FREE INTERNET COMPETITIONS, FREE QUIZZES

1. Heliocentric means centred on or moving around what?
   The sun
   
   
2. What precisely in Celsius is 122 degrees Fahrenheit?
   (Easier than it sounds) 50 degrees Celsius i.e. halfway between freezing and boiling of water
   
   
3. What in a heat context is a BTU?
   British Thermal Unit, the amount of heat needed to raise one pound of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit
   
   
4. What in chronometry does a gnomon do?
   Projects the shadow showing time on a sundial
   
   
5. 5,879,000,000,000 statute miles [i.e. 5,879 billion: nine noughts: thousand-thousand-thousand] is more easily described as one what?
   Light year (different values can be given depending on the chosen base)
   
   
6. The royal palace, monastery and mausoleum all in one known as the Escorial or Escurial, a name meaning slag-heap, is located near which capital city?
   Madrid
   
   
7. The Cat and Mouse Act (so-called: actually Prisoners (Temporary Discharge for Ill-Health) Act) was passed in 1913 to prevent martyrdom by hunger strike of which group of prisoners in particular?
   Suffragettes, who could be released on licence but were subject to re-imprisonment
   
   
8. An Edsel is a nickname for a product that is already old-fashioned even when new. Who was Edsel?
   Edsel Ford son of Henry Ford. The Ford Edsel was launched in 1957 to huge lack of acclaim
   
   
9. Where do night horn, love flute and wave of the sea co-exist?
   Church organ - all are stops: cor de nuit, flūte d'amour and unda maris
   
   
10. Which town, possibly after Byron, is known commonly as 'the Pearl of the Adriatic'?
    Dubrovnik

1. A London theatre - a variety of vegetable.
   Shakespeare's Globe theatre and globe artichoke
   
   
2. A central Asian desert - one of a large family of fish.
   Gobi/goby
   
   
3. A seventeenth century political philosopher (author of The Leviathan) - an early 20th century Surrey and England cricketer.
   Thomas Hobbes/Jack Hobbs
   
   
4. A great navigator and explorer killed on Hawaii in 1779 - a 19th century pioneer of tourism.
   James/Thomas Cook
   
   
5. A Chilean island famous for its stone statues - events at the Dublin Post Office in 1916.
   Easter Island and the Easter Rising
   
   
6. A series of Acts of Parliament passed from 1802 onwards dealing to a large extent with the regulation of hours worked by women and children - an intensive form of livestock production carried out under strictly controlled conditions.
   Factory Acts and factory farming
   
   
7. The highest waterfall in the world - the standard British Monopoly board.
   Angel Falls and the Angel, Islington
   
   
8. A national park located mainly in Derbyshire and established in 1951 - the author of Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone.
   Peak District and Mervyn Peake
   
   
9. 1905 (among others) in Russia, 1688-89 in this country and 1830 (among others) in France.
   Revolution (Bloody Sunday January 1905 in St Petersburg, the Glorious Revolution bloodlessly seeing out James II and ushering in William and Mary, the revolution bringing in the July Monarchy of the citizen-king Louis-Phillipe
   
   
10. November 9-10 (especially 1938 in Germany and Austria) - a structure built in 1851 in Hyde Park to a design by Thomas Paxton.
    Kristallnacht (Reichskristallnacht: the night of smashed glass) and Crystal Palace