Around the World in 15 Questions

Posted on 28. Jun, 2008 by Kerry Banks in Quizzes

1. In which U.S. city can you find the Monopoly properties of Boardwalk, Park Place, Baltic Avenue and Marvin Gardens?
A. Baltimore
B. New York
C. Chicago
D. Atlantic City

2. A small bronze statue known as “The Little Mermaid” is a major tourist attraction in which city’s harbour?
A. Amsterdam
B. Budapest
C. Copenhagen
D. Helsinki

3. Earth’s largest lizard, the dangerous Komodo Dragon, can be found prowling the islands of Komodo, Rintja, Padar and Flores. Which country owns these islands?
A. Indonesia
B. Portugal
C. Ecuador
D. The Philippines

4. A wind called “the Mistral” begins to blow. Where are you?
A. Hungary
B. France
C. Argentina
D. Bahrain

5. Which nation leads the world in the production of coffee?
A. Colombia
B. Kenya
C. Brazil
D. Indonesia

6. Which is the only country in the world to have a national flag that is flown differently in times of peace and war?
A. Iran
B. Nicaragua
C. Ethiopia
D. The Philippines

7. This prominent mountain was originally named Kaiser Wilhelm-Spitze. Fortunately, the name never stuck. What do we call it today?
A. Mt. Everest
B. The Matterhorn
C. Mt. Kilimanjaro
D. Annapurna

8. What is the only U.S. state that allows its residents to cast absentee ballots from outer space?
A. Florida
B. Texas
C. California
D. Wisconsin

9. The world’s largest concentration of barbers, more than 500 in all, can be found a building near what famous shrine?
A. India’s Taj Mahal
B. Thailand’s Wat Arun
C. Japan’s Ise Jingu
D. Mexico’s Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe

10. Where can you attend a summer festival known as “the White Nights?”
A. Auckland, New Zealand
B. St. Petersburg, Russia
C. Havana, Cuba
D. Reykjavik, Iceland

11. Which is the largest country to have only one time zone?
A. Peru
B. China
C. Zimbabwe
D. Saudi Arabia

12. Discovered in 1879, Altamira has been called “the Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art.” Where will you find this famous cave?
A. France
B. Turkey
C. Spain
D. Greece

13. Which newspaper has the highest daily circulation in the world?
A. Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun
B. USA’s Wall Street Journal
C. Germany’s Bild
D. China’s People’s Daily

14. In 1961, which airline became the first to show a feature film on a regularly scheduled commercial flight?
A. United
B. Air Canada
C. TWA
D. Cathay-Pacific

15. The six-day Marathon des Sables (‘Marathon of the Sands’) is one of the most gruelling races in the world. Where is this torture test held?
A. Chile
B. Djibouti
C. Syria
D. Morocco

Answers:

1. D. Atlantic City
The board game Monopoly was patented by Charles Darrow, an unemployed salesman living in Germantown, Pennsylvania, who was struggling with odd jobs to support his family in the years following the great stock market crash of 1929. Remembering past summers spent in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Darrow spent his free time drawing the streets of the resort town on his kitchen tablecloth, with found pieces of material contributed by local merchants. He would eventually sell his invention to Parker Brothers in 1935. A month later, Parker Brothers started producing over 20,000 copies of the game per week. The royalties made Darrow a millionaire. In 1970, a few years after Darrow’s death, Atlantic City erected a commemorative plaque in his honour. It stands on the Boardwalk, near the corner of Park Place.

2. C. Copenhagen
The Little Mermaid was a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen. The statue of her likeness sits on a rock in the Copenhagen harbour. It was commissioned in 1909 by Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg Brewery, after he viewed a ballet based on the fairy tale. Sculptor Edward Eriksen created the statue, which was unveiled in 1913. His wife Elin was the model.

3. A. Indonesia
Growing to a length of three metres and weighing about 70 kilograms, Komodo Dragons were first documented by Europeans in 1910, when rumours of a “land crocodile” reached the Dutch colonial administration of Indonesia. In 1926, the Komodo Dragon would become the driving factor for an expedition to Komodo Island by adventurer W. Douglas Burden. After returning with 12 preserved specimens and two live Komodos, Burden told the strange story of his trip to Merian C. Cooper, a motion-picture producer. Cooper later changed the objective from a giant lizard to a giant ape, and added a beautiful heroine, in the person of Fay Wray to produce the classic 1933 film King Kong.

