The Ignoramus' Quiz

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.72

2010-11-09T10:13:00.001+05:30

1. Whose aircraft is known as 'Shepherd One'?

2. Under what name is the star cluster Pleidas known in Japan?

3. Which is the only member of the European Union to avoid the recent recession?

4. Which country is served by not one but two free-standing armies - named Artesh and Pasdaran?

5. Which organisation uses the slogan "America's Oldest Civil Rights Organization"?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.71

2010-08-30T18:21:00.009+05:30

1. Which is the only team to go through the 2010 Football World Cup undefeated?

2. 'Frostie' is the name of which famous publishing mascot?

3. Named after the German word for imagination, which soft drink was originally created in Nazi Germany due to the inavailability of Coca-Cola during World War II?

4. The Chinese and Japanese currency - Yuan and Yen - both mean the same thing in their respective languages. What?

5. In 2009, which country became the first to have an openly gay head of government?

For the answers, please visit: 10 things I didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.70

2010-06-07T21:08:00.001+05:30

1. In which war was the famous 'Keep Calm and Carry On' poster used?

2. How many countries are members of the G20 group?

3. Which famous device was initially named the Louisette or Louison?

4. Vicki Vale - one of Batman's love interests in the comics and movies - was based on which Hollywood actress?

5. How do physicists define the force equivalent to 1 newton?

For the answers, please visit: 10 things I didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.69

2010-04-13T08:36:00.002+05:30

1. Who is the only author to be published in 9 out of the 10 categories of the Dewey Decimal System of library classification?

2. The opening lines of which influential book read "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism"?

3. Which city used to be known in earlier days as Batmania?

4. How would you differentiate between a pond and a lake?

5. What was the maiden name of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin's mother?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.68

2010-03-21T18:04:00.002+05:30

1. Who is the only American mentioned in Adolf Hitler's “Mein Kampf”?

2. The name of which artistic style comes fom the Portuguese word for 'misshapen pearl'?

3. The residents of which city are referred to as Cariocas?

4. In Greek mythology, which hero is credited with the discovery of purple dye?

5. In which year did the last execution by guillotine take place in France?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.67

2009-12-27T20:48:00.003+05:30

1. Which popular brand was originally known as 'Chocolate Crisp'?

2. Who holds the honour of being Asia's first Nobel laureate?

3. What's common to the artists Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Gustav Klimt and Andy Warhol?

4. In the Paso Doble - a dance modelled after the Spanish bullfight - the leader of the dance plays the matador. What part does the follower typically play?

5. According to medieval legend, Britain is named after which mythical hero?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.66

2009-11-01T13:05:00.003+05:30

1. In the Biblical account of Genesis, what was the first task entrusted to Adam by God?

2. What is password aging?

3. According to long-standing protocol, which country always speaks first at the UN General Assembly?

4. What's musician Stanley Gayetsky's stage name?

5. Silent movie superstar Clara Bow was the original 'It' girl. How did she come to be referred as such?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.65

2009-08-16T20:02:00.004+05:30

1. What led to association of the leader of the Tour de France wearing a yellow jersey?

2. The Royal Marsden Hospital in the UK was the first hospital in the world to be dedicated to cancer. When was it founded?

3. In Nepal, who are referred to as "Lahures"?

4. What did Isaac Newton refer to as fluxions?

5. Who ruled Scotland between 1040 and 1057?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.64

2009-07-26T22:01:00.003+05:30

1. According to the CIA World Factbook, which are the only 3 countries in the world that do not use the metric system?

2. The name of which company means "Leave luck to heaven" in Japanese?

3. The price of every DVD produced includes a small royalty payment to which company?

4. US patent No. 5,255,452 covering a "system for allowing a shoe wearer to lean forwardly beyond his center of gravity by virtue of wearing a specially designed pair of shoes" was granted in 1993 to 3 people : Michael L. Bush, Dennis Tompkins and who?

5. Which cartoon character was named after a scat-style phrase at the end of Frank Sinatra's song 'Strangers in the Night'?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.63

2009-06-22T12:45:00.003+05:30

1. What is CS Lewis' middle name?

2. The name of which element literally means 'acid giver or begetter' in Greek?

3. Which company did Billy Durant found in 1908?

4. In research, what is the "Hawthorne Effect"?

5. Which hat gets its name from the title of an 1882 play by Victorien Sardou?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.62

2009-05-10T23:09:00.003+05:30

1. Name the only superhero comic to win the Hugo Award.

2. In what way is the Republic of Kalmykia - a federal subject of the Russian Federation - unique among European states?

3. Fill in the blanks: ______, ______, ______, ______ & umami.

4. In energy circles, what does the term 'Negawatt' refer to?

5. Who is the first Afro-American to appear solo on a circulating US coin?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.61

2009-03-23T00:25:00.004+05:30

1. What key feature was missing from the keyboard of the original Apple Macintosh?

2. In competitive cycling, what is the peloton?

3. Which is the only solar planet whose rotational axis is not tipped with reference to its orbital plane?

4. In China, which fictional charater is referred to as Ling Ling Qi?

5. If you travelled back in time to 1950s Britain and ordered the 'Italian Welsh Rarebit' what would you be served?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.60

2009-03-09T00:35:00.002+05:30

1. Who is the only US president to have been the head of a trade union?

2. Which English ruler coined the phrase 'warts and all' while insisting that his portrait artist paint him as he truly was?

