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My quiz from the October 2014 meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area Quiz Club.
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BAQC October Quiz
Kaushik Ramajayam
The Rules• Infinite bounce, no pounce.• 10 points for a direct. Bonus answers,
where indicated, are worth 5 points.• Partial points at QM’s discretion.• No negatives throughout the quiz, so
please guess freely!
On 11 April 1909, 66 families gathered on a desolate sand dune to parcel out about twelve acres of land that they had bought on their behalf by a group.
The division was performed by lottery, using 120 sea shells, half of them white and half of them grey. The members' names were written on the white shells and the plot numbers on the grey shells. A boy drew names from one box of shells and a girl drew plot numbers from the second box.
This gathering is considered the official date of the establishment of _______ (FITB). For bonus points, identify the group, whose name translates to “homestead”.
Next slide: Visual.
Answer
Answer: The city - Tel Aviv, IsraelThe group - Ahuzat Bayit
In ancient Rome, the senate handed out an rare punishment called ________ ________, reserved for particularly heinous crimes which had brought dishonor to the state. This punishment was hard to carry out then, and would be almost impossible to carry out today (a fact that hasn’t deterred many lawmakers). Among the few people to have officially received this punishment were Sejanus, who had conspired against emperor Tiberius, and Livilla, Sejanus’ accomplice.
Ancient Greece had its own version of this punishment, and one was given to Herostratus, who burnt down the Temple of Artemis.
Curiously, in some cultures, the same punishment was bestowed as an extraordinary honor (a literary example is in H. Rider Haggard’s “King Solomon’s Mines”, where this honor is given to Allan Quatermain, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain John Good).
Identify the punishment.
Answer
Answer: “Damnatio Memoriae” or “Damnation of Memory” - the offender’s name would be struck off every legal document, plaque or monument in the state. Needless to say, this is much more difficult to accomplish in the internet era.
Pictured: Mario Costeja González, the plaintiff in the 2014 case before the EU Court of Justice that established “the right to be forgotten” by internet search engines.
The following is a letter written by Olga Huckins to the editor of the Boston Herald in 1958. Huckins also sent a copy of this letter to her friend X, who became deeply concerned and started work on what would become Y.
Identify X and Y.
Next slide: The letter (some words blanked out).
THE BOSTON HERALDJanuary 29, 1958
EVIDENCE OF HAVOC BY ___ ________
To the Editor of The Herald: [...]The "harmless" _____ hath killed seven of our lovely songbirds outright. We picked up three dead bodies the next morning right by the door. They were birds that had lived close to us, trusted us, and built their nests in our trees year after year. The next day three were scattered around the bird bath. (I had emptied it and scrubbed it after the _______ but YOU CAN NEVER KILL ______.) On the following day one robin dropped suddenly from a branch in our woods. We were too heartsick to hunt for other corpses. All of these birds died horribly, and in the same way. Their bills were gaping open, and their splayed claws were drawn up to their breasts in agony. [...]___ ________ were it is not needed or wanted is inhuman, indemocratic [sic], and probably unconstitutional. For those of us who stand helplessly on the tortured earth, it is intolerable.
--OLGA OWENS HUCKINS Duxbury
Answer
Answer: Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring” to expose the ill effects of widespread use of pesticides on animal and human life, which led to the ban on DDT and inspired the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Starting in 2013, the Canadian company X has been placing vending machines containing their product at various locations in Europe (some were even installed in Sochi).
The machines can only be operated by scanning a valid Canadian passport. This has been interpreted as a reference to X’s famous tagline “I am Canadian”, which it had retired in 2005.
Identify X and the product.
Next slide: Visual.
Answer
Answer: X = Molson Coors, product = Canadian Lager.
● In January 1943, a part of Ottawa Civic Hospital was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial (i.e. international territory) by the Canadian government.
● In 1945, Suite 212 of Claridge's Hotel in London was temporarily ceded as Yugoslav territory.
● In December 1927, Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts was temporarily declared to be Thai territory.
Why?
#GanapathyStylz
Answer
Answer: To establish the proper citizenship of royal heirs of various countries who were born there.
● Ottawa Civic Hospital - Princess Margriet of the Netherlands.● Suite 212 of Claridge's Hotel - Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia.● Mount Auburn Hospital - Bhumibol Adulyadej, present King of Thailand.
_______ ____ was prime minister of Britain from 1830 – 1834. During this time, he was responsible for two of the most significant pieces of legislation of his era.
The first was the Reform Act of 1832, which eliminated “rotten boroughs” controlled by wealthy patrons and ushered in the modern democratic system of election to the House of Commons. He followed this up in 1833 with the abolition of slavery throughout the British empire. Shockingly, at the end of his groundbreaking four-year term, he retired from public life altogether.
However, he is most remembered today for something completely different. He once received some _____ as a diplomatic gift, and liked it so much that he persuaded British ____ ____ to recreate it locally. The result was a popular success, and the product was subsequently named after him.
Identify the person and product. The blanks above are not identical.Next slide: Visual.
Next slide: Oblique clue.
Answer
Answer: Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey. The product is of course, Earl Grey tea.
In 1989, North Korea hosted the “World Festival of Youth and Students”, a “cultural exchange” event. During this event, Lim Su-kyung, a hardline communist activist from South Korea, illegally crossed into the North specifically to participate in the festival. She toured the country, giving speeches critical of the South Korean government.
She soon caught the attention of Eternal President Kim Il Sung, who jumped at the chance to use a South Korean who was willing to badmouth her home country.
She was soon dubbed the “Flower of Reunification”, and journeyed throughout the North and back to the South (where she was promptly arrested and sentenced to five years in prison).
Her arrest its aftermath in South Korea were broadcast all over North Korean television, making her a martyr for the socialist cause. Unfortunately for Kim Il Sung, this propaganda move backfired rather badly. Why?
Next slide: Visuals.
Answer
Answer
In South Korea, she was given a proper trial and legal sentence (something North Koreans didn’t think was possible), instead of just being sent to a Gulag as was the norm in North Korea.
The propaganda effort backfired because after videos of her trial and sentencing were broadcast in North Korea, there was a marked increase in the number of people attempting to cross the border into the country that had an actual legal system.
