January QOTMAyushman Ojaswi

David Bowie Memorial QOTM

Alan Rickman Memorial QOTM

With many thanks to

• Aniket Chakrapani and the rest of the DBQC for organizing the quiz

• Sanjana Ravindran, Saihil Heble, Omkar Kamlapur, Chiara Singh and many others

• And I’m happy that Amey Karpe is still with us, to paraphrase Sir Alex Ferguson, he could’ve died, you know.

1.

• What is the name of the shield carried by the Greek gods Zeus and Athena?

• The word is identified with protection by a strong force and was adopted by the Romans; there are parallels in Norse and Egyptian mythology as well.

• It is also the name of an American made Ballistic Missile Defence system, enabling warships to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles.

Aegis

2, 3, 4.• In Dante's Inferno, the ninth and last circle of Hell has four concentric

rounds of traitors, corresponding to the order of seriousness. • Round 1 named after ___Cain___, who was the son of Adam and Eve, the

first human born, killed his own brother in a fit of jealousy and anger, thus committing the first murder.

• Round 2 is named after ___Antenor of Troy___, who according to medieval tradition betrayed the city of Troy to the Greeks.

• Round 4 is named after ___ Judas Iscariot ___ ,the Biblical betrayer of Christ.

5.• X is a 1974 book by journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two

of the journalists that investigated the Watergate break-in and the ensuing scandal for the Washington Post.

• The name of the book alludes the nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty-"All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again”

• A film adaption of the book, produced by Robert Redford and starring Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Woodward and Bernstein respectively was released in 1976.

All the President’s Men

6.• A minor 15 minute long orchestral work composed by Ludwig van

Beethoven to commemorate whose victory over Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria in Spain in June 1813?

• It is known sometimes as "The Battle Symphony" or "The Battle of Vitoria", and was dedicated to the Prince Regent, later King George IV.

• The music simulates approaching opposing armies and contains extended passages depicting scenes of battle.

• The piece proved to be a substantial money-maker for Beethoven but he had no illusions about its merits, and responded to criticism with "What I shit (schiesse) is better than everything you could ever think up."

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

7.

• Which popular folk songs in French, written on a false rumour of the death of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, tells how Marlborough's wife, awaiting his return from battle is given the news of her husband's death.

• The melody probably predates the song's lyrics and is also used in two other songs, 'For he's a jolly good fellow' and 'The Bear Went Over the Mountain‘.

Marlborough has left for the war ormarlborough s'en va-t-en guerre

8.

• When studying at Berkeley in the late 1990s, Senh Duong co-founded which film aggregator website?

• Coverage now includes TV content as well. • The name derives from a practise of throwing these

objects at a poor stage performance. • The company has since January 2010 been owned by

Flixter, which itself was acquired in 2011 by Warner Bros.

Rotten Tomatoes

9.

• A stocky, carnivorous marsupial, Sarcophilus harrisii, has what two word common name, after the Australian state which is its only habitat?

• The animal is an iconic symbol of the state and many organisations, groups and products associated with the state use the animal in their logos.

• It is seen as an important attractor of tourists to this state and has come to worldwide attention through the Looney Tunes character of the same name.

Tasmanian Devil

10.

• The origin of what modern amusement park ride comes from early jousting traditions in Europe and the Middle East?

• Knights would gallop in a circle while tossing balls from one to another; an activity that required great skill and horsemanship.

• By the 17th century, the riders had to spear small rings that were hanging from poles overhead and rip them off.

• The games were popular in Italy and France and soon spread to commoners and playgrounds across Europe.

Carousels or Merry go rounds

11.

• Borrowed from Cantonese and literally meaning 'knock head', what is the name for an act of deep respect shown by protestation, kneeling and bowing so low that one's head is touching the ground.

• It came to English in the early 19th century to describe the bow itself but the meaning soon shifted to abject submission.

• The British embassies to the Emperor of China were unsuccessful partly because performing this would mean acknowledging their King as a subject of the Emperor.

Kowtow

12.• Thermal and night vision feature strongly in this Tom Clancy video

game series. The creators argued that having two separate sets of goggles for thermal and night vision would make for awkward game play and convinced Clancy to allow which experimental device?

• This also gave the series a recognisable signature, a desirable feature.

• This device however didn't remain completely fictional. In 2004, Northrop Grumman produced and delivered one such device.

• Which device?

Tri focal goggles from Splinter Cell

13.

