No, sorry, no points if you said it was Quiz Day, even though you are right.
Twenty more challenging questions for you to ponder over.
So get a pot of coffee going and try you hand at these.
As usual, if you get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
Enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: You’ve heard of tasers, you’ve probably seen videos of them on TV or YouTube, but what do the letters ‘T-A-S-E-R’ stand for?
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Q. 2: Out of the 40,000 men who served on U-boats during World War II, approximately how many returned safely?
a) 100% b) 75% c) 50% d) 25% e) 15%
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Q. 3: When did the Cold War end?
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Q. 4: On which side of a venetian blind is the cord that adjusts the opening between the slats?
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Q. 5: To which country do the Galapagos Islands belong?
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Q. 6: What member of Britain’s Royal Family was assassinated whilst sailing from Mullaghmore in Ireland in 1979?
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Q. 7: Harry Potter is a very famous and successful series of seven fantasy novels, who wrote them?
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Q. 8: Does a merry-go-round turn clockwise or counter-clockwise?
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Q. 9: Which popular dried fruit is named after a port city in Greece?
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Q. 10: Currently the highest priced painting in the world with a sales price equivalent to something in the region of $300 million, ‘The Card Players’ was painted by whom?
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Q. 11: The old name for this island country stems from the Latin word for beautiful, what is it called today?
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Q. 12: Complete the title of each of the following Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. (And yes, you get a point for each correct answer.)
a) The Red ….. b) The Emperor’s … ……. C) The Steadfast … …….
d) The Princess And … … and, e) The Wild …..
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Q. 13: Some wills are strange, which very famous man left his wife his second best bed?
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Q. 14: It’s the name of a dessert, the largest city in North Carolina, USA, and the wife of King George III – what is it?
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Q. 15: Which of the following was NOT the name of a Chinese dynasty?
a) Qing b) Xin c) Ming d) Jin e) Ching or, e) Tang
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Q. 16: What huge sporting tournament begins June 14th this year?
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Q. 17: Who was the first US President to have electricity in the White House?
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Q. 18: What are very small clouds that look like they have been broken off of bigger clouds called?
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Q. 19: He was the mythical founder of the city of Rome and the slayer of his twin brother. His name was also used for a war-like race of aliens in the series Star Trek. What was his name? (And a bonus point on offer if you can also correctly name his twin brother.)
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Q. 20: It was the end of Napoleon’s career and the start of ABBA’s, what was it?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: You’ve heard of tasers, you’ve probably seen videos of them on TV or YouTube, but what do the letters ‘T-A-S-E-R’ stand for?
A. 1: ‘Taser’ – Stands for ‘Thomas A Swift Electric Rifle’.
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Q. 2: Out of the 40,000 men who served on U-boats during World War II, approximately how many returned safely?
a) 100% b) 75% c) 50% d) 25% e) 15%
A. 2: The correct answer is d) 25%. Out of the 40,000 men who served on U-boats during WWII, only approximately 10,000 returned safely.
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Q. 3: When did the Cold War end?
A. 3: This year (2014) is the 25th anniversary of the end of the Cold War, so take a point if you said ‘1989’.
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Q. 4: On which side of a venetian blind is the cord that adjusts the opening between the slats?
A. 4: It’s on the left.
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Q. 5: To which country do the Galapagos Islands belong?
A. 5: Ecuador.
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Q. 6: What member of Britain’s Royal Family was assassinated whilst sailing from Mullaghmore in Ireland in 1979?
A. 6: Earl Mountbatten.
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Q. 7: Harry Potter is a very famous and successful series of seven fantasy novels, who wrote them?
A. 7: The Harry Potter series was written by the British author J. K. Rowling.
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Q. 8: Does a merry-go-round turn clockwise or counter-clockwise?
A. 8: Counter-clockwise.
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Q. 9: Which popular dried fruit is named after a port city in Greece?
A. 9: Corinthians (after the port city Corinth).
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Q. 10: Currently the highest priced painting in the world with a sales price equivalent to something in the region of $300 million, ‘The Card Players’ was painted by whom?
A. 10: Paul Cézanne.
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Q. 11: The old name for this island country stems from the Latin word for beautiful, what is it called today?
A. 11: The old name was ‘Formosa’, but the island nation is now known as Taiwan or officially the Republic of China.
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Q. 12: Complete the title of each of the following Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. (And yes, you get a point for each correct answer.)
a) The Red ….. b) The Emperor’s … ……. C) The Steadfast … …….
d) The Princess And … … and, e) The Wild …..
