A good mixture of easy, difficult and maybe one or two tricky questions for you today.
But if you get stuck you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
Enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: Was the color orange named after the fruit, or was the fruit named after the color orange?
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Q. 2: Approximately how much of the mass of our solar system does the Sun take up?
a) 59% b) 69% c) 79% d) 89% e) 99%
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Q. 3: What is the deepest part of the world’s oceans known as?
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Q. 4: What was the discovery that gave archaeologists the key to understanding modern Egyptian hieroglyphs.
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Q. 5: You’ve seen it hundreds of times at least, but how many stars surround the mountain on the Paramount Pictures logo?
a) 12 b) 22 c) 32 d) 42
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Q. 6: Since the beginning of the modern Olympics, in 1896, what are the only two countries to have participated in every Games. (A point for each correct answer.)
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Q. 7: Who played detective Kojak in the long running TV series?
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Q. 8: Approximately how many bacteria are on each of your feet?
a) one thousand b) one million c) one billion d) one trillion
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Q. 9: What is the name of the lake situated on the border of Peru and Bolivia in the Andes Mountains? (You know it, it’s a very well known name.)
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Q. 10: What was the name of the New York Yankees baseball star who was once married to Marilyn Monroe?
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Q. 11: Which US state has the longest border with Canada?
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Q. 12: Lizzie Borden was an American woman, from Fall River, Massachusetts, who was famously accused of the axe murders of her father and stepmother. It was a famous case memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme: “Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.” How long was her jail sentence?
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Q. 13: Without rearranging any of its letters, how many English language words can you make from the seven letter word “therein”? (You can have a point for each word you can make, so potentially a good score here!)
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Q. 14: They are now worth millions of dollars each and much sought after, but how many of his paintings did Vincent Van Gogh sell while he was alive?
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Q. 15: What is Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service better known as?
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Q. 16: South Africa is the only country with three official capitals, what are they? (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you can correctly name all three.)
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Q. 17: What is a baby eel called?
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Q. 18: What is greater, the volume of the Earth’s moon OR the volume of the Pacific Ocean?
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Q. 19: Which US President pardoned Robert E. Lee posthumously of all crimes of treason?
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Q. 20: Probably the most famous version is by Frank Sinatra, but who wrote the song “I Get A Kick Out Of You”?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: Was the color orange named after the fruit, or was the fruit named after the color orange?
A. 1: The color orange was named after the fruit.
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Q. 2: Approximately how much of the mass of our solar system does the Sun take up?
a) 59% b) 69% c) 79% d) 89% e) 99%
A. 2: The correct answer is e) 99%.
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Q. 3: What is the deepest part of the world’s oceans known as?
A. 3: The deepest part of the world’s oceans is known as the Mariana Trench or Marianas Trench, located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands.
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Q. 4: What was the discovery that gave archaeologists the key to understanding modern Egyptian hieroglyphs.
A. 4: The discovery of the Rosetta Stone finally provided the key to understanding modern Egyptian hieroglyphs.
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Q. 5: You’ve seen it hundreds of times at least, but how many stars surround the mountain on the Paramount Pictures logo?
a) 12 b) 22 c) 32 d) 42
A. 5: The correct answer is b), there are 22 stars surrounding the mountain on the Paramount Pictures logo.
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Q. 6: Since the beginning of the modern Olympics, in 1896, what are the only two countries to have participated in every Games. (A point for each correct answer.)
A. 6: The only two countries to have participated in every modern Olympic Games are Greece and Australia.
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Q. 7: Who played detective Kojak in the long running TV series?
A. 7: Telly Savalas.
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Q. 8: Approximately how many bacteria are on each of your feet?
a) one thousand b) one million c) one billion d) one trillion
A. 8: There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.
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Q. 9: What is the name of the lake situated on the border of Peru and Bolivia in the Andes Mountains? (You know it, it’s a very well known name.)
A. 9: It is called Lake Titicaca.
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Q. 10: What was the name of the New York Yankees baseball star who was once married to Marilyn Monroe?
A. 10: He was Joe DiMaggio.
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Q. 11: Which US state has the longest border with Canada?
A. 11: Alaska.
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Q. 12: Lizzie Borden was an American woman, from Fall River, Massachusetts, who was famously accused of the axe murders of her father and stepmother. It was a famous case memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme: “Lizzie Borden took an axe, And gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one.” How long was her jail sentence?
A. 12: She was acquitted and no one else has ever been charged with the murders.
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Q. 13: Without rearranging any of its letters, how many English language words can you make from the seven letter word “therein”? (You can have a point for each word you can make, so potentially a good score here!)
