which duke of Addis Abbaba succeeded Mussolini as Italian prime minister in 1943?
a) Bettino Craxi
b) Aldo Moro
c) Giuseppe Garibaldi
d) Pietro Badoglio

28. What is the name of the colourless, unsweetened Greek liqueur flavoured with aniseed?
a) Ouzo
b) Kirsch
c) Raki
d) Slivovitz

29. Which group of islands is separated from Europe by the North Sea, the Strait of Dover, and the English Channel?
a) The British Isles
b) The Channel Isles
c) The Farne Isles
d) The Scilly Isles

30. Waterloo was the scene of a famous battle fought in 1815. In which country is it?
a) Austria
b) Belgium
c) Germany
d) Spain

31. In Australia, which series of events in 1975 centred on the dismissal of the Whitlam Labour government by the governor general?
a) 1975 crisis
b) Constitutional crisis
c) Governmental crisis
d) Whitlam crisis

33. In which capital city are the ancient remains of the Pantheon, the Forum, and the Coliseum?
a) Constantinople
b) Cairo
c) Athens
d) Rome

35. Boston Massachusetts has a famous baseball team. What is its name?
a) The Red Sox
b) The Black Caps
c) The Greenbacks
d) The Blue Shirts

36. Which fictitious private detective and his assistant Dr. Watson, were created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
a) Dick Barton
b) Perry Mason
c) Sherlock Holmes
d) Maigret

37. In which type of Japanese drama do men take all the parts ... in the interests of propriety?
a) Haniwa
b) Kabuki
c) No
d) Kano

38. Which bloody but indecisive battle of the American Civil War was fought 17 Sept 1862 at Antietam Creek, off the Potomac River?
a) Battle of Potomac
b) Battle of 1862
c) Battle of Yorktown
d) Battle of Antietam

39. In which US state are the towns of Fairbanks and Anchorage?
a) Alaska
b) Florida
c) Rhode Island
d) Kentucky

40. What US light machine gun used for infantry support was adopted by the US Army 1917 and was standard issue until the early 1950s?
a) Benet-Mercie gun
b) Bren gun
c) Becker gun
d) Browning automatic rifle

41. Of which range of English hills is Coombe Hill near Wendover, Buckinghamshire, the highest point?
a) Cheviots
b) Peak District
c) Chilterns
d) Cotswolds

42. Which French author wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days?
a) Anthony Trollope
b) Walter de la Mare
c) Victor Hugo
d) Jules Verne

43. Name the Swiss artist who was a founder of the Blaue Reiter group in Germany 1911-12.
a) Paul Klee
b) Alberto Giacometti
c) Le Corbusier
d) Mark Chagall

44. Which is the country with the biggest population in the world at well over one billion?
a) Russia
b) Nigeria
c) USA
d) China

45. Which long river, said to be the dirtiest in Europe, has its source in Switzerland and its mouth at the North Sea in the Netherlands?
a) Seine
b) Rhine
c) Danube
d) Rhone

46. What is the name of the main system of writing for the blind?
a) Database
b) Braille
c) Shorthand
d) Morse

47. Which city was once known as Constantinople?
a) Istanbul
b) Tehran
c) Zanzibar
d) Agadir

48. Who said `A good general rule is to state that the bouquet is better than the taste, and vice versa.`?
a) Stephen Potter
b) Keith Floyd
c) Clement Freud
d) Baron Philippe de Rothschild

49. What is thrown with a flick of the wrist and caught by another, in the game played by members of the World Flying Disc Federation?
a) Curling stones
b) Cricket balls
c) Boomerangs
d) Frisbees

50. Which British trust was founded 1895 for the preservation of land and buildings of historic interest or beauty?
a) Rambler's Association
b) English Heritage
c) Countryside Protection League
d) National Trust