A. 12: The five answers are a) The Red SHOES b) The Emperor’s NEW CLOTHES
c) The Steadfast TIN SOLDIER d) The Princess And THE PEA e) The Wild SWANS
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Q. 13: Some wills are strange, which very famous man left his wife his second best bed?
A. 13: There was a clue in the question, the answer is Will Shakespeare.
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Q. 14: It’s the name of a dessert, the largest city in North Carolina, USA, and the wife of King George III – what is it?
A. 14: Charlotte.
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Q. 15: Which of the following was NOT the name of a Chinese dynasty?
a) Qing b) Xin c) Ming d) Jin e) Ching or, e) Tang
A. 15: They are all the names of Chinese dynasties except for e) Ching which I just made up! Take a point if you answered e).
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Q. 16: What huge sporting tournament begins June 14th this year?
A. 16: The football (soccer) World Cup.
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Q. 17: Who was the first US President to have electricity in the White House?
A. 17: Benjamin Harrison was the first president to have electricity in the White House. However, he was so scared of getting electrocuted that he would never touch the light switches himself.
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Q. 18: What are very small clouds that look like they have been broken off of bigger clouds called?
A. 18: Very small clouds that look like they have been broken off of bigger clouds are called ‘scuds’.
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Q. 19: He was the mythical founder of the city of Rome and the slayer of his twin brother. His name was also used for a war-like race of aliens in the series Star Trek. What was his name? (And a bonus point on offer if you can also correctly name his twin brother.)
A. 19: His name was ‘Romulus’. His twin brother’s name was ‘Remus’.
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Q. 20: It was the end of Napoleon’s career and the start of ABBA’s, what was it?
Yes it’s fact day at the fasab blog, and that means another totally random selection of facts that – not only you never knew – but facts that you never knew you never knew.
Here they are.
Enjoy
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Saturn’s rings are only between
30 and 300 feet thick.
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Napoleon was once attacked by rabbits. (I bet they were English!)
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The Constitution of the Confederate States
of America banned the slave trade.
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When the American Civil War started,
Confederate Robert E. Lee owned no slaves,
but Union general U.S. Grant did.
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The Siberian rift lake, Lake Baikal,
is not only the deepest lake on Earth
but it also has the largest volume containing
roughly 20% of the Earth’s surface fresh water.
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Officially, the longest war in history was between
the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly.
It lasted from 1651 to 1986.
There were no casualties.
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Neil Armstrong went through U.S. customs
in Honolulu, Hawaii,
on the way back from the moon.
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The original Tron movie did not win an Academy Award
for best special effects because the judges said
they cheated by using computers.
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70% of murders in Detroit go unsolved.
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Sorry guys, but Trojan Magnum condoms
are designed for most men to fit into
so that most purchases include an ego boost.
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Karl Marx was once a correspondent
for the New York Daily Tribune.
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The straw was probably invented by Egyptian brewers
to taste in-process beer without removing the fermenting ingredients
which floated on the top of the container.
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The name for fungal remains found in coal is sclerotinite.
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The forward pass was created by the football
team at Saint Louis University.
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During his Presidency Bill Clinton sent a total of two emails.
Today is another numbers day and the randomly chosen number is twenty-seven. Were you born on the 27th, is it your lucky number, has it some other significance for you or do you just like facts and trivia. Whatever your interest you will probably find something in here that you didn’t know about the number twenty-seven.
Enjoy.
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Number Twenty-Seven 27
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In religion
There are six occurrences of 27th in the Bible: Genesis 8.14; I Kings 16.10, 16.15; 2 Kings 15.1, 25.27; Ezekiel 29.17
God creates man “male & female” in the 27th verse in Genesis I;
After the Flood, the earth was dried on the 27th day of the 2nd month (Genesis 8.14);
In the 27th year the Lord gave Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon;
Book 27 of Proverbs has 27 verses;
The New Testament is made up of 27 books;
The Book of Revelation is the 27th Book and last book of the New Testament;
John Calvin published Institutes of the Christian Religion when he was 27 years old (1536);
Twenty-seven is the highest level of knowledge in rupaloke (Buddhism);
In ancient Incan culture there were 27 roads to El Dorado.