Many escapees since then have specifically pointed to the images of South Korea they saw (cars, women wearing jeans, etc.) in these videos, and the fact that Lim Su-Kyung received an actual trial as their motivation for leaving North Korea.
In the 1980s, Barry Marshall, an obscure Australian medical researcher was trying to prove that X is caused by Y, a notion that was widely ridiculed by his scientific peers.
After several failed experiments, he grew increasingly desperate to prove the connection. Finally, he performed a rather unorthodox (and controversial) scientific experiment that yielded positive results. He went on to win the Nobel prize for Medicine or Physiology in 2005 for this work.
Identify X and the experiment (no part points). Bonus points for Y.
Answer
AnswerX = Stomach ulcers.Y = Helicobacter pylori (H. Pylori).
Conventional wisdom at the time was that ulcers were caused by stress, not bacteria (because the latter couldn’t possibly survive stomach acids).
Marshall believed otherwise, and tried several unsuccessful experiments to induce ulcers in animal test subjects. In desperation, he finally drank a culture of H. Pylori himself.
He developed stomach ulcers three days later, yielding the first scientific validation of H. Pylori as the cause for ulcers.
In September of 2014, Blizzard Entertainment announced an easter egg in their MMORPG, World of Warcraft, to be released in November. In the Warlords of Draenor expansion, you can visit an island with a ____. ___ it and a _____ pops out, flaunting his "infinite cosmic power". Why did Blizzard include this special feature?
Note: some giveaway words blanked out.
Next slide: Visual.
Answer
Answer: Special tribute to Robin Williams (an avid gamer and WoW player), after an online petition from fans.
In the Warlords of Draenor expansion, you can visit an island with a lamp. Rub it and a genie pops out, flaunting his "infinite cosmic power".
British inventor Sir Robert Watson-Watt pioneered the development of _____, a technology that was widely used by Britain in WW II to gain a decisive advantage over the Axis powers.
A few years after the war ended, Watson-Watt was visiting Canada with his wife, when he was involved in a type of incident that is fairly common today. Amused by the incident, he penned the following humorous poem (next slide).
What was the incident? Specific answer required.
Pity Sir Robert Watson-Watt,strange target of this _____ plotAnd thus, with others I can mention,the victim of his own invention.His magical all-seeing eyeenabled cloud-bound planes to flybut now by some ironic twistit spots the ________ ________and bites, no doubt with legal wit,the hand that once created it.
Oh Frankenstein who lost controlof monsters man created whole,with fondest sympathy regardone more hoist with his petard.As for you courageous boffinswho may be nailing up your coffins,particularly those whose missiondeals in the realm of nuclear fission,pause and contemplate fate’s counter plotand learn with us what’s Watson-Watt.
Answer
Answer: He was pulled over for speeding by a Canadian policeman using a radar gun (a technology that he invented). He was fined $12.50.
Pity Sir Robert Watson-Watt,
strange target of this radar plot
And thus, with others I can mention,
the victim of his own invention.
His magical all-seeing eye
enabled cloud-bound planes to fly
but now by some ironic twist
it spots the speeding motorist
[...]
Connect (1 of 2)
Vasa, a Swedish warship built between 1626–1628, and at the time, the most powerfully armed warship in the world, with 64 bronze cannons.
Connect (2 of 2)
The Mars Climate Orbiter, a 338 kilogram probe launched by NASA in 1998 to study the Martian climate, atmosphere, and surface changes.
Specific answer required.
Answer
Answer: Both failed due to errors resulting from the use of incorrect measuring units.
Vasa’s carpenters used a total of four rulers to measure the ship while building it - two of these were in Swedish feet, which were divided into twelve inches. The other two were in Amsterdam feet, which had eleven inches in a foot. The ship’s weight was unevenly distributed as a result, and it sank after traveling less than a mile.
The Mars Climate Orbiter failed because one piece of ground software produced results in a United States customary unit ("English"), while a second system that used those results expected them to be in metric units. As a result, one system calculated thrust in pound-seconds and the other interpreted these values in newton-seconds. As a result, the craft was inserted into orbit at the wrong altitude, and quickly burned up due to friction from atmospheric resistance.
Engineers - making the same mistakes since 1628.
In recent years, this product logo has become a cultural staple, having made its way to t-shirts, iPhone cases and (possibly for shock value) water bottles. The company that makes this product was founded by a Vietnamese native, who commissioned a street artist in Vietnam to create a logo that utilized his Chinese zodiac symbol.
After emigrating to the United States, he established his company on Spring Street in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, manufacturing and selling this product with the same logo. Today, his company sells over $60 million worth of this product each year. The identity of the street artist remains unknown.
Identify the product and the logo (no part points).
Answer
Answer: The Sriracha hot sauce Rooster.
Left: David Tran, founder of Huy Fong Foods, manufacturers of Sriracha hot sauce.
Connect.
Answer
Answer: Dr. Abraham Van Helsing from Dracula
Van Helsing is named after Elsinore castle from Hamlet. Elsinore in Dutch is “Helsingor”, or island of Helsing. Bram Stoker named his character Van Helsing due to his strong and impenetrable personality, much like the walls of the castle.
Peter Cushing played the most iconic version of the character on film, in Dracula (1958).
Hugh Jackman played the character Gabriel Van Helsing in Van Helsing (2004), loosely inspired by the same character.
Switzerland is famously hard to invade, given its natural mountainous terrain. In addition, the Swiss policy of mandatory military training (since adopted by Israel) for every able-bodied male has created an army of millions, ready to take up arms in the event of a foreign incursion.
However, with typical over-preparedness, the Swiss have set up another, non-personnel deterrent that is guaranteed to make any invading army think twice. What?
Answer
Answer: The whole country is wired with explosives.
At least 3000 points in its countryside, mostly bridges, railroads, tunnels and highways are wired with explosives, that the Swiss army can use to cut off invading armies.
In addition, they have hollowed out parts of mountains, where their armies and people can hide and launch counterattacks.
You really don’t want to invade Switzerland.
One of a series of comics lampooning a particular product and its “killer feature”. Following the publication of these comics, “egg freckles” became a derisive nickname for the product itself, which was discontinued soon afterward. The comic strip is obvious, but what was the product being lampooned, and its “killer feature”? No part points.