• Opened in 2004, which restaurant was designed to recreate the bar made famous by a classic Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman movie?

• Set in a courtyard-style mansion, the restaurant is filled with architectural and decorative details reminiscent of the movie, bringing the legendary 'Gin Joint' of cinema fame to life in today's Casablanca.

14.• Which non existent mountain range was charted on maps of Africa

from 1798 through to the late 1880s? The mountains were once thought to begin in West Africa near the source of the Niger river, in Guinea, then continue eastwards to the also fictitious Central African Mountains of the Moon, thought to be location of the White Nile.

• Cartographers stopped including the mountains on maps after French explorer Louis Gustave Binger established that the mountains were fictitious in his expedition to chart the origin of the Niger.

Mountains of Kong

15.

• What is the name of the Southern most region of Spain, whose name is derived from Arabic, al Andalus, a medieval Muslim cultural territory that occupied at its peak most of what is today Spain and Portugal.

• The region has a strong cultural identity; many cultural phenomena that are seen internationally as distinctively Spanish are largely or entirely from this region. These include flamenco, bullfighting, and certain Moorish-influenced architectural styles.

Andalusia

16.• Which anthem was written in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, a 31-year-old soldier

and amateur violinist?• He was in Strasbourg on the night of 25 April fearing Austria was about to invade, intent

on rolling back the French Revolution and restoring Louis XVI to full power. The city’s mayor was desperate for something to inspire the city as it faced devastation and that night begged Rouget de Lisle to have a go at writing something – anything – that might help.

• He probably stole the music from a popular song of the day, and he definitely stole half the words from graffiti plastered around the city.

• Some of the bloodthirsty lyrics have been criticized in modern times but campaigns to change them have been unsuccessful.

• Musicians such as Wagner , Debussy, The Beatles and Serge Gainsbourg have used it in their. Most famously, Tchaikovsky used it in his 1812 Overture.

La Marseillaise

17.

• The quick thinking and important role played by John Aaron, a NASA engineer and flight controller, widely credited with saving the Apollo 12 mission when it struck by lightning shortly after liftoff earned him what complimentary title?

• He also played an important role in the Apollo 13 crisis. • Rich Purnell in The Martian also earns this title when he

figures out a solution to get Mark Watney home from Mars

Steely Eyed Missile Man

18.• What term was used by Albert Merriman Smith of UPI to describe the

sloping hill inside the Dealey Plaza that became well-known following the assassination of John F. Kennedy? The hill was above Kennedy and to his right during the assassination on November 22, 1963.

• The hillock is where many conspiracy theorists believe another gunman stood.

• Because of persistent debate, answered and unanswered questions, and conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination and the possible related role of the hillock, this term has come to also be a modern slang expression indicating suspicion, conspiracy, or a cover-up.

The Grassy Knoll

19.

• The tendency for people who assert their individuality using deliberately anti-mainstream dress and grooming to end up all looking very similar thus becoming the new mainstream. These words define a paradox named after which chiefly urban sub culture?

Hipster

20.• A room or office that contains no electronic technology particularly

devices with internet connections is named after which 1854 work by Henry David Thoreau?

• The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance.

• It details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts.

Walden Zone

21.

• The Flame of Liberty in Paris is a full sized gold leaf covered replica of the torch carried in the hand of the statue of liberty.

• The flame has become whose unofficial memorial, having become an attraction for tourists and this person's followers who believe that it was built for this person and who fly post the base with commemorative material?

Princess Diana

22.

• The Wedding at Cana or the Wedding Feast at Cana is a massive oil painting by the Italian painter Paolo Veronese. It is on display at the Lourve in Paris where it is the largest painting in the museum's collection but the magical appeal of which painting displayed on the opposite wall means that this painting is barely looked at?

Mona Lisa

23.• The Dead Sea scrolls are a collection of different texts discovered

between 1946 and 1956 in caves in the West Bank. • Many of the texts are written in Aramaic and a few in Greek and

they are of great historical, religious and linguistic significance. • Early attempts using X, which had been recently invented and

awfully convenient to use, to join fragments of the scrolls caused significant damage to the documents and up to 5% of the scrolls had completely deteriorate by 1958.

• X?

Adhesive Tape

24.• Which condition is caused due to a difference in coloration, usually of

the iris but also of hair or skin? It is a result of the relative excess or lack of melanin and may be inherited, or disease, or injury.

