1. Of Sunny Loins and Ponce de
Lions
Balaji Srinivasan
Bay Area Quiz Club
06/24/2012
2. In 2004, Sunny Leone was part of the “No more
Bush girls” campaign against George Bush.
What did the porn actresses in the campaign do
to show their support?
14. Russian Ark was a 2002 historical drama,
directed by Alexander Sokurov. It was filmed
entirely in the Winter Palace of the Russian
State Hermitage Museum. The characters in
this film include Peter the Great, Catherine the
Great and the nineteenth century French
traveller, Marquis de Custine.
The film was featured at the Cannes film festival.
What was unique about this movie?
16. The film was a 96 minute movie, taken entirely in
one single 96 min steadycam sequence shot,
officially making this the longest single shot in
the history of cinematography.
19. Sasikala
In 1989, a Jayalalitha & Sasikala’s car was hit by
a lorry. Rajiv Gandhi rushed to see them at the
hospital.
20. In his Nobel prize acceptance speech, he said:
“Coming as I do from India, a land which gave
birth to civilization in ancient times, where much
of the earlier tradition and wisdom guides
actions even in modern times, the philosophy of
"Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam," which means “the
whole universe is one family,” must dominate
global efforts to protect the global commons.”
Who?
22. Prof. Rajendra Pachauri of Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel
peace prize with Al Gore.
23. He was no stereotypical mathematician. He was
urbane, witty, wealthy and (literally) entitled. At
his 1926 doctoral exam, the mathematician
David Hilbert is said to have asked but one
question: “Pray, who is the candidate’s tailor?”
Hilbert had never seen such beautiful evening
clothes.
This polymath threw many social parties in his
Princeton house, and once, someone posed the
“Fly and the train” problem. He quickly came up
with the answer. When asked how he did it, he
succintly said, “I just summed the series”!
Who?
28. Apollo 10 astronauts with their families, 1969.
The dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing was
made by the Apollo 10 mission. Thomas
Stafford ( left right of globe), John Young ( right
left) and Gene Cernan (top), were the first to fly
the lunar module in lunar orbit, and descend to
within 47,000 feet of the Mare Tranquillitatis.
This test mission paved the way for Neil and
Buzz in a few months.
29. The men of the Zaraniq tribe, on the west coast of
Yemen, have a truly unique tradition, ___ (a
sport). Famous throughout Yemen for their
speed, strength and courage, the members of
the Zaraniq tribe are the world’s only
professional ___.
The origins of ____ can be traced back to ancient
times, but the tradition was almost completely
forgotten, until recently, when Zaraniq members
began practicing it once again. ____ events
take place during local celebrations like
weddings, and at the al-Khamis, an annual
festival that marks the end of the palm season,
and are always accompanied by singing and
32. A terrific actress, she once played her
grandmother in a film. She has been acting for
over 45 years, though she made her mark with
a landmark movie in 1965. ID this lady seen
with her father here.
35. He was one of the most influential writers of the past half-century. In his
short and meteoric career, he wrote 121 short stories and 45 novels.
His work was successful during his lifetime but has grown
exponentially in influence since his death in 1982.
On Feb. 20, 1974, he was hit with the force of an extraordinary revelation
after a visit to the dentist for which he had received a dose of sodium
pentothal. He suddenly experienced what he called, with a nod to
Plato, anamnesis: the recollection or total recall of the entire sum of
knowledge. He claimed to have access to what philosophers call the
faculty of “intellectual intuition”: the direct perception by the mind of a
metaphysical reality behind screens of appearance.
This was not a standalone experience for him. He continued to have
psychedelic visions, hearing voices, prophetic dreams etc. At one
point he felt that he had been taken over by the spirit of the prophet
Elijah. He wrote more than 8000 pages of his experience.
Last year, this work was edited and finally published, 950 pages, called
“Exegesis”.
ID the author.
38. “The Yes Men” consider themselves to be a “culture
jamming” group. They try to create awareness about
social issues. They plan elaborate hoaxes, host fake
websites and make fake announcements that often
shed light on real issues.
One of their most famous “pranks” was when Andy
Bichlbaum appeared on TV in 2004 as a spokesman of
the company X. He announced that the company was
going to be liquidated, $12 billion in assets was going
to be cashed, and the proceeds would go to Y.
The prank cost the company X almost $2 billion in
market cap.
ID X and Y.
41. John Bellingham, was businessman from Liverpool. As a
result of a dispute with some Russian Businessmen,
Bellingham had been imprisoned in Russia in 1804
accused of owing a debt. He had been held in various
prisons there for the next 5 years. Throughout all of this
time he had pleaded with the British authorities for
assistance in fighting his cause for justice. He believed that
they had not given his case sufficient attention.
Bellingham was finally released and returned to England in
1809 a very bitter man. He felt deep resentment against
the British authorities and immediately set about seeking
financial compensation from them for his suffering and loss
of business. Once again, however, Bellingham felt that he
was being ignored. He petitioned the Foreign Secretary,
the Treasury, the Privy Council, the Prime Minister, even
the Prince Regent, but all to no avail.