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In mathematics
An Octillion is 1027 which is a 1 followed by 27 zeros
Twenty-seven is a perfect cube, being 3 to the power of 3 or 3 × 3 × 3.
Twenty-seven is the only positive integer that is 3 times the sum of its digits.
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In science
The atomic number of Cobalt (Co) is 27
The atomic weight of Aluminum (Al) is 27
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In space
Solar rotation: The Sun rotates on its axis once in about 27 days;
The 27th moon of Jupiter is Sinope.
The planet Uranus has 27 moons
Messier 27, the Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Apple Core Nebula, M 27, or NGC 6853) is a planetary nebula in the constellation Vulpecula, at a distance of about 1,360 light years;
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On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, he was 27 years old;
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This is the official insignia of the NASA STS-27 mission. The patch depicts the space shuttle lifting off against the multi-colored backdrop of a rainbow, symbolizing the triumphal return to flight of our nation’s manned space program. The design also commemorates the memory of the crew of Challenger mission STS-51-L, represented by the seven stars. The names of the flight crew members of STS-27 are located along the border of the patch. They are astronauts Robert L. Gibson, commander; Guy S. Gardner, pilot; Jerry L. Ross, Richard M. (Mike) Mullane and William M. Shepherd, mission specialists. Each crew member contributed to the design of the insignia.
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In books, music, TV and movies
Rudolph Valentino was 27 when he stared in film Blood and Sand;
Sergei Eisenstein directs The Battleship Potemkin in 1925, aged 27;
27 year old Greta Garbo uttered the famous words, “I want to be alone” in film Grand Hotel in 1932;
Errol Flynn (1909-1959) stars in film Charge of the Light Brigade (1936);
Ingmar Bergman (born 7-14-1918) directs his first film Crisis (1945);
Deanna Durbin, teenage star retires in 1949, aged 27, after her 22 film career;
In the 1977 Carl Reiner movie Oh, God!, Jerry Landers (John Denver), a supermarket manager meets God (George Burns) on the 27th floor in Room 2700;
Captain Jean-Luc Picard has made contact with twenty-seven species of aliens in the series Star Trek: The Next Generation;
The following famous authors published these works when they were 27 years old: Jacob Grimm, Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1812-1815); George Sand, her first book, Indiana in 1831; Nikolai Gogol, The Inspector General in 1836 and Upton Sinclair, The Jungle in 1906;
Famous Scottish poet Robert Burns publishes The Kilmarnock Poems in 1786, aged 27;
Rupert Brooke was 27 when he wrote the poem “If I should die, think only this of me…” in 1914; he died the following year (1915) in World War I;
RupertBrooke
Hugh Hefner (born 1926) publishes Playboy magazine (1953);
In 1956, Grace Kelly was 27 years old when she retired from movies to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco;
Aged 27 Julie Andrews starred in her first film Mary Poppins in 1963 and won an Oscar for the Best Actress (1964);
January 27 is the birthday of Mozart 1756, Lewis Carroll 1832, and Jerome Kern 1885;
When he is 27 years old Claude Debussy composes Claire de Lune in 1890;
The 27 Club is the collective term used when talking about musicians and singers who all died at the age of 27: Robert Johnston, blues singer and musician; Brian Jones, founder member of the Rolling Stones; Janis Joplin, rock singer, from drugs overdose in 1970; Jimmy Hendrix, rock guitarist, died from drugs overdose in 1970; Jim Morrison, rock singer, from a heart attack in 1971; Kurt Corbain, rock singer, from drugs overdose in 1994; and Amy Winehouse, singer, from drink and drug overdose in 2011.
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In politics
Florida became the 27th State to enter the Union (March 3, 1845)
There are twenty-seven words in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution;
The 27th President of the United States was William Howard Taft (1857-1930), who served (1909-1913). He later served as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1921-1930).
President William H Taft
Taft was the heaviest president ever at 332 pounds, and famously got stuck in the White House bathtub. Subsequently he had an oversized version brought in for his use.
William Howard Taft was the first president to own a car at the White House (he had the White House stables converted into a 4-car garage), the first to throw out the first ball to begin the professional baseball season, and the first president to be buried in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.
Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912, also making Taft the first President of the 48 contiguous states.
Taft liked milk so much that he brought his own cow to the White House. The cows name was Mooly Wolly. Mooly was replaced by another cow called Paulin. Paulin was the last cow to graze on the White House lawn.