• Though multiple causes have been posited, the current scientific consensus is that inbreeding is the primary reason behind this condition.

• This is due to mutation of the genes that determine melanin distribution, which usually only become corrupted due to chromosomal homogeneity.

Heterochromia iridum

That is not Heterochromia iridum.

This is

25, 26.• Midge Ure's cover of which song ___The Man Who Sold the World___

is featured as the title song of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain?• The song was written and originally performed by ___David Bowie___

released in 1970 and has since been covered by a number of artists, notably by Lulu in 1974 and Nirvana in 1993.

• In common with a number of other tracks on that album, the song's themes have been compared to the horror-fantasy works of H. P. Lovecraft. The lyrics are also cited as reflecting ___26___ 's concerns with splintered or multiple personalities; the persona in the song has an encounter with a kind of doppelgänger.

27.

• Archimedes's exclamation 'Eureka!‘ when he had found a way to measure the density of gold, meaning 'I've found it' is the state motto of which American state, referring to the discovery of gold in 1848.

• The motto appears on the state seal and gold is the official mineral symbol of this state.

California

28, 29.

• ___Monza___ Identify this Formula 1 racetrack race track.• Also name the feature ___Curva Parabolica___ marked

number 11 on the layout where Count Wolfgang Von Trips and 14 spectators were killed during the 1961 Italian Grand Prix and Jochen Rindt was killed during qualifying for the 1970 Italian Grand Prix.

30.

• The first World Cup final in which sport was contested by Transylvania and Flanders in 1473?

• The competition was opened to non-European teams for the first time in the 17th century.

• Ireland won the 422nd World Cup in 1994 beating Bulgaria in the final who are the reigning world champions having won the 2014 World Cup.

Quidditch

31.

• What is the term used by Europeans to describe a mythical tribal chief of the Muisca people native of Colombia who, as an initiation rite, covered himself in gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita?

• This term has come to be used metaphorically of any place where wealth could be rapidly acquired.

• It is also sometimes used as a metaphor to represent an ultimate prize or 'Holy Grail' that one might spend one's life searching.

El Dorado

32.• Which palace in Hyderabad was built by Nawab Vikar-ul-Umra,

Prime Minister of Hyderabad and the uncle and brother-in-law of the Nizam, Nawab Mir Mahboob Ali Khan Bahadur?

• It's name literally means 'Like the Sky' or 'Mirror of the Sky in Urdu'.

• Built in the shape of a scorpion, it is a rare blend of Italian and Tudor architecture.

• Closed in the 1950s, the palace was renovated by Taj Hotels and reopened as a hotel in 2010.

Falaknuma Palace

33.

• Released in 2000, which director's film Amores Perros is credited with with heralding the 21st century prominence of Mexican cinema?

• It is the first instalment in this director’s 'Trilogy of Death', succeeded by 21 Grams and Babel.

• It was released in under its Spanish title in the English speaking world, although it's title was sometimes translated as Love's a Bitch.

Alejandro González Iñárritu

34.

• Which element in the periodic table is named after a dwarf planet which itself is named after the Roman goddess of agriculture?

• It the most abundant of the rare earth elements, it's important ores being monazite and Bastnäsite.

• It's used as a catalyst, additive to fuel to reduce emissions and to glass and enamel to change their colour. It is also used in the flint of lighters.

Cerium

35.

• Which Scottish economist originated the diamond-water paradox, asking why diamonds are in such high demand and water in such low demand when the former is a luxury and the latter is a necessity?

• He laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory and he is best known for the classic work- An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) which is considered to be the first modern work of economics.

Adam Smith

36, 37.

• The Shapoorji Pallonji Group is a Mumbai based business conglomerate founded by Pallonji Mistry, with interests in construction, real estate, textiles, engineering goods, home appliances, shipping, publications, power, and biotechnology is now headed by Pallonji Mistry’s son ___Shapoor Mistry___. The promoters of the group are also the largest individual shareholders in Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group and Pallonji Mistry’s other son ___Cyrus Mistry___ is the chairman of the Tata Group.

38, 39.• The 2005 Ashes series in England saw the inauguration of which for the

Ashes Man of the Series award?• The award is named after two great cricketers – the batsman ___Denis

Compton___ of England and the all-rounder ___Keith Miller___ of Australia. • According to David Collier, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket

Board (ECB), " ___38___ had the post-war status of a matinee idol – with a love of life and a love of living life to the full. It was an attitude he shared with ___39___ and they became not only great rivals but also great friends.”