Answer
Answer: Apple Newton MessagePad, handwriting recognition.The artist is of course, Garry Trudeau of Doonesbury.
X was an English cricketer, who captained England in one test against South Africa, winning the match by five wickets. He later changed careers, moved to Los Angeles, and rose to Hollywood stardom, playing mostly stereotypical English gentlemen not unlike himself in movies like The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940).
He is the only English Test captain to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
X is also famous for setting up the Hollywood Cricket Club, and recruiting both young and old British expatriate actors to play, including Laurence Olivier, David Niven, Boris Karloff and Nigel Bruce. Their primary playing arena (the north corner of Griffith Park in L.A.) is now named after him.
Identify X.
Answer
Answer: C. Aubrey Smith
In 1952, UNESCO published a special report authored by Philippe Bauchard, a French press and radio specialist and professor. The report was strongly critical of ________, a sentiment that was fast gaining popularity at the time, and would culminate in the 1954 publication of another book X by a different author. Here is an excerpt from the report:
The strong attraction of the ________ myth is probably the most marked feature of the modern children’s press. In all probability, this subject of the undefeated, ________, eternal, etc. hero satisfies a deep-seated popular instinct. ________ are to be found in all traditional folktales, from the medieval verse-chronicles to Oriental legends. Moreover, the ________ has always had a particular appeal for those whose own lives lack the unexpected, the violent or the exciting. There is some truth in the argument that the “________” formula acts as a safety valve, although its value for that purpose, both on the screen and in the press, has on occasion been deliberately exaggerated.
Fill in the blanks. All blanks are identical. For bonus points, identify the 1954 book X or its author.
Answer
Answer: Superman.
Bonus: The 1954 book was “Seduction of the Innocent” by Frederic Wertham.
The book accused comics of encouraging juvenile delinquency, glorifying violence and gore, and promoting a homosexual agenda.
The controversy created by the book resulted in Senate hearings, and the establishment of the Comics Code Authority (CCA).
_______ ______ is an unfortunate name both in real life and in literature. ● A _______ ______ was involved in the Spithead and Nore mutinies in 1797 and subsequently
hanged.● In Edgar Allan Poe's “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” (1838), _______ ______ is
a mutinous sailor on the Grampus. After the ship capsizes in a storm, the survivors draw lots upon _______ ______’s suggestion to kill one of them to sustain the others. However, it is _______ ______ who gets cannibalized.
● In 1846, the Francis Spaight floundered at sea. Apprentice _______ ______ was among the twenty-one drowning victims of that incident, though there were no cases of cannibalism.
● In 1884, the yacht Mignonette sank. Four people survived and drifted in a lifeboat before one of them, the cabin boy _______ ______, was killed by the others for food.
A character in a 2001 novel is named _______ ______, possibly as a tribute to the sordid history of people associated with the name.
Fill in the blanks (all names are identical) and identify the 2001 novel (no part points).
Answer
Answer: Richard Parker
Jean __________ was an illustrious soldier in the French army. Starting as a private in the Régiment de Royal-Marine in 1780, he rose quickly through the ranks, successively being appointed colonel (1792), brigadier (1794), Minister of War (1798) and one of the 18 Marshals of the First French Empire in 1804. Incidentally, in 1808, as governor of the Hanseatic towns, he was to have directed the expedition against ______, but the plan was canceled because of a shortage of transports and the defection of the Spanish contingent.
In 1810, he was about to enter upon his new post as governor of Rome, when he opted for a change of career. The rest is (literally) history. Fill in the blanks.
Answer
Answer: Jean Bernadotte
He was offered the position of heir-presumptive to King Charles XIII of Sweden, whose family was in danger of dying out.
He accepted, and later ascended the throne as King Charles XIV John of Sweden, and later, Norway.
His descendants (the House of Bernadotte) continue to rule Sweden to this day.
Loris Malaguzzi was an Italian elementary school teacher who lived and taught in the northern region of Italy. After WW II, as the surrounding villages started to set up new municipal elementary schools, he started to develop a new theory of elementary school education. In 1950, he established the Municipal Psycho-Pedagogical Medical Center in the neighboring town of ______ ______, with the goal of promoting a new style of elementary school education centered around these principles:
● Children must have some control over the direction of their learning;● Children must be able to learn through experiences of touching, moving, listening,
seeing, and hearing;● Children have a relationship with other children and with material items in the
world that children must be allowed to explore and● Children must have endless ways and opportunities to express themselves.
How is this system known today?
Answer
Answer: The Reggio Emilia education system, which takes its name from the town in which the institute was founded.
On 27 February 1933, Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch council communist and unemployed bricklayer set fire to a certain building in city X. The fire was eventually contained, and he was caught at the scene along with four of his co-conspirators, Ernst Torgler, Georgi Dimitrov, Blagoi Popov, and Vasil Tanev.
The incident and the ensuing trial of the arsonists was front-page news across much of Europe at the time. Eventually, van der Lubbe was sentenced to death after admitting to starting the fire. He was guillotined in January 1934.
This incident is remembered today for the remarkable chain of events it set into motion. What happened as a result of this incident? Also identify the building in question (no part points).
Answer
Answer: The Reichstag, Berlin.
The “Reichstag Fire” incident was the trigger that the newly elected Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler used to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree, by raising fears of a Communist plot against Germany. The decree allowed him to suspend most civil liberties, suppress opposing views, and eventually assume absolute power in Germany.
This word is used today to mean “platitude” or an overused phrase that suggests a lack of sincerity. The origin of the word is in pharmacology, derived from a class of compounds that used to be prescribed as tranquilizers in the 20th and early 21st century. Its modern usage implies that the person speaking is boring and capable of inducing sleep in the listener.
What word?
Answer
AnswerBromide.
Sir Walter Raleigh first brought the ______ to Ireland in 1598 and planted it at his estate at Myrtle Grove, Youghal, near Cork.
According to legend, he made a gift of the ______ plant to Queen Elizabeth I. In honor of the gift, the court nobility were invited to a royal banquet featuring ______ in every course. Unfortunately, the cooks being unfamiliar with the plant, tossed out the ______ and brought to the royal table a dish of its boiled stems and leaves (which are poisonous), which promptly made all the guests ill.