During his administration, the U.S. parcel post system began, but sadly during his term Congress approved the 16th Amendment, providing for the levying of an income tax.
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In sport
Carlton Fisk, Baseball Hall of Famer, wore uniform #27 while playing with the Boston Red Sox. Fisk waves his homer fair to win Game 6 of the 1975 World Series 7-6 in the 12th inning against the Cinncinati Reds.
Carlton Fisk
The size of a tennis court for singles is 78 feet long and 27 feet wide.
In tennis Bill Tilden (1893-1953) won his first Wimbledon tennis championship in 1920 at the age of 27 (he went on to win it two more times in 1921 and 1930); he also won his first US Championship in 1920 aged 27 (and went on to win it six more times in 1921-25, and in 1929)
At the age of 27, Bob Feller achieved a strike-out record of 348 batters; Sandy Koufax breaks his own NL strike-out record with 276 and also sets major-league record with 11 shut-outs for a left-hander;
Dawn Fraser won the Olympic 100-meters freestyle swimming in 1964 aged 27.
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In militaria
USS Suwannee (CVE-27)
During WWII, USS Suwannee (CVE-27) (originally an oiler AO-33, converted to an escort carrier AVG/ACV/CVE-27) saw a great deal of active service and earned 13 battle stars. She took part in the invasion of North Africa and during the Naval Battle of Casablanca from 8–11 November, Suwannee sent up 255 air sorties and lost only five planes, three in combat and two to operational problems. She was also the first escort carrier to score against the enemy undersea menace, and she helped to prove the usefulness of her type in anti-submarine warfare.
Later the Suwannee was sent to the South Pacific. For the next seven months, she provided air escort for transports and supply ships replenishing and bolstering the marines on Guadalcanal, as well as for the forces occupying other islands in the Solomons group. She also participated in the Gilbert Islands operation as part of the Air Support Group of the Southern Attack Force, and her planes bombed Tarawa, while the ships in the Northern Attack Force engaged the enemy at Makin.
During 1944 the Suwannee joined the Northern Attack Force, and her planes bombed and strafed Roi and Namur Islands, in the northern part of Kwajalein Atoll, and conducted antisubmarine patrols for the task force. By 30 March, she was in the vicinity of the Palau Islands as the 5th Fleet subjected those islands to two days of extensive bombing raids.
On 24–25 October 1944, the Japanese launched a major surface offensive from three directions to contest the landings at Leyte Gulf. Suwanee was hit during the attacks but was able to resume air operations helped to fight off two more air attacks. Just after noon on 26 October, another group of kamikazes jumped Taffy 1. A Zero crashed into Suwanee’s flight deck at 1240 and careened into a torpedo bomber which had just been recovered. The two planes erupted upon contact as did nine other planes on her flight deck. The resulting fire burned for several hours, but was finally brought under control. The casualties for 25-26 October were 107 dead and 160 wounded.
Suwannee remained in reserve at Boston for the next 12 years. She was redesignated an escort helicopter aircraft carrier, CVHE-27, on 12 June 1955. Her name was struck from the Navy List on 1 March 1959. Her hulk was sold to the Isbrantsen Steamship Company, of New York City on 30 November 1959 for conversion to merchant service. The project was subsequently canceled and, in May 1961, her hulk was resold to the J.C. Berkwit Company, also of New York City. She was finally scrapped in Bilbao, Spain, in June 1962.
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MIG-27
The Mikoyan MiG-27 is a variable-geometry ground-attack aircraft, originally built by the Mikoyan design bureau in the Soviet Union and later license-produced in India by Hindustan Aeronautics as the Bahadur (“Valiant”). It is based on the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter aircraft, but optimized for air-to-ground attack. Unlike the MiG-23, the MiG-27 did not see widespread use outside Russia, as most countries opted for the MiG-23BN and Sukhoi Su-25 instead. It currently only remains in service with the Indian, Kazakh and Sri Lankan Air Forces in the ground attack role. All Russian and Ukrainian MiG-27s have been retired.
It was used by Soviet forces during the later stages of the Afghanistan conflict in 1987–1989.
The MiG-27 aircraft also entered service with the Sri Lanka Air Force in 2000. During the Sri Lankan Civil War, they saw considerable action bombing strategic targets and providing close air support.
