With my participation in several quiz events looming, I've decided to give you lucky people a quiz a day for the foreseeable future. Starting today. I'm afraid it will, like this week's Tuesday Quiz, be less organised in terms of 'quiz categories', but, hopefully, entertaining all the same. Here goes:
1. Which country’s plan to reintroduce bears into the wild backfired in July 2007 when a Slovenian brown bear was accused of being ‘psychotic’ after its serial slaughter of sheep, apparently for fun?
2. Who was the Danish cyclist thrown out of the 2007 Tour de France by his own Rabobank team after missing four drug tests?
3. Taking its name from a David Bowie single, what was the title of Todd Haynes' 1998 film that starred Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Brian Slade, a bisexual glam-rocker based on Bowie himself?
4. Other than humans, what is the Great White Shark’s only natural predator?
5. Deriving ultimately from the Italian for ‘talk’, what is the name of the slang used by gay men in the first half of the 20th Century that was revived in the 1950s and 60s by the camp characters Julian and Sandy on the popular BBC Radio show 'Round the Horne'?
6. Which Italian early-Renaissance painter and architect is said to have drawn a perfect circle freehand for the Pope?
7. Which lake, located about halfway between Venice and Milan is the largest lake in Italy?
8. The neolithic flint mines found near the village of Spiennes are a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which country?
9. Which Austrian-American mathematician and philosopher is best remembered for his two incompleteness theorems, published in 1931?
10. Which was the only Nazi-occupied European country that emerged from World War II with a larger Jewish population than it had before the war?
11. Signed in response to the rise of the Ottoman Empire, which treaty of 1518, sponsored by Cardinal Wolsey, was a non-aggression pact between the major European nations including France, England and the Holy Roman Empire?
12. Of which football team was Bill Shankly manager before he joined Liverpool?
13. In geology, which term, coined by the seismologist Clarence Dutton, refers to the notion that the equilibrium in the crust of the earth is governed by the flow or yielding of the mantle under gravitational stress?
14. According to the Bible, who was the youngest of the twelve Apostles?
15. According to Greek mythology, who was the son of Apollo who was reared by shepherds but torn apart by his own dogs upon reaching adulthood?
16. Who was assassinated in May 1942 by the Czechoslovak soldiers Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík?
17. Which rock star recorded the voice for the title character in the X Box and Playstation 2 platform game 'Malice' before being dropped in controversial circumstances prior to its release in June 2004?
18. Aboard which ship was the notorious criminal Dr Crippen sailing when he was captured in 1910?
19. Which ageing American film actress, whose latest big-screen role was in the 2004 film 'Bob's Night Out', famously received multiple marriage proposals from Benito Mussolini in the mail?
20. Which is the only antelope native to North America?
21. What was the name of the passenger liner that was hijacked off the coast of Egypt by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front in October 1985?
22. Which British Prime Minister became the 1st Earl of Chatham?
23. Which American boxer defeated Lennox Lewis in April 2001 to claim the WBC and IBF Heavyweight titles?
24. Which ornithologist and painter founded the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in 1948 and designed the panda logo for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature?
25. In which country was the Labour MP Peter Hain born?
26. Who was the only man who completed the Burke and Wills expedition that set out to cross Australia from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1860?
27. Begun in 1995 by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, what is the name of the avant-garde filmmaking movement, the most notable films of which include 'Fuckland' and 'Italian for Beginners'?
28. Which disease, caused by the bacteria Chlamydia, is the single biggest cause of blindness worldwide?
29. Which bacteriologist, considered the founder of the science of immunology, was awarded the first ever Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1901?
30. In which city are the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency?
31. Which two American Presidents died within a few hours of each other on Independence Day 1826?
32. What is the name of the supertall skyscraper currently under construction in Dubai that will become the world’s tallest man-made structure when it is completed in late 2008?
33. Which football team won the last UEFA Cup Winners' Cup final in 1999?
34. In the Roman calender what name was given to the first day of the month?
35. What was the name of the Spanish Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1973?
36. At which battle of 1809 was the British commander Sir John Moore killed?
37. Which Chelsea goalkeeper had a cameo role in the 1930 film 'The Great Game' alongside his team mates Jack Cock, George Mills and Andy Wilson?
38. Ambystoma mexicanum is the scientific name for an aquatic salamander native to Mexico. What is its common name?
39. Casinge Street was a Roman road that linked London with which town?
40. What was the name of the ship aboard which the Spanish explorer Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522?
41. In 1997, Charlotte Hatherley joined which previously all-male indie rock group which she left last year?
42. What was the name of King Harold's brother who fought against Harold at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066?
43. Which 1934 film became the first, and until 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' in 1975 the only, movie in history to win the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay?
44. Literally meaning 'grilled bird', what is the name given to the Japanese dish of bite-sized pieces of chicken that have been skewered on bamboo and barbecued?
45. Although thought to have become extinct in the 1980s, unconfirmed sightings have continued to the present day in Turkey and Israel of which subspecies of leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana)?
46. Laurenco Marques was the former name of which African capital city?
47. What was the name of Huddersfield Town's football stadium prior to their move to the McAlpine Stadium in 1994?
48. Who was the Scottish religious reformer and Protestant martyr who was burned at the stake at St Andrews in 1546?
49. The Shrine of the Three Kings is a reliquary, said to contain the bones of the Three Wise Men, that is housed in which German cathedral?
50. The poet Yanka Kupala and the novelist Vasil Bykau were two of the greatest 20th Century writers in which language?
Hope you enjoyed it. How did you do?
1. FRANCE
2. MICHAEL RASMUSSEN
3. VELVET GOLDMINE
4. KILLER WHALE (or ORCA)
5. POLARI (or PALARE)
6. GIOTTO
7. LAKE GARDA
8. BELGIUM
9. KURT GÖDEL
10. ALBANIA
11. TREATY OF LONDON
12. HUDDERSFIELD TOWN
13. ISOSTASY
14. JOHN
15. LINUS
16. REINHARD HEYDRICH
17. GWEN STEFANI
18. SS MONTROSE
19. ANITA PAGE
20. PRONGHORN
21. ACHILLE LAURO
22. WILLIAM PITT, THE ELDER
23. HASIM RAHMAN
24. PETER SCOTT
25. KENYA
26. JOHN KING
27. DOGME 95
28. TRACHOMA
29. EMIL VON BEHRING
30. VIENNA
31. THOMAS JEFFERSON and JOHN ADAMS
32. BURJ DUBAI
33. LAZIO
34. KALENDS
35. LUIS CARRERO BLANCO
36. THE BATTLE OF CORUNNA
37. SAM MILLINGTON
38. AXOLOTL
39. DOVER
40. VICTORIA (or VITTORIA)
41. ASH
42. TOSTIG
43. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT
44. YAKITORI
45. ANATOLIAN LEOPARD
46. MAPUTO
47. LEEDS ROAD
48. GEORGE WISHART
49. COLOGNE
50. BELARUSIAN