As a consequence, the ______ was banned from the court for 100 years, and by association, from the rest of England. It wasn’t until it started to gain popularity in neighbouring France and Spain that the ban was rescinded.
Fill in the blanks.
Answer
AnswerThe potato.
In 1963, Sweden declared Dagen H (H day) to be 3 September 1967. Since the declaration was unpopular (83% of Swedish citizens opposed it), the Swedish Rikstag took the advice of psychologists and implemented a four-year education and promotion campaign.
The campaign included issuing special red & green gloves to citizens, custom spectacles, and calendars featuring women wearing clothes with the H-day logo on them. (Next slide: Visuals).
What was H-day?
Answer
Answer“Dagen H” was short for Dagen Högertrafikomläggningen" ("right-hand traffic diversion day").This was the day Sweden decided to switch from driving on the left hand side of the road to the right hand side.
The ruler of this kingdom commissioned a documentary about his people by a famous filmmaker X, because his American-born queen was a huge fan of X’s work. When X screened the film for the royal family, they were outraged at scenes that depicted poor subjects scrambling for leftover food behind the royal palace. They demanded that the film be re-edited with the offending scenes cut, which the X reluctantly agreed to do. However, before the editing process could be completed, the ruler was deposed.
Now it was the turn of the new administration to object to the film, on the grounds that it could create unrest among the people. All but two copies of the film were destroyed, and the film itself was banned for nearly 40 years. The ban was finally lifted, and a single public screening was held, before the movie was taken off the screen again due to protests. However, the movie has since been screened at various international film festivals.
Identify the kingdom and the filmmaker X. No part points.
Answer
Answer: The kingdom of Sikkim, Satyajit Ray.
The film was commissioned by Sikkim’s last ruler, Palden Thondup Namgyal and his wife Hope Cook. A controversial referendum was held in 1975, which resulted in Sikkim joining India.
The likely origin of this error is the 1510 novel Las sergas de Esplandián by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. In it, the author writes:“Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called __________ very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons.”
The error was propagated by a number of explorers throughout the 17th century. In 1622, the Dutch cartographer Michiel Colijn drew a map with this error, which became a template for similarly erroneous depictions in the 18th century, before the matter was finally settled by the explorer ____ ________ __ ____ in 1776. What was the error, and who was the explorer who settled the question?
Answer
Answer: The erroneous assumption that California was an island. The explorer who proved this false was Juan Bautista de Anza.
Theme Round● 11 questions, 5 themes.● Questions are on infinite bounce, themes are written.● {1, 2, 3} are connected by a theme, {3, 4, 5} are connected by a
(different) theme, etc.● 10 points per question.● 15 points per theme. No negatives.● Each theme closes at the end of its set of 3 questions.● All themes will be revealed at the end.
Theme Round (Q1)In May, 1609, a fleet of nine vessels under the command of Sir George Somers sailed from England with provisions and five hundred settlers. On July 25, a storm separated the Sea Venture from the other vessels of the fleet. With the ship in danger of sinking, the captain drove it toward a nearby island (one of a group) and managed to save his entire crew. The island, though previously discovered, was uninhabited, and some passengers from this ship were among the first to settle it. Today, the nation that the island is part of bears the Sea Venture on its coat of arms (pictured). Identify the island(s).
Next slide: Visual.
Answer
Answer: Bermuda. The motto “Quo Fata Ferunt” means “Where the Fates Carry [Us]”.
● Connect to Theme {1, 2, 3}: The Sea Venture.
Theme Round (Q2)_____ was a robot character introduced in a classic sci-fi movie. He is notably one of the first on-screen robot characters with a personality of his own, paving the way for the R2-D2s and C-3POs to come. He is also one of the first robots in popular depiction to explicitly adhere to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
His popularity continued beyond the original movie, and he made subsequent appearances in such TV series as Columbo, The Addams Family, Lost in Space, and Mork and Mindy, and in such films as The Invisible Boy and Gremlins. He has even appeared in a TV commercial for AT&T. Today, he is considered an iconic character of science fiction.
Identify the name of the robot character and the original sci-fi movie he appeared in.Next slide: Visual.
Answer
Answer: Robby the Robot, from Forbidden Planet (1956).
Connect to Theme {1, 2, 3}: Forbidden Planet.
Theme Round (Q3)Question #3:Connect (one word):
Answer
Answer: Winter.
● Connect to Theme {1, 2, 3}: Elizabeth Stuart’s wedding to Frederick V.● Connect to Theme {3, 4, 5}: Elizabeth Stuart and her father, James VI and I, King
of Scots, England and Ireland.
● Elizabeth Stuart and her husband Frederick V ruled over Bohemia for just one winter, and is hence known as “The Winter Queen”.
● Bucky Barnes - “The Winter Soldier” from the Captain America comic series.● Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers (played here by Faye Dunaway).
Theme Round (Q4)The oldest British military corps still in existence, this organization was set up by Henry VII after the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The battle, which ended the War of the Roses, established Henry VII as the ruler of England, and started the Tudor dynasty, having vanquished Richard III of the House of York.
After his victory, Henry set up this organization out of his most loyal soldiers, and swore them to protect his person. Since then, this organization has served as the official bodyguard outfit for the British monarch. As a token of their origin, the uniforms worn by its members are red and gold, echoing the colors of the Tudor Rose.
Identify the organization.
Next slide: Visual.
Answer
Answer: The Yeomen of the Guard (or The Queen's Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard).
Connect to Theme {3, 4, 5}: The Yeomen of the Guard.
Theme Round (Q5)X is well known for his esoteric religious beliefs. He is a practitioner of ritual magic, drawing ideas from such sources as the Qabalah and Thelema (see picture), the religion/philosophy espoused by Aleister Crowley.
However, he considers as his main deity the snake-god Glycon (see picture). The cult of Glycon was founded by Alexander of Abonoteichus in about 150 CE, but was derided as a fake religious cult even then by his contemporary, Lucian of Samosata. X has acknowledged the absurdity of his beliefs, but has also stated that “the imagination is just as real as reality”, a theme that he has incorporated into many of his creations. Identify X.