4. B. France
Peter Mayle, the author A Year in Provence, described the Mistral as a “brutal exhausting wind that can blow the ears off a donkey.” Cold, dry and often violent, it blows throughout the year, but is most frequent in winter and spring. The Mistral sweeps down from the northwest of Europe through France’s Rhone Valley to the Mediterranean Sea.

5. C. Brazil
Brazil produces about 30 percent of all the coffee grown in the world, the equivalent of 423 billion cups per year. The country turns out everything from mass produced coffees that rank among the world’s cheapest, to elegant coffees prized as the world’s finest for espresso brewing. World renowned Colombia ranks a distant second in’coffee production at 16 percent, with Indonesia in third at seven percent.

6. D. The Philippines
The flag of the Philippines is the only national flag that is flown differently during times of peace or war. A section of the flag is blue, while the other is red. The blue portion is flown on top in time of peace. But during times of war, the flag is tuned upside down so that the red portion appears on top.

7. C. Mt. Kilimanjaro
German explorers were the first Europeans to see and climb Kilimanjaro–and establish the mountain’s existence. In 1889, geographer Hans Meyer became the first person known to have reached the summit of the 5,895-metre volcano. Meyer and his team made the climb the hard way, cutting their way up over a glacier. Meyer named the summit Kaiser-Wilhelm-Spitze (Emperor Wilhelm’s Peak) for the Prussian leader Wilhelm I. The name was used until Germany’s defeat in World War I, when the territory became British-administered Tanganyika and the name was changed to Kilimanjaro, a Swahili word.

8. B. Texas
It makes a weird kind of sense. In 1997, the Texas legislature passed a bill allowing its residents to cast absentee ballots from space, because of the presence of the NASA Johnson Space Centre and the astronauts that live in the Houston area, home of the U.S. space program.

9. A. India’s Taj Mahal
Some 5,000 pilgrims visit this fabled landmark each day. Hindus consider it a privilege to shave their heads at the shrine in a vow called “tonsuring.” More than 500 barbers are in constant demand and work in a five-storey building around the clock in three shifts. The shorn locks are gathered together and later auctioned off.

10. B. St. Petersburg, Russia
The sun barely sets in St. Petersburg in summer and well past midnight the spires and domes of the city’s architectural treasures are bathed in a magical twilight. How better to celebrate this ethereal white light than at a month-long cultural festival of the greatest opera, ballet and classical music on earth? Held during May and June, the festival features Russia’s greatest choreographers and composers. The phenomenon of the White Nights (Beliye Nochi) can be explained by geography. St. Petersburg is is the world’s most northern city with a population over one million. It is located at roughly the same latitude as Oslo, Norway and Seward, Alaska. Due to such a high latitude the sun does not go under the horizon deep enough for the sky to get dark.

11. B. China
Any one crossing the border from Afghanistan into China has to turn back their watch 3.5 hours. Oddly,’despite spanning a slightly greater longitude than the continental U.S., China has only one time zone. The entire country operates on Beijing time. Talk about a centralist government! Before the Communists took control of the mainland in 1949, China was separated into five time zones.

12. C. Spain
The painted cave of Altamira was discovered in northern Spain in 1879. The cave’s vivid likenesses of horses, cattle and bison seemed so fresh and “modern” that critics initially doubted their authenticity, and suspected an elaborate hoax. Only in 1905, with the first scholarly analysis of the works, were they finally accepted as Paleolithic art, dating back 15,000 years. The cave consists of a series of rooms and passages shaped like an S. The main hall measures about 18 metres by nine metres. Several painters were influenced by this prehistoric art. After a visit, Picasso exclaimed, “After Altamira, all is decadence.”

13. A. Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun:
Founded in 1874, the Yomiuri Shimbun is credited with having the largest newspaper circulation in the world, with a combined morning and evening circulation of 14,067,000. In fact, Japan can boast the five highest circulation newspapers in the world. No English paper even ranks in the top 10.

14. C. TWA
On July 19, 1961, during a flight from New York to Los Angeles, travellers saw By Love Possessed starring Lana Turner and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.. The film was shown only to first-class passengers.

15. D. Morocco
This sadistic six-day, 143-mile trek across the Sahara Desert severely tests the stamina, endurance and will of racers, who face soaring temperatures, as well as sandstorms, rocky terrain and huge sand dunes. The dangers of the race are apparent on the application form, which contains a section called “Notification of the corpse repatriation fee.”