World History trivia quiz

The Game Room
681

440 Lord Baden Powell
441. Mafeking
442.
443. Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour
444. Chief Scout of the World.

682

36 Hours?

683
  1. The Man Who Never Was
684

Correct on 433, Governor Quinn.

[Danimal, I’d never heard of 36 Hours before your post. It looks interesting, but there’s no corpse, it’s clearly totally fictional, and the deception is the wrong way round…]

A lepidopterist. IIRC, Baden-Powell was a gifted sketch artist , and would “hunt for butterflies” near fortifications, then incorporate military intel in the fine details of the butterfly drawings that he made. Perfect cover for a binocular-wielding eccentric English gentleman abroad, and the epitome of practical Scouting!

685

All correct - excellent. And Antonius Block has 442 on the nose.

686
  1. What does the term “Wavy Navy” reference?
687

No one having answered these questions correctly, I shall now provide answers:

  1. Maiwand.

  2. Nominally, on behalf of the uitlanders, or non-Boer white residents of the Boer Republics.

  3. They had come with the gold rush around Johannesburg.

  4. Boulanger

  5. San Marino

  6. The Czech Republic.

688

445: I think this refers to reserve officers of the Royal Navy. The RN rank insignia consisted of stripes around the cuffs, much as those of our American naval officers, but reservists had wavy lines instead of straight horizontal ones. I’ll leave the explanation of that to one of our British dopers.

689

movingfinger - Correct. AIUI the Wavy Navy refers to the whole of the Royal Navy Reserves, but yes, it was named for the wavy lines on the officer’s boards, and I think similar lines on the petty officer’s rank emblems.

690

:smack: I should have known this. That’s the one in which… well, why don’t I just make it a question?

  1. What fictional character was badly wounded and barely escaped from the Battle of Maiwand?
  2. The stars on the New Zealand flag are what color?
  3. A dragon appears on the national flag of what Asian country?
  4. The UN Charter was signed in what city?
  5. What UN Secretary-General died in a plane crash?
691
  1. Dr. John Watson
  2. Red?
  3. Nepal
  4. San Francisco
  5. Dag Hammarskold (?)
692

In case anyone’s interested in the correct answer:

There have been six double dissolutions since federation: 1914, 1951, 1974, 1975 (the Whitlam government dismissal), 1983 and 1987.

693

I hope these questions haven’t been asked:

  1. Name at least three of the predecessor parties of the Liberal Party of Australia.

  2. What Canadian third party long controlled Alberta and British Columbia and was prominent in rural Quebec into the late 1970s?

  3. Towards the end of apartheid, these white political parties opposed the ruling National Party from the left and right.

  4. Two federated states in British colonies were set up in the late 1950s and collapsed in the early 1960s. What were they?

694

All correct. Well done!

695

  1. The United Australia Party; the Nationalist Party; the Free Traders. I think. Early federal party boundaries weren’t always clearly defined.

  2. The Malaysian Federation? Singapore withdrew in 1965, although I don’t know whether this would count as a “collapse”. As for the other - I’m not sure, but I’d guess somewhere in Africa.

696

Perhaps Zimbabwe/Biafra?

697

Cunctator: Correct with 451 (I would have also accepted the Commonwealth Liberal Party of the 1910s and the Protectionist Party). 454 is not one I was thinking of, thought one of the two was African (I can’t say where the other is without giving it away.)

OtakuLoki: Modern Zimbabwe (but not under that name) was part of one of the answers to 454. Biafra wasn’t.

698

Elendil’s Heir, did we ever get an answer for question 310?

699

ahem

I thought I’d remembered something odd about this, so I looked it up (having already ventured a guess)… and it appears that the story is apocryphal.

700

No, that’s a different incident. The rowboat thing really happened; I read about it years ago in World Book Encyclopedia. A young Churchill was alone in a rowboat on a lake in Switzerland and decided to hop out and take a dip. The wind then blew his boat away, just out of reach, and after awhile he, although very fatigued, finally caught up with it. He saved himself; Alexander Fleming played no role in it. I agree that is an UL.

More British historical trivia.

  1. This royal aide yearly pounds on the door to the British House of Commons to summon the MPs to hear the Queen’s Speech.
  2. Churchill decided to mark the Commons’s being damaged during the Blitz in what way?
  3. If these ever leave the Tower of London, it is said, Great Britain will fall.
  4. A sex scandal involving this Cabinet minister shook the British government in the early 1960s.
  5. These sociopathic criminal brothers terrorized London in the Sixties.