• The recipients over the years are Andrew Flintoff, Ricky Ponting, Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook, Ian Bell, Mitchell Johnson and Joe Root.

40, 41.

• ___Foundation___ Which science fiction series, for nearly thirty years a trilogy won the one-time Hugo award for 'Best All-Time Series' in 1966?

• Also name the author ___Isaac Asimov___, who added to the series in 1981 with two sequels and two prequels.

• He wrote hard science fiction and was considered one of the 'Big Three' science fiction writers during his lifetime, his books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification.

42.• One hypothesis of the name of which Afghan city suggests that it

has evolved from ‘Iskandar’ the local dialect version of the name of Alexander, who founded the city in 330 BC?

• Ibn Batuta mentions the city in the 14th century by describing it as a large and prosperous town three nights journey from Ghazni.

• The city was under tight communist control and witnessed heavy fighting during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

• In 1994, the Taliban captured the city and turned it into their capital.

Kandahar

43.• ___Turnbull and Asser___ is a gentleman's bespoke shirtmaker, clothier

and tie maker established in 1885. The company has its flagship store on Jermyn Street, St James's, two more stores in London, and one in New York City.

• The firm has dressed figures such as Prince Charles, Sir Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, John Kerry, Charlie Chaplin, and Picasso.

• In 1962, they began to outfit the cinematic James Bond, whose dress shirts had turnback cuffs fastened with buttons as opposed to cufflinks, referred to as Portofino, or cocktail cuffs, or James Bond cuffs.

44.

• December 30, 2015 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth in Bombay of which poet and novelist?

• Given the first name Joseph, he’s usually known by his middle name.

• In modern India, his reputation remains controversial, especially among modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics.

• His birthplace in the campus of the JJ School of Art was turned into a museum celebrating him and his works in 2007.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling

45.

• A study published by the British Medical Journal in December 2015 cited a KGB training manual as the reason for whose peculiar walking style?

• According to this manual, KGB operatives were instructed to keep their weapons in their right hand close to their chest and to move forward with one side, usually the left, presumably to allow them to draw the gun as soon as possible when confronted with a foe.

Vladimir’s Putin’s Gunslinger Gait

46.• In North India, different styles of this dish have developed in Delhi,

Lucknow and other small principalities. • In South India, where rice is more widely used as a staple food,

several varieties have emerged from Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.

• The origins of the dish are uncertain, various theories stating that it was created in the Mughal royal kitchen or brought to India by Arab traders through Calicut.

• Which dish?

Biryani

47.

• What is the portmanteau of two Russian words and means ‘death of spies’. It was created by Joseph Stalin to stop the German attempts to infiltrate the Eastern Front and refers to an umbrella organization of three counter-intelligence agencies of the Red Army.

• It is also the name of a fictional Soviet counter intelligence agency that featured in early James Bond novels and according to them are responsible for the assassination of Trotsky in 1940

SMERSH

48.

• Kuttanad, also known as the rice bowl of Kerala, stretches over the Alapuzzha, Pathanamthitta and Kottayam districts. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization formally declared the farming system in Kuttanad as being a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System.

• The farming practiced here is the only one of its kind in India. Some countries that also follow a similar system are Bangladesh and the Netherlands.

• What is unique about farming in Kuttanad?

Farming Below Sea Level

49.• Name this dog breed from South India which means virgin or

unmarried girl since the dog is gifted as one of the items of dowry to the bridegroom’s family.

• These dogs are not supposed to be sold but given by a family only on the promise that the adopting family will take good care of the dog.

• The numbers of these dogs have dropped and efforts at reviving their numbers haven’t been encouraging

• They are primarily used for hunting.

Kanni

50.

• Which Indian territory’s tourism ad is this?

51, 52.• Karlheinz Brandenburg used this song to develop which ___mp3___

audio compression scheme at what is now the Fraunhofer Society?• Brandenburg said: “I was finishing my PhD thesis, and then I was

reading some hi-fi magazine and found that they used this song to test loudspeakers. I said okay ‘OK, let’s test what this song does to my sound system, to ___51___ ‘. And the result was at bit rates where everything else sounded quite nice, Suzanne Vega’s voice sounded horrible,”

• Which song? ___Tom’s Diner___

53.

