Have you ever wondered what all those space shuttle flights were about? Not the headline grabbing ones, but all the others. Everybody is at it, the US, Russia, China, the EU….
That’s the ones we know about. There have been many others that are never publicized.
And then there is the question of what happens to whatever it is they put up there when they have served whatever purpose they were originally sent up there to do. They call that bit “space junk”. Except sometimes it isn’t junk at all. It only looks like it.
For example, the Russian government says it recently detected a group of satellites that are spying on Russia while orbiting the Earth camouflaged as “space junk”.
They made the announcement rather appropriately on April 12, which ever since 1961 is known as “Space Day”, when Russia commemorates Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering voyage into outer space.
There wasn’t so much junk about in his day. Now it is estimated that there are 100,000 objects orbiting planet Earth on any given day. So plenty of cover to hide your spies.
Apparently these ‘disguised-as-junk’ spy satellites are designed to collect signals from Russian telecommunications and other electronic systems.
So far the Russians aren’t saying who these junk satellites belonged to, or whether it had tried, or was going to try, to shoot them down or disable them.
It would be rather appropriate given the name ‘junk’ if they turned out to be Chinese, but with America’s recent record for snooping on the whole world you’d find it hard to rule them out of the silent running.
Yes, lots of names in today’s quiz, either as the answers or as part of the questions.
Some easy and some quite difficult, but you’ll have to have a bit of knowledge of various subjects to answer them all correctly.
And as usual, if you get stuck, you can find the answers waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down below, but please NO cheating!
Enjoy and good luck.
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Q. 1: In which city does the American football team the ’49ers’ play?
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Q. 2: These two men had the same name, one was sentenced to death by hanging in the United States in 1859 and the other was a Ghillie who became close to Queen Victoria after the death of her husband Prince Albert – what was their name?
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Q. 3: And still on the subject of names, separated only by a vowel, what were the surnames of two famous painters born in Paris, France during the 19th Century who had a significant impact on the ‘impressionist’ movement? (There is usually a point for each correct answer in questions like this, but in this case if you get one right you’ll get them both right, so just one point up for grabs.)
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Q. 4: What type of animal is an Ibex?
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Q. 5: Who and what is ‘Tristan da Cunha’ ? (A point for each correct answer.)
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Q. 6: Which treaty with Germany brought a formal end to the First World War?
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Q. 7: What city is known as the ‘fashion capital of the world’ ?
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Q. 8: ‘Entomology’ is the study of what?
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Q. 9: In which organ of the body is insulin produced?
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Q. 10: As well as skiing, which other sport takes place on a piste?
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Q. 11: Who had himself crowned King of Scotland at Scone in 1306?
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Q. 12: Who performed the first human heart transplant?
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Q. 13: Who is the victim of ‘The Murder in the Cathedral’ in T S Eliot’s play of that name?
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Q. 14: In the Crimean War, Roger Fenton was the first person to be accredited in what capacity?
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Q. 15: What fictional character famously ‘tilted at windmills’ and who served as his ‘squire’ ?
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Q. 16: Which chemical element, number 11 in the Periodic table, has the symbol ‘Na’ ?
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Q. 17: What is the longest bone in the human body?
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Q. 18: In which spacecraft did Yuri Gagarin become the first man in space?
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Q. 19: In which country are two islands linked by the Seikan rail tunnel, the longest rail tunnel in the world? (Two bonus points are available if you can also correctly name the islands.)
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Q. 20: ‘Professor Henry Higgins’ and ‘Eliza Doolittle’ central characters in which George Bernard Shaw play and which Hollywood musical?
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ANSWERS
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Q. 1: In which city does the American football team the ’49ers’ play?
A. 1: San Francisco.
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Q. 2: These two men had the same name, one was sentenced to death by hanging in the United States in 1859 and the other was a Ghillie who became close to Queen Victoria after the death of her husband Prince Albert – what was their name?
A. 2: John Brown.
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Q. 3: And still on the subject of names, separated only by a vowel, what were the surnames of two famous painters born in Paris, France during the 19th Century who had a significant impact on the ‘impressionist’ movement? (There is usually a point for each correct answer in questions like this, but in this case if you get one right you’ll get them both right, so just one point up for grabs.)
A. 3: They are Édouard Manet (born 23 January 1832) and Oscar-Claude Monet (born 14 November 1840).
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Q. 4: What type of animal is an Ibex?
A. 4: A Mountain Goat.
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Q. 5: Who and what is ‘Tristan da Cunha’ ? (A point for each correct answer.)
A. 5: ‘Tristan da Cunha’ is the name of a famous Portuguese navigator and the name of an island in the South Atlantic that he first sighted it in 1506.
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Q. 6: Which treaty with Germany brought a formal end to the First World War?
A. 6: The Treaty of Versailles.
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Q. 7: What city is known as the ‘fashion capital of the world’ ?
A. 7: Milan.
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Q. 8: ‘Entomology’ is the study of what?
A. 8: Insects.
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Q. 9: In which organ of the body is insulin produced?
A. 9: The Pancreas.
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Q. 10: As well as skiing, which other sport takes place on a piste?
A. 10: Fencing.
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Q. 11: Who had himself crowned King of Scotland at Scone in 1306?
A. 11: Robert the Bruce. (Think back to the final scene in the movie Braveheart.)
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Q. 12: Who performed the first human heart transplant?
A. 12: Doctor Christian Barnard.
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Q. 13: Who is the victim of ‘The Murder in the Cathedral’ in T S Eliot’s play of that name?
A. 13: Thomas Beckett.
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Q. 14: In the Crimean War, Roger Fenton was the first person to be accredited in what capacity?
A. 14: War Photographer.
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Q. 15: What fictional character famously ‘tilted at windmills’ and who served as his ‘squire’ ?
A. 15: Don Quixote and his squire was Sancho Panza. (From the Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.)
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Q. 16: Which chemical element, number 11 in the Periodic table, has the symbol ‘Na’ ?
A. 16: Sodium.
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Q. 17: What is the longest bone in the human body?
A. 17: The femur, or thighbone, either answer gets you the point.
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Q. 18: In which spacecraft did Yuri Gagarin become the first man in space?
A. 18: Vostok 1.
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Q. 19: In which country are two islands linked by the Seikan rail tunnel, the longest rail tunnel in the world? (Two bonus points are available if you can also correctly name the islands.)
A. 19: The country is Japan, and for your two bonus points the names of the islands are Honshu and Hokkaido.
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Q. 20: ‘Professor Henry Higgins’ and ‘Eliza Doolittle’ central characters in which George Bernard Shaw play and which Hollywood musical?
A. 20: The play is called ‘Pygmalion’ and the movie version ‘My Fair Lady’.
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.
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