Answer
Answer: Alan Moore.
● Connection to Theme {3, 4, 5}: One of Alan Moore’s works.● Connection to Theme {5, 6, 7}: Another of Alan Moore’s works!
Theme Round (Q6)“City of Death” is a classic set of four episodes of the series Doctor Who, broadcast in 1979. Set mainly in Paris in 1979, the plot concerns a scheme by an alien, Scaroth, to steal the Mona Lisa to finance experiments in time travel, in the hope of averting the accident that marooned him on Earth four hundred million years previously, which began the existence of life on Earth as well.
The episode was written by “David Agnew”, a pseudonym for its actual writers, David Fisher, _______ _____, and Graham Williams. _______ _____ was already popular for his work on radio, and would soon embark on a full-fledged literary career. The episode itself is often ranked as one of the best Doctor Who episodes of all time.
Fill in the blanks.
Answer
Answer: Douglas Adams
Connection to theme {5, 6, 7}: Douglas Adams AND the plot of “City of Death”.
Theme Round (Q7)_____ ____ is a famous poem by the poet X. In 1797, X was in an opium-induced sleep when he had a vivid dream. Upon waking up, he immediately started writing the lines of poetry that came to him from the dream. However, after having written only 54 lines of the 200-300 he had in mind, he was interrupted by a person from a neighboring town, who had to see him urgently about some business. After the interruption which lasted about an hour, X returned to his poem, to find that he had forgotten the rest of it. The poem lay unpublished for several years, but was finally published at the insistence of X’s friend, Lord Byron. Today, the poem is considered one of X’s greatest works.
Identify the poem and X.
For bonus points, identify the name of the town from where the person who interrupted X had come.
Answer
Answer: Kubla Khan, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The unknown person who interrupted him was from a town called Porlock (and is now popularly known as “The Man from Porlock”).Connection to theme {5, 6, 7} and {7, 8, 9}: Kubla Khan (the poem).
Theme Round (Q8)X is regarded by comic book historians as one of the first superheroes in comics. His creator came up with the characters at the age of 19, but only sold the idea to King Features Syndicate ten years later. First published in 1934, the series is notable for including a racially diverse cast, with each member bringing special abilities to the table.
Its creator is also famous for another comic strip that he created in 1936. However, he was more interested in producing and directing theater, and considered comics his hobby. In his theater career, he notably directed the likes of Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston and Paul Newman.
Identify X and its creator.
Answer
Answer: Mandrake the Magician, Lee Falk.
Connection to theme {7, 8, 9}: Mandrake the Magician.
Theme Round (Q9)Three versions of the artifact X were made for the movie, but two were burnt during filming. The surviving replica was purchased by Steven Spielberg for $60,000 in 1982, calling it “a symbolic emblem of quality in the film business”.
Y was emboldened by Spielberg’s purchase, and invited him to lunch, hoping to convince Spielberg to finance Y’s next film. To Y’s chagrin, Spielberg didn’t so much as offer to pay for lunch, let alone bankroll Y’s film. Identify X and Y (no part points).
Bonus: Name the film, which was never made.
Answer
Answer: Y = Orson Welles, X = the “rosebud” sled from Citizen Kane. Welles had hoped to secure financing for his next movie “Let The Cradle Rock”, which never happened.
Connection to Theme {7, 8, 9} and {9, 10, 11}: Citizen Kane.
Theme Round (Q10)On 28 August 1973, Jan-Erik Olsson attempted to rob the bank “Kreditbanken”, located at Norrmalmstorg square in a certain country. When the police were called, Olsson took four people as hostages. During negotiations with police and the Prime Minister of the country, Olsson often asked one of the hostages to plead his case and make demands for him. Finally, five days into the hostage situation, the police used tear gas to free the hostages and arrest Olsson and his accomplice.
This incident has since given a name to a particular complication sometimes encountered during hostage situations, which has become a frequent Hollywood trope. What name?
Answer
Answer: The Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages shift their loyalties towards their kidnappers rather than the police trying to free them.
Connect to Theme {9, 10, 11}: Stockholm Syndrome.
Theme Round (Q11)The USS Maine was an armored cruiser launched by the US Navy in 1890. On 15 February 1898, an explosion was heard on board, and the ship sank shortly afterward in Havana Harbor, killing three-quarters of its crew. While the cause at the time was widely acknowledged to be enemy fire, the real cause remains unknown to this day, after several official and unofficial investigations. The two most popular competing theories are an enemy mine, and spontaneous combustion of coal in its bunker.
The sinking of the Maine is notable for triggering an international incident. What incident?
Answer
Answer: The Spanish-American War.
The sinking of the Maine was popularized in the press as an act of war by the Spanish presence in Cuba, causing widespread public antagonism towards Spain. This forced President William McKinley to declare war on Spain, demanding the surrender of Cuba.
Connection to Theme {9, 10, 11}: Press reporting of the sinking of the Maine and the Spanish-American War.
Theme Answers
Answer to Theme {1, 2, 3}: Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
● The Sea Venture incident was published in England as “True Reportory of the Wrack, and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates Knight” by William Strachey. This is considered to be the inspiration for the story of The Tempest, due to verbal, plot and thematic similarities.
● The plot of Forbidden Planet was based on “The Tempest”. A space crew lands on a lonely planet (Altair IV) where Morbius (Prospero) lives with his only daughter Altaira (Miranda), the leader of the crew falls in love with the daughter, etc. The character of Robby the Robot has strong parallels to Ariel.
● Elizabeth Stuart is considered the inspiration for the character of Miranda, and The Tempest was first performed at the royal court, in celebration of her wedding to Frederick V.
Answer to Theme {3, 4, 5}: The Gunpowder Plot/Guy Fawkes.
● The main objective of the Gunpowder Plot was to assassinate the protestant King of England (James VI), and install his daughter Elizabeth Stuart (who was then a ten-year-old child) in his place. The plan was to raise Elizabeth as a Catholic, and establish a Catholic monarchy in the country.
● The main role of the Yeomen of the Guard today is to perform a ceremonial sweep of the Palace of Westminster prior to the State Opening of Parliament, a consequence of the Gunpowder Plot.
● Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta draws heavy inspiration from the Gunpowder Plot (“Remember, remember, the Fifth of November...”, V blows up the British Parliament, etc.).
Answer to Theme {5, 6, 7}: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams.
• Alan Moore was inspired by Dirk Gently to write “From Hell” (an investigation into the Jack the Ripper killings). “A holistic detective? You wouldn’t just have to solve the crime, you’d have to solve the entire world that the crime happened in. That was the twist I needed.”
• Douglas Adams based the time-traveling plot of Dirk Gently on his own Doctor Who episode “City of Death”. In the novel, Dirk Gently goes back in time to prevent certain incidents from occurring, so as to change the future.
• In Dirk Gently, the title character goes back in time to distract Coleridge, so that he forgets the rest of “Kubla Khan”, an event necessary to prevent the destruction of the world. Dirk Gently was the man from Porlock!
Answer to Theme {7, 8, 9}: Xanadu.
• Coleridge was reading a book about Xanadu, the summer palace of the real Kublai Khan, when he fell asleep and had the dream about his poem. The first line of the poem goes “In Xanadu did Kubla Khan…”.
• Mandrake the Magician’s home is the castle Xanadu, named after the poem.
• Charles Foster Kane’s sprawling mansion in Citizen Kane is also named Xanadu, also after the poem.
Answer to Theme {9, 10, 11}: William Randolph Hearst.
• Citizen Kane was an open mockery of the life of William Randolph Hearst (ex: Xanadu was based on Hearst Castle). Hearst tried to have the movie banned, but only succeeded in preventing it from winning any significant Academy Awards.
• The Stockholm Syndrome is also called The Patty Hearst Syndrome, after William Hearst’s granddaughter, Patricia “Patty” Hearst, who was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberaton Army for ransom, but soon joined their cause and participated in robberies with them.
• William Hearst, along with his arch rival, Joseph Pulitzer started printing stories about the USS Maine incident, and how Spain had declared war on the US. Their brand of sensationalist reporting (later called yellow journalism) is acknowledged as shaping public opinion towards a declaration of war on Spain.
The Themes• The Tempest• The Gunpowder Plot• Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective
Agency• Xanadu• William Randolph Hearst
This now ubiquitous brand was originally a product marketed to women using the tagline “Mild as May”. However, when sales of the latter product started to decline for a certain reason, the manufacturer decided to target their women’s product at men.
To accomplish this, they commissioned a series of marketing campaigns featuring “manly” figures such as sea captains, weightlifters, construction workers etc. The first of these campaigns took off, and the brand became a household name.
Identify the brand. For bonus points, identify the reason for targeting the product at men.
Answer
Answer: Marlboro cigarettes.
As a filtered cigarette, Marlboro was traditionally targeted at women.
In the 1950s, a growing number of scientific studies established a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, causing a decrease in smoking among men.
As a result, Philip Morris decided to target filtered cigarettes at men, commissioning Leo Burnett to create what was supposed to be the first of many characters, the Marlboro Man.
In 1962, the State Mutual Life Assurance Company in Worcester, Massachusetts purchased the Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio.
A few months later, State Mutual Vice President John Adam, Jr. noticed that relations between the two parts of the company were strained and morale was low. He asked Joy Young, his Assistant Director of Sales to suggest a “friendship campaign”.
Young contacted ______ ____, a local freelance artist, who created something in ten minutes, and received a fee of $240. Who was the local artist, and what did he/she create?
Answer
Answer: Harvey Ball created the smiley face.
In 1962, Philip K. Dick wrote a book called “The Man in the High Castle”. The story is set in an alternate reality where the Axis powers, led by Germany, won World World II. Subsequently, the victorious Axis powers successfully invade and annex the US, easily defeating its feeble military force. Finally, Japan and Germany establish themselves as the two major superpowers of the world, and enter into a cold war, much like the one between the US and USSR in reality.
The events of the novel are set into motion by a specific event. This event also occurred in the real world, but had the opposite outcome. What was the event? Next slide: Book cover.
Answer
Answer: The attempted assassination of FDR.
In the novel, Giueseppe Zangara successfully assassinates president-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt (an attempt that failed in real life).
As a result, FDR’s real-world contributions (the New Deal, the Manhattan Project, etc.) never happen, causing the US economy to stagnate and its military to weaken.
Wilmer McLean was a wholesale grocer who lived on a farm in Manassas, Virginia. On July 21, 1861, his home was severely damaged when a cannonball fired by a neighborhood militia group fell through his kitchen fireplace. As a result of this incident and several similar ones that followed, in 1863, McLean moved with his family to a town then called Clover Hill, Virginia.
A couple of years later, a related incident occurred in the front parlor of his home. Luckily for him, the second incident was more peaceful than the first.
What were the two incidents?
Answer
Answer: The start and end of the American Civil War, respectively.
The 1861 incident at his house in Manassas was the start of the First Battle of Bull Run, the first battle of the Civil War.
His second residence in Clover Hill (later renamed to Appomattox Court House) was the place where confederate General Robert E. Lee signed the document of surrender to Union Lt. Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865.
As McLean later remarked, “The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor.”
Pictured: The McLean House in Appomattox, Virginia.
Maurice of Nassau was a 17th century Dutch military strategist and stadtholder (the executive official of a province). He organized the successful Dutch revolt against Philip II of Spain. Part of the Eighty Year’s War of Dutch independence, he was instrumental in taking back much of the Dutch heartland from Spain, and establishing the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. For his efforts, he was made the Prince of Orange, and the island nation of Mauritius was named after him.
He is also responsible for the formulation and implementation of an idea to further safeguard the new Dutch nation from its enemies. The implementation of this idea would prove its worth just forty years later, during the Franco-Dutch war of 1672, preventing the armies of Louis XIV from entering the country. What was this idea?
Next slide: Visual.
Answer
Answer: He conceived of and created the Hollandic Water Line, effectively turning the country into an island.
The Dutch strategically flooded low-lying areas around the periphery of their country, making it difficult for foreign armies to enter.
The Hollandic Water Line has since been expanded and modernized, and exists to this day.