So, what did he do?
43. He thought the only way he could get his day in
court was by shooting the Prime Minister.
Hence, he shot and assassinated Spencer
Perceval, the only British Prime Minister to be
assassinated.
49. In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to
run the Boston marathon.
After realizing that a woman was running, race
organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer
shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give
me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s
boyfriend and other male runners provided a
protective shield during the entire marathon.
The photographs taken of the incident made
world headlines, and Kathrine later won the
NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29.
50. He was one of the British generals during the
American war of Independence. He is stamped
in US history as the general leading the British
troops who surrendered to the American force,
symbolically ending the war.
He surrendered to General Washington and the
French commander on 19 October 1781, after
the Siege of Yorktown.
He returned to Great Britain in 1782.
Tom Wilkinson played him in the movie “Patriot”.
Who is he? We know him in an entirely different
context.
53. Arthur Wellesley, brother of Richard Wellesley
(Governor General of India), led the British
forces in the fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799.
This was saw the death of Tipu Sultan during the
Siege of Srirangapatnam. Wellesley was the
one who confirmed the death of Tipu Sultan,
checking his pulse.
Wellesley became the Governor of
Srirangapatnam and Mysore.
But, Tipu Sultan was not his major conquest. He
is known for defeating a person much more
popular. Who?
55. Napoleon.
Wellesley became the Duke of Wellington, who
defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in
1815.
He went on to become the Prime Minister of
Britain in 1828.
56. Celebrated journalists Alister Doyle and Paul
Salopek are coming up with new units of
measurement to explain complex and often
intangible concepts in media.
The X unit is something that indicates how much
international aid a country is likely to get when it
becomes a personal cause of a high profile
celebrity.
Unit Y is the amount of global attention Y
commands across all media over the space of a
day. Using a tool like Google Insights for
Search, compare a given search term to Y and
measure how small a fraction of Y any given
issue or cause merits. ID X and Y.
59. This photo was taken on June 6th. No points for guessing the big object in
front of the sun. But ID the little object whose transit is shown in small circles.
Hint - Total time for the transit is just nine tenths of a second.
61. Hubble space telescope.
By astrophotographer Thierry Legault.
Thierry had to determine where on Earth he
would have to be, and at precisely what time he
would need to aim his camera skyward in order
to capture the image — two conditions that led
to his being in Queensland, Australia on the
morning of June 6th.
There, at 11:42:25 local time, shooting at ten
frames per second, he captured a total of nine
images of Hubble as it zipped across the face of
the Sun.
62. He was a legislator in Athens in 7th century BCE.
He was responsible for creating one of the first
written set of laws.
In 590 BCE, Grecian authorities held a
celebration to commemorate his hard work.
Unfortunately, he died from suffocation due to
audience members tossing hundreds of coats
and shirts on top of him, a common custom
from the time performed to show respect.
Who?
65. Sebastian Barry’s novel “On Canaan’s side” has
just won the 2012 X prize for historical fiction.
The X prize, founded in 2010 is given to novels
that are set at least 60 years in the past. The
prize money, 25K pounds, makes it one of the
biggest literary awards in U.K.
X is an author who is considered the originator of
historical fiction, with his novel “Waverley” in
1814 (he published Waverley anonymously, as
he wanted to maintain his name as a poet and
not as a novelist). Waverley’s background is the
Jacobite uprising in 1745.
ID X.
69. This painting, titled “Shah Jahan and Dara
Shikoh” is a miniature copied by X.
This is one of about 25 Mughal miniatures that he
copied. It is known that several collections of
the drawings were on the art market in the
1650s when he is thought to have copied them,
and that X was an active collector.
Mughal miniatures were known as “Suratse
teeckeningen” or “drawings from Surate”, in the
country that X lived.
ID X.
72. The 1992 dream team consisted of possibly the greatest
players of all time. One player in his prime was left out.
It was suggested for a long time that he was left out
because Michael Jordan didn’t want him in the dream
team.
A new NBA documentary this month finally confirms
these speculations that Jordan and Pippen had
threatened not to be a part of dream team if that player
was also picked.
One of the main incidents leading up to this was the
1992 Eastern Conference Championships, where this
player led his team off the floor before the buzzer,
without congratulating the Bulls.
Who was this player?
84. Protesters in Stratford-upon-Avon, England,
covered signs and statues featuring
Shakespeare to protest over a film called
"Anonymous," which premiered at the London
Film Festival. The film suggests that the world
famous playwright was not the true author of his
works and was barely literate.
85. ID X. "It is known by locals as the statue of three lies--
the inscription claims X as the founder of the University,
when in fact he was just a contributor; the inscription
also says the Institution was founded in 1638, when in
fact in was 1636; and finally, the statue does not depict
a true likeness of X."
99. A bronze statue of Franz Kafka sitting on the
shoulders of a headless, limbless man stands in
the city of Prague. It represents a dream that he
had, which is described in one of his earliest
short stories, “Description of a Struggle,”
published in 1909, six years before The
Metamorphosis.