3. Which is the world's largest printed publication to be distributed for free?

4. In a car, where would you find the chimsil?

5. Which ubiquitous brand was initially named BackRub by its creators - ostensibly because of the way it worked?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.59

2009-02-22T00:54:00.005+05:30

1. How does Google's Chrome browser gets its name?

2. Which monument was the first to supersede the Great Pyramid of Giza as the tallest man-made structure in the world?

3. Which English word meaning homeland (and used mostly by British and French soldiers in WWI) is derived from the Urdu word for foreign?

4. Apart from the profile itself, what other major change can one find between coins of different British monarchs?

5. Which US President was born on the same day as Charles Darwin?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.58

2009-01-11T23:07:00.003+05:30

1. Carrots were originally purple in colour. How did they come to acquire their present orange colour?

2. Which iconic brand gets its name from the combination of the founder's mother's name and the French word for 'stainless steel'? (The latter should also serve as a hint to the product itself.)

3. Which game owes its beginnings to the objects originally designed to keep track of dice throws?

4. Who was the first person to be knighted for scientific achievement?

5. Name the largest country in the African continent.

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.57

2008-11-30T22:36:00.003+05:30

1. Which country is the world's biggest exporter?

2. Moon's South Pole is entirely contained within a crater named for a noted, but unsuccessful, explorer of Earth's South Pole. Who?

3. Upon entering the arena, competitors of which sport stomp their feet, toss salt on the ground and rinse their mouths?

4. What are the names given to the two decks of the chinese abacus?

5. The English village of Tinsley Green in West Sussex holds the annual world championsips of which sport?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.56

2008-10-12T23:11:00.003+05:30

1. Of what height should a hill be to be called a mountain?

2. The original Vespa was named after the Italian word for 'wasp.' Why?

3. What type of law is a Blue Law?

4. Inscribed on which structure is the poem 'The Mighty Task Is Done' written by its architect Joseph Strauss?

5. Which singer songwriter is known as "the mother of the MP3'?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.55

2008-08-31T23:34:00.001+05:30

1. What's the collective name for the Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian and Antoninus Pius?

2. Though commonly misused to describe heavy rain, what meteorological phenomenon does monsoon actually refer to?

3. What honour was bestowed upon Benito Mussolini in 1923 and later withdrwan in 1940?

4. Which popular Web 2.0 service actually started out as an online multiplayer puzzle-based game called Game Neverending?

5. What's counterknowledge?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.54

2008-06-10T11:02:00.002+05:30

1. The original name of this product was 'Offiziersmesser.' US soldiers, who couldn't pronounce that, gave it its current name. Which product?

2. What are the Canary Islands named after?

3. The Spanish city of Granada is named after a fruit. Which one?

4. The original name of which famous monument was 'Rauza-i-munavvara' or 'The Illumined Tomb'?

5. Which popular pastime was originally named 'tibromania'?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.53

2008-06-03T10:24:00.003+05:30

1. Madame Tussauds is currently located on Marylebone Road - having moved its premises there in 1884. Where was it located before that?

2. Whose official residence is Number One Observatory Circle?

3. Which is the most saline body of water on Earth?

4. In what language was The New Testament originally written?

5. Who wrote the first James Bond book not to be authored by Ian Fleming?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.52

2008-05-27T10:33:00.002+05:30

1. In US politics, what's a Sherman Pledge?

2. What word describes the method of slaughtering animals conforming to Jewish law?

3. Outside of Africa, which country has the most number of people of African descent?

4. Wenger is one of the two official manufacturers of a certain iconic product. Name the other better-known one.

5. Observed on 12th June, what does Loving Day (unofficially) celebrate?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.51

2008-05-19T02:51:00.002+05:30

1. How did motorcycle stuntman Evel Knievel get the nickname 'Evel'?

2. How did sharpshooters come to be known as 'snipers'?

3. Soviet training jets had a limited range by design. Why?

4. In the 17th century, maritime law dictated that a country's nautical reach extended 3 miles from the shore. Why 3 miles?

5. Where did most of the funding for Richard Nixon's first congressional run come from?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.50

2008-05-11T10:32:00.003+05:30

1. Tornadoes occur most frequently in the United States. Which country comes second?

2. Which was the world's first commercial jet airliner?

3. In 1858, who became the first female fellow of the Statistical Society of London?

4. In poker, if you have 'the nuts', what are you holding?

5. Which now common practice (among nations) was once shunned as the 'sin of David'?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.49

2008-04-07T10:25:00.002+05:30

1. What's the maximum number of people one can mark as friends on Facebook?

2. Who is Britain's wealthiest sports person?

3. The name Blighty - English troops' slang for England - is derived from which language?

4. Which is the oldest football club in the world?

5. Whom was Marilyn Monroe due to marry when she was found dead?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.

The Ignoramus' Quiz No.48

2008-03-31T21:08:00.002+05:30

1. If you are practicing Mithridatism, what are you doing?

2. Warner Bros' Looney Tunes series was a blatant rip-off (both in content and name) of a Disney Series. What was the Disney series called?

3. In film-making, what do Foley artists do?

4. Arbed from Luxembourg, Usinor from France and Aceralia from Spain merged to form which company?

5. In what way does 'Fischer Chess' differ from standard chess?

For the answers, please visit: ten things i didn't know until last week.