This phrase, coined by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade from the US National Defense University in 1996, gained new prominence in the following decade. Fill in the blanks:
To affect the will of the adversary, Rapid Dominance will apply a variety of approaches and techniques to achieve the necessary level of _____ at the appropriate strategic and military leverage points. This means that psychological and intangible, as well as physical and concrete effects beyond the destruction of enemy forces and supporting military infrastructure, will have to be achieved.
Note: The size of the blank is not indicative of the size or number of words in the phrase.
Answer
Answer“Shock and Awe”, the US military strategy employed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The ______ is a colorful bird found across Afro-Eurasia, notable for its distinctive "crown" of feathers. Like its Latin name, the English name is an onomatopoeic form which imitates the cry of the bird.
The bird is both honored and reviled in the Abrahamic religions. In the Quran, it is mentioned as having saved Moses and the children of Israel from being crushed by the giant Og after crossing the Red Sea. However, Leviticus 11:13–19 in the Bible lists this bird among animals that are detestable and should not be eaten.
It is also the national bird of Israel.
Next slide: Visual.
Name the bird.
Answer
Answer: The Hoopoe (Hudhud in Arabic).Tropical Cyclone Hudhud was named after this bird by Oman.#TopicalAndTropical
This fruit variety was discovered by John ________ on his farm in Dundela, Upper Canada in 1811. He and his wife bred it, and the family started grafting the tree and selling the fruit as the “________ Red” in 1835. Its popularity steadily grew through the late 19th and early 20th century, and at its peak in the 1960s, it accounted for over 40% of Canadian production of this fruit.
Though its popularity has since declined recently in the face of competition from other varieties like the Gala, it remains a household name due to a popular product (and its successors) being named after it.
Fill in the blanks (all blanks are identical).
Answer
Answer: McIntosh Apples. The original Apple Macintosh was named after it by Jef Raskin.
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen co-authored this book, but had a hard time finding a publisher willing to publish it. The title didn’t help – according to Hansen, even their respective wives called it the stupidest idea they’d heard.
Convinced however, that their book would be popular, they collected 20,000 signatures from people who had seen a draft of the book and said that they would buy it if published. Despite this impressive guarantee, 144 publishers still rejected the book.
Finally, they found a small publisher in Deerfield Beach, FL which was in financial trouble, and looking to expand its range of titles to stave off bankruptcy. The publisher agreed to publish the book, but offered no advance, only a percentage. (You know how the story ends) The book and its successors have since sold over 167 million copies.
Identify the book.
Answer
Answer: Chicken Soup for the Soul.
From the 15th century onwards, the kingdoms of Florence and Pisa had been bitter rivals, with the Florentine army making several unsuccessful attempts to capture Pisa. In 1503, after yet another failure, the citizens of Florence sought alternative means to undermine Pisa.
One such project was proposed by two of its most famous citizens, Leonardo da Vinci, and Niccolo Machiavelli who collaborated on its design. In addition to the main proposal, da Vinci also designed a series of machines to help with the task, which he estimated would take more than fifty-thousand worker-days. However, owing to the complexity and expense of the plan, Colombino, the man in charge of executing the project, decided to make alterations unauthorized by da Vinci.
Not surprisingly, the project was a colossal failure, and soon afterward, Florence fell to the Spanish. Giuliano de Medici seized power, and sent Machiavelli into exile, where he wrote his magnum opus, The Prince.
What was the project?
Next slide: Image of one such machine designed by da Vinci.
Answer
Answer: Diversion of the Arno river away from Pisa, so Florence could replace Pisa as the main trading port in the region.
The Arno river is featured in the Mona Lisa, painted by da Vinci at about the same time (1503 - 1506).
Connect (1 of 3):
Connect (2 of 3):
Connect (3 of 3):
Answer
Answer: A (partial) list of Captain Haddock’s insults.
Answer (contd.)
Bashi-Bazouk
Duck-billed platypus
Bandicoot
Visigoth Aztec
CoelacanthJellyfish
Aardvark Baboon
In 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi who was the director of the astronomical observatory of Palermo, in Sicily discovered a new star-like object in the Taurus constellation. He followed the movement of the object during several nights, but subsequently lost sight of it. Astronomers throughout Europe tried to rediscover this object in the night sky, but failed.
After just a few weeks, a then unknown 24-year old mathematician, _____ announced that he had calculated the position at which it could be found again.
Subsequently, the object was rediscovered by Franz Xaver von Zach on December 31, 1801, at the exact position predicted by _____. Zach noted that "without the intelligent work and calculations of Doctor _____, we might not have found ______ again." The discovery made _____ an instant celebrity throughout Europe and he went on to write the "Theory of Celestial Movement", considered one of the seminal works in astronomical computation. The object itself, named after the Roman goddess of agriculture, was then thought to be a new planet, but is now classified as something else, the first of its kind to be discovered.
What was the celestial object? Who was the mathematician?
Next slide: Image of the book written by Piazzi about this discovery.
Answer
Answer: Gauss discovered Ceres, the first known asteroid and now dwarf planet.
__ ____ ____ ______ is an infamous 19th century poem by a writer and poet, who once worked as an assistant editor of the newspaper “The Pioneer” at Allahabad. The poem was written about the American colonization of the Philippines, mixing an exhortation to conquer with a warning of the costs involved. However, the title soon became a representation of British colonial ambitions, and was widely used in common parlance, even appearing in advertisements like this one for Pears’ soap in the 1890s.
Fill in the blanks. For bonus points, identify the poet.
Next slide: Excerpt from the poem, and the ad for Pears soap.
Take up ___ _____ ____ ______, Send forth the best ye breed Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives' need;To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.
Take up ___ _____ ____ ______, In patience to abide, To veil the threat of terror And check the show of pride;By open speech and simple, An hundred times made plain To seek another's profit, And work another's gain.…
Note: The blanks are the same as the title of the poem, and the words blanked out in the Pears’ soap ad.
Answer
Answer: The White Man’s Burden, by Rudyard Kipling.
In economics, a Veblen good (named after the economist Thorstein Veblen) is a product whose demand is proportional to its price, i.e., the more expensive it gets, the more people want to buy it – an apparent contradiction of the law of supply and demand.