• Also known as the qissat al-gharaniq (Story of the Cranes), what is the name given to the alleged occasion on which Prophet Mohammed is blamed to have mistaken the words of the devil for divine revelation?

• The majority of Muslim scholars however have rejected the historicity of the incident on the bases of their weak isnads (chains of transmission) and the incompatibility of the incident with the theological doctrine of 'isma (Prophetic infallibility, divine protection of Muhammad from mistakes).

Satanic Verses

54.

• This entire matter was a mere footnote to the back-and-forth of religious debate, and was rekindled only when which author’s 1988 novel, ___53___, made headline news. The novel contains some fictionalized allusions to Islamic history, which provoked both controversy and outrage. Muslims around the world protested the book's publishing, and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa sentencing the author to death, saying that the book blasphemed Muhammad and his wives.

Salman Rushdie

55, 56, 57.

• ___Rushdie___ used “___Joseph Anton___" as a pseudonym while in hiding following the fatwa that had been issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, in the midst of criticism by some Muslims and a widespread controversy over his novel ___Satanic Verses___ (1988). He chose the name to honour two of his favourite writers ___Joseph Conrad___and ___Anton Chekov___..."

• Published in 2012, ___55___ was also the autobiographical book by ___54___ ,an account of his life under the ongoing fatwa.

58.• The following is from the ___54’s___ autobiography, ___55___ , describing a

meeting with ___58___, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic.

• “Now, he thought to himself, I know there has been a revolution in Czechoslovakia. The president had already decreed that his motorcades be composed of cars of many colors, just to cheer things up, and had invited the Rolling Stones to play for him, and given his first American interview to Lou Reed because the Czech Velvet Revolution had taken its name from the Velvet Underground (thus making the Velvets the only band in history to help create a revolution instead of just singing about it like, for example, the Beatles). This was a president worth waiting for while he took his time in the toilet.”

Václav Havel

59.• Why did I pick X to use as a metaphor for the rest of your life? My father lives in X now. I had to track him down. I

didn't see him from the time I was 8 'till I was about 23-24 years old. He lives in X which I thought was rather bizarre because he left Germany in the first place because of this guy named Hitler and he ends up going to the same place that Hitler hung out all those years! X, for a long time was the crossroads. During the Cold War, between the Eastern Bloc, the Warsaw Pact nations and the NATO countries was the city of X... X was always the crossroads - between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire. So the metaphor of X has the meaning of a crossroad. It's a place of inter...course, of exchange - it's the place where cultures co-mingle. You get great beer in X but you also get brandy from Armenia. It was a place where cultures co-mingled...There is also a lot of inside stuff on the song. The beginning and the end is very Kurt Weill. That kind of sick, middle-European, kinky decadent thing... cabaret kinda... there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. We are seeing the result of it in this ethnic warfare in the Balkans which is a tragedy. This century started out with this Assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo and that begat World War I which begat the Russian Revolution, then you had the Depression then that begat World War II and then that begat the Cold War and all that's over but they're still blowing each other to smithereens in Sarajevo. So this whole thing is going on in middle Europe - it's Kurt Weill. And some composers, Dvořák, Smetana - they captured it.

• — Billy Joel, An Evening of Questions & Answers and Perhaps a Few Songs• Remember to play the song.

Vienna

60, 61.

• Nothing Lasts Forever is a 1979 thriller novel by Roderick Thorp, a sequel to his 1966 novel ___The Detective___.

• It is mostly known through its film adaptation, ___Die Hard___. • Thorp saw the film The Towering Inferno (1975), which is about

a skyscraper that catches on fire. After seeing the film, Thorp fell asleep and had a dream of seeing a man being chased through a skyscraper by men with guns. He woke up and later took that idea and turned it into Nothing Lasts Forever.

• ___61___ is a thriller/detective novel by author Roderick Thorp, first published hardcover in 1966.

• It was made into the 1968 movie of the same name, starring Frank Sinatra, as Detective Joe Leland.

• Billed as, "An adult look at police life," it went on to become one of the highest grossing films of 1968 and one of the strongest box-office hits of Sinatra's acting career.

62.

• Which British television series began in 1977 was re-launched in 2002 in its current format by ‘Jezza’ who along with ‘The Hamster’ and Jason Dawe?

• Dawe was replaced by ‘Kapitän Langsam’ from the second series onwards.

Top Gear

Theme Round

• +5 for each correct answer• +10 bonus if all 5 are correct

T1.

T2.

T3.

T4.

T5.