A. 13: There are ten English language words that can be made out of the word “therein” without rearranging any of its letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, here, ere, therein, herein.
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Q. 14: They are now worth millions of dollars each and much sought after, but how many of his paintings did Vincent Van Gogh sell while he was alive?
A. 14: Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting while he was alive, the Red Vineyard at Arles.
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Q. 15: What is Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service better known as?
A. 15: QANTAS, the name of the Australian national airline.
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Q. 16: South Africa is the only country with three official capitals, what are they? (A point for each correct answer, and a bonus point if you can correctly name all three.)
A. 16: South Africa’s three official capitals are Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein.
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Q. 17: What is a baby eel called?
A. 17: A baby eel is called an elver.
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Q. 18: What is greater, the volume of the Earth’s moon OR the volume of the Pacific Ocean?
A. 18: Bit of a trick question here. The volume of the Earth’s moon is the same as the volume of the Pacific Ocean.
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Q. 19: Which US President pardoned Robert E. Lee posthumously of all crimes of treason?
A. 19: Gerald Ford.
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Q. 20: Probably the most famous version is by Frank Sinatra, but who wrote the song “I Get A Kick Out Of You”?
A. 20: Cole Porter. Sorry Frank but this is MY favorite version….
They’ve been ‘beautiful’, they’ve been ‘big’ and they’ve been ‘unusual’. Today we have the number seven, another of what are known as ‘significant’ numbers, so-called because of their use and the beliefs surrounding them.
Enjoy.
7 Seven
The number seven is the most mystical of all numbers. It is considered by a great many people to be ‘lucky’.
It is a number that is mentioned many times in the Bible where it indicates perfection and has its roots in ancient Jewish history.
In the Old Testament for example,
The Creation established the pattern of a seven day week.
The seventh day was a day of rest.
Land was to lie fallow every seventh year to allow it to recover its nutrients.
Noah led the clean animals into the ark in sets of seven pairs for each species.
Solomon took seven years to build the temple in Jerusalem.
The Torah mentions that the Sabbatical, or holy year, occurred every seven years.
The Israelites were told to march around the walls of Jericho seven times, and their enemies would be defeated.
The symbolic Jewish candlestick has seven branches.
This view of the number seven continued in the New Testament.
A disciple asked Jesus, “How many times should we forgive our brethren?” Jesus replied, “70 times 7”.
Revelations 1:16 states, “He had in his right hand seven stars.”
Also in Revelations, the number of seals is seven.
And beyond the Bible, we find the number seven in other religions and societies.
The ancient Greeks considered the number seven to be lucky. They believed it to be the perfect number.
In ancient Egypt there were seven paths to heaven.
In ancient Babylon there were seven branches on their tree of life.
The Arabs carried on this belief and built seven holy temples.
The Goths made sure they worshiped the seven deities.
The Japanese also had seven gods. (In 1995, to celebrate the Japanese Emperor’s seven year reign 17 runners ran 7,777 meters round the imperial palace at 7 minutes past seven on the 7th day of the 7th month.)
The Chinese saw seven as the number governing female life.
Even the Scottish Masons made sure the number seven had relevance in their rites, and their aprons were made with seven tassels on them.
In the US too there are examples of the occurrence of the number seven.
The Founding Fathers declared independence from Britain during the seventh month.
There are seven articles to the US constitution.
And the city of Washington D.C. was built on the 77th longitude.
The number still occurs because of it being thought lucky such as the drink 7-Up and the Boeing airplanes which are always 7?7.
Then there are the Seven Wonders of the world.
The original seven wonders were:
Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria
(The earliest lists had the Ishtar Gate as the seventh wonder of the world instead of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.)
Map of the original Seven Wonders of the World
In 2001 an initiative was started by the Swiss corporation New7Wonders Foundation to choose the New7Wonders of the World from a selection of 200 existing monuments.
Twenty-one finalists were announced January 1, 2006. Egyptians were not happy that the only surviving original wonder, the Great Pyramid of Giza, would have to compete with the likes of the Statue of Liberty, the Sydney Opera House, and other landmarks, calling the project absurd. In response, Giza was named an honorary Candidate.
The results, announced on July 7, 2007, in Lisbon, Portugal, were:
Great Wall of China
Petra (Jordan)
Christ the Redeemer (Brazil)
Machu Picchu (Peru)
Chichen Itza (Mexico)
Colosseum (Italy)
Taj Mahal (India)
There have also been several atempts to compile a list of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The main candidates include:
Grand Canyon
Great Barrier Reef
Harbor of Rio de Janeiro
Mount Everest
Aurora
Parícutin volcano
Victoria Falls
And, of course, in the field of entertainment the number seven has featured in several memorable movies, examples of which include:
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