This idea was put to famous use by a company X, whose product was quickly dropping in price due to low demand. In 1938, X employed an advertising copywriter named Frances Gerety to create a new advertising campaign for their product. Gerety’s campaign transformed both the company X’s fortunes, and some cultural norms among the general public. X later adopted one of the slogans from the campaign as its official motto.
Identify the company X and the campaign (no part points).
Answer
Answer: A diamond is forever, X = De Beers. Gerety was also one of the main inspirations for the character of Peggy Olson from Mad Men.
Connect“… the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”
Answer
Answer: “It was a dark and stormy night”, considered the most clichéd opening line in English literature.
• The phrase is the opening line of Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s 1830 novel “Paul Clifford” (clue: the rest of the line).
• Whenever Snoopy writes a story, he starts with “It was a dark and stormy night”.
• San Jose State University’s English Department conducts the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the worst sentence (clue: the SJSU Spartans logo).
• The 2014 winner: When the dead moose floated into view the famished crew cheered – this had to mean land! – but Captain Walgrove, flinty-eyed and clear headed thanks to the starvation cleanse in progress, gave fateful orders to remain on the original course and await the appearance of a second and confirming moose.
In June 1947, X, a doctoral student of biochemistry wrote an academic paper describing the remarkable properties of the chemical ____________, titled “The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated ____________”. The most unusual property of ____________ described in the paper was its endochronicity – when mixed with water, it started dissolving before its molecules made contact with water molecules. X would go on to write two more papers about ____________, in 1952 and 1959, which described additional properties of the compound and provided scientific rationale for its properties. For example, its endochronicity was explained by a special carbon atom in the molecule’s structure – while two of the four chemical bonds formed by the carbon atom were ‘normal’, the other two projected backward and forward in spacetime, respectively.
Identify X and the chemical compound.
Next slide: Figures from the original paper.
Answer
Answer: Isaac Asimov, Thiotimoline.
Asimov wrote the spoof scientific paper as practice for writing his PhD thesis in Biochemistry at Columbia University.
Ernő __________ was a British-Hungarian architect, who was a key figure in the Modern Movement. He is most remembered for designing residential tower blocks, some of which were poorly received by his peers and the general public. However, in recent years, his work has been appreciated more, and the Trellick Tower in particular has become a design icon.
Paralleling the stern, solid nature of his designs, he was known to be a humorless man in personal life, who often fired his assistants for joking around.
X was a writer who had objected to some cottages in Hampstead being torn down for one of __________’s projects, but they were torn down anyway. As a consequence, X sustained a fair amount of hatred for __________, and named the iconic villain of one of his books after him.
Identify the architect and the writer. Next slide: The architect and Trellick Tower.
Answer
Answer: Ernő Goldfinger, Ian Fleming. The villain was of course, Auric Goldfinger.
This apartment building is one of the most famous and exclusive residential buildings in New York City. Completed in 1884, the building has been home to a long list of the wealthy, the powerful and the famous, including Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, John Madden and Joe Namath. People who have tried to buy apartments in the building only to be rejected include Antonio Banderas and Billy Joel.
It was designated as a New York City Landmark in 1969, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, and designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
Next slide: Picture.
Name the building. Why was this building in the news on 8 December 1980?
Answer
Answer: The Dakota. John Lennon lived there and was assassinated outside its gates on 8 December 1980.
Originating in the Anglo-Saxon era, this title has come to represent different functions in different cultures. In India, the title is largely ceremonial, with Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai being the only major cities that still have such a role. Previous holders of such titles have included Dilip Kumar, Sunil Dutt, and N. Srinivasan.
Identify the title.
Answer
Answer: Sheriff, from the Anglo-Saxon shire-reeve (chief of a shire).
Sir Sandford Fleming was a Scottish-born Canadian engineer. He designed much of the Intercolonial Railway of Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway. He also designed Canada’s first postage stamp, the three-penny beaver (pictured).
In 1876, while on a journey in Ireland, he missed a train due to a mix-up. As a result, he conceived of a system that he promoted at various international conferences over the next few years, eventually convincing most people of its utility.
What was the system?
Answer
Answer: Time Zones, or the invention of Worldwide Standard Time.
This annual ritual is typically held on the last Wednesday of August. Its origins date back to 1945 when a group of young people went to the town square to attend the “Giants and Big Heads parade” (see picture). During the parade, one of the participants was knocked off a platform, and entered into a street brawl with the others. The following year, the same individuals returned to stage a street fight at the same location, and a tradition was born.
Identify the ritual and the city in which it is held.
Answer
Answer: La Tomatina, held in Buñol, Spain.
In 1976, venture capitalist Robert A. Swanson and biochemist Herbert Boyer founded Genentech, one of the earliest Biotechnology firms in the San Francisco Bay area.
In 1997, in recognition of the importance of Genentech in establishing the biotechnology industry in South San Francisco, the city renamed the 400 block of Point San Bruno Boulevard to “X Way”, giving Genentech the new street address “1 X Way”, similar to Apple’s famous “1 Infinite Loop” in Cupertino.
In 1999, Genentech began trading on the NYSE using a stock symbol of the same name, X. What is X?
Answer
Answer: DNA
These paintings are considered to have some of the earliest representations of this modern sport. Identify the sport and the painter.
Next 2 slides: Visuals.
Answer
Answer: Curling. The paintings are “The Hunters in the Snow” and “Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap” by Pieter Brugel the Elder.
Obligatory Madras question!
This system was first implemented in 1789 by Dr. Andrew Bell, a British educator, in one of his schools in Egmore, Madras. It enabled schools to manage a large student body relatively inexpensively, requiring a smaller teaching staff than would otherwise be needed. Dr. Bell took the idea with him, now called “The Madras System”, back to Scotland in 1796, and popularized it among educators there.
Co-incidentally, another British educator, Joseph Lancaster had identified a similar system and helped spread its popularity. Before long, more than 12000 schools across Britain had adopted the system, and it remains an instantly recognizable aspect of British education to this day.
What was the system?
Answer
Answer: The School Prefect or Head Boy/Head Girl system, which enlisted older students to monitor younger ones.
That’s all, folks!