Since 2001, the Indian Air Force has lost 12 MiG-27s to crashes and in mid-February 2010, India grounded its entire fleet of over 150 of the aircraft after a MiG-27 crashed on 16 February 2010 in Siliguri, West Bengal. The crash was attributed to defects in the R 29 engines of the aircraft, suspected to have occurred during the overhauling of the aircraft by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.
The MiG-27 remains in service with the Kazakh Air Force.
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Alenia C-27J
The Alenia C-27J Spartan is a medium-sized military transport aircraft. The C-27J is an advanced derivative of Alenia Aeronautica’s G.222, with the engines and systems of the Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules.
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CZ 27
The CZ-27, a single action semiautomatic pistol with a capacity of 8 or 9 rounds, was developed in around 1926 by Czech arms designer Frantisek Myska in an attempt to produce simplified version of the CZ Vz.24 pistol, chambered for less powerful 7.65×17 SR Browning ammunition (also known as .32 ACP) and suited for police and security use.
It was put into production in 1927, at arms factory in Praha. Until the appearance of the famous CZ-75 pistol, the CZ-27 was one of the most successful handguns produced in Czechoslovakia, with well over 500 000 guns of this type produced between 1927 and 1951. During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia it was manufactured for German armed forces and police as Pistole model 27, or P.27(t) in short. It was extensively used by Czechoslovak police and security forces, and widely exported to many parts of the world.
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OTs-27 “Berdysh” pistol
Originally developed by the TSKIB SOO (central design bureau for sporting and hunting arms, Tula, Russia, later merged with famous KBP design bureau) the OTs-27 “Berdysh” is a Double Action semiautomatic 9 mm pistol with a capacity of 18 rounds. It was developed for “Grach” trials, with the goal being the replacement for the venerable Makarov PM as a standard issue sidearm for Russian army. The OTs-27 was subsequently dropped from the Grach trials, but the development continued and the pistol first appeared circa 1994.
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Other stuff
Cities located at 27 degrees longitude are Lajes, Azores and Izmir, Turkey;
Cities located at 27 degrees latitude are Brisbane, Australia and Katmandu, Nepal;
There are 27 bones in the human hand;
The Hebrew alphabet consists of 27 letters;
Napoleon was named commander of the army of Italy during his 27th year, on March 2, 1796;
Elias Howe invents the first sewing machine in 1846 when he was 27 years old;
When he was aged 27 F.W. Woolworth founded Woolworth Co. (1879) selling 5¢ and 10¢ merchandise;
There are 27 small cubes in a Rubik’s cube;
In 1806, aged 27, Zebulon M. Pike discovers Pike’s Peak, Colorado;
At the age of 27, Captain Matthew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875. He took 21 hours 43 minutes for the distance of 21 miles. Sadly eight years later, aged 35, Webb drowned while trying to swim across the waters above Niagara Falls in an attempt to exploit his fame as a swimmer. A memorial stone to Webb carries this inscription: “Nothing Great Is Easy”.
John Smith was 27 years old when he led the first English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607; he was saved from death by Pocohontas.
According to the dictionary, a pun is the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.
I like puns. Sometimes they can be quite clever and humorous. At other times they can lead to an excruciatingly bad joke, although the worse they are the funnier they seem to be. Strange thing humor.
I have a load of examples in the archives. Here are some to give you a taste of what may be in store.
Enjoy, (I hope)…
The fattest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference.
He acquired his size from too much pi.
I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island,
but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
She was only a whiskey maker,
but he loved her still.
No matter how much you push the envelope,
it’ll still be stationery.
Would a grenade thrown into a kitchen in France result in
Linoleum Blownapart?
Two silk worms had a race.
They ended up in a tie.
A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall.
The police are looking into it.
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
Apparently Mitt Romney donated the entirety of his inheritance from his father to the Brigham Young University. Is this guy a Moron?
Mitt Romney and Charles Montgomery Burns
Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway.
One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I’ll go on a head.”
I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger.
Then it hit me.
A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said:
“Keep off the Grass.”
The midget fortune-teller who escaped from prison
was a small medium at large.
The soldier who survived mustard gas and pepper spray
is now a seasoned veteran.
A backward poet writes inverse.
In a democracy it’s your vote that counts…
In feudalism it’s your count that votes.
When cannibals ate a missionary,
did they get a taste of religion?
If you jumped off the bridge in Paris ,
you’d be in Seine.
A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons.
The stewardess looks at him and says,
“I’m sorry, sir, only one carrion per passenger.”
Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal?
fasab 