The History – Geography Quiz 2017

FinalsJanuary 2016 – January 2017

मंडळ आपले आभारी आहे

UNESCO’s Best Suraj Menon

Ranajeet “Racist Rana” Soman

Rules• Infinite Rebounds – Arnold Variation• Unlimited Pounces with following scoring• +10 for every right answer• -5 for the first two wrong answers• -15 for every subsequent wrong answer

• 2 Special Rounds with scoring as indicated therein• Half points available only to teams where all 3 members have birthdays

on 29 February (attested copies of birth certificate to be submitted)• QMs’ decision is final, unless you are very persuasive

Question 1It is possible for a toponym to become a hydronym: for example, the River Liffey takes its name from the plain on which it stands, called Liphe or Life; the river itself was originally called An Ruirthech. An unusual example is the River X - it was originally called the Granta, but when the town of Grantebrycge became Y, the river's name changed to match the toponym. What is the new name of the town?

Answer 1Cambridge

Question 2This Punch cartoon shows the King of Romania stealing from the Tsar of Bulgaria while keeping the Kings of Serbia and Greece at bay. What real-life war are they lampooning?

Answer 2The Second Balkan War

Bulgaria fought the war against Serbia and Greece over the territory taken from Turkey in the first Balkan War. While the Bulgarians were busy to their south and west, the Romanians invaded from the north, and took Northern Doubruja.

Question 3In the US Armed Forces, any military aircraft that carries the President of the US is given the callsign <<Name of Service>> One, with Air Force One being the most famous, and Army One and Marine One being the callsigns of helicopters used by several US Presidents. However, since the introduction of Presidential call signs in 1959, there has only been a single Navy One, a Lockheed S-3 Viking that flew one flight under this call sign, and was almost immediately retired and placed in the National Naval Aviation Museum. What infamous incident happened immediately after Navy One’s only flight, after flying the President to his destination?

Answer 3George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech aboard USS Abraham Lincoln after it returned from Iraq in 2003

Question 4This person, one of the many victims of 2016, had two names by which he was primarily known. The one by which he was more commonly known was given to him by his uncle, and means "Strength of the Land, Incomparable Power“ in Sanskrit. The other name he shared with his brother, uncle and six other ancestors and was chosen specifically so to simplify his family’s complicated names so that Westerners could understand them.What was this person’s name?

Answer 4Bhumibol Adulyadej (भूमिमबल अतुल्यतेज) / Rama IX

Question 5Starting August 1945, several senior Japanese military officers and members of the Imperial Family were sent on missions, all with the same purpose, to islands on the Pacific and Indian Oceans. These missions carried on sporadically with men who had been military officers on through the late 1940s right up to March 1974, when the Japanese government sent bookseller and former Japanese Army Major Yoshimi Taniguchi to the island of Lubang in the Phillippines, where he successfully completed the last of these missions. What was this type of mission?

Answer 5Convincing isolated Japanese troops that the War was over and they should surrender

Question 6In International Law, a condominium is a political territory (state or border area) in or over which two or more sovereign powers formally agree to share equal dominion and exercise rights jointly, without dividing it up into 'national' zones, e.g. the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 until 1956. Which extant condominium stems from an agreement that became effective from 1961?

Answer 6Antarctica, as a consequence of the Antarctic Treaty

Question 7Prior to 46 BC, Ancient Rome used a calendar supposed to have been invented by Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome. This calendar required something to be done on average every 2 years, but not more than 3 times in 8 years. The person in charge of this was supposed to be the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the Roman religion. However, since the Pontifex Maximus was in most cases a politician, many chose to manipulate this system for political gain. In time, this led to the Roman calendar going completely haywire. When Julius Caesar became Pontifex Maximus in 63 BC, he vowed to fix this problem, and in 45 BC, he came up with the Julian calendar that did. What was the duty that the old system required the Pontifex Maximus to do?

Answer 7Add an extra month (similar to Adhik Maas)

The Roman calendar had 355 days, and so required an extra month (Mensis Intercalaris) to be added every so often. Roman officials had terms of one calendar year, and Pontifices used to abuse their authority to add unnecessary months to the terms of politicians they favoured, and refrain from adding a required intercalary month to the terms of politicians they did not.

Question 8In geography and fluvial geomorphology, a thalweg is the line of lowest elevation within a valley or watercourse. One of the main objects of dispute of a certain water-body is that one party states that the thalweg doctrine is not applicable in this case as it most commonly applies to non-tidal rivers and the disputed entity is tidal estuary. The other party states that that the creek is navigable at high tide and thus the principle is applicable. Which is this disputed boundary?

Answer 8Sir Creek

Special RoundHistory of Geography –

Part I5 Questions

4 points per right answer5 points for getting all 5 answers right

1. At the time of Independence, the area that forms the modern state of Madhya Pradesh either merged into the state of Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh or the existing Central Provinces (which were soon renamed Madhya Pradesh). Which was the only princely state in the region that formed a state of its own up to the States Reorganisation Act in 1956?

2. The modern state of Kerala was formed in 1956 from the merger of the Malabar district of Madras state with which short-lived state that was itself formed in 1949 from the merger of two erstwhile princely states?

3. During the British Raj, the area of this short-lived state (1950-1956) was the only part of modern Rajasthan ruled directly by the British. Consequently, on independence, it formed a separate state, and was only merged with the rest of Rajasthan following the enactment of the States Reorganisation Act. Which state?

4. The modern Karnataka state was formed in 1956, when parts of Bombay state, Hyderabad state, Madras state and one other state merged with Mysore state. The one other state had existed from 1834 to 1947 as a province of British India, but following 1956 has formed only one district of Karnataka. Name the state.

5. Of over 200 princely states in what is now Gujarat, most united in 1948 to form the United States of Kathiawar, later renamed Saurashtra State. The princely state of Baroda chose to merge into Bombay state in 1949. Which erstwhile state in Gujarat, co-terminus with a former princely state, had an independent existence until in merged into Bombay state after the States Reorganisation Act, 1956 was enacted?

Answers1. Bhopal2. Travancore-Cochin3. Ajmer / Ajmer-Mewara4. Coorg5. Kutch / Cutch

Question 9The flag at right was briefly used officially in 1961-62, but after the territory where it was used was invaded, it was banned. The use of this flag in the territory is punishable by law, and many activists have been jailed for such offences. The testimony of one such activist, Yusak Pakage, was recorded in a documentary, “Forgotten Bird of Paradise”, which is one of few works on this territory. Which territory?

Answer 9West Papua / the western part of New Guinea under Indonesian rule

Question 10The aircraft pictured is the Netz 107, an Israeli fighter that holds the world record for most number of kills by an F-16, with 6.5 confirmed kills. The picture shows kill marks for 6.5 Syrian Air Force aircraft, and one other kill mark. What famous Israeli accomplishment of the 1980s is the other kill mark (the roughly triangular one in the picture) for?

Answer 10Operation Opera, the bombing of the Osiraq Nuclear Rector in Iraq in 1981

Question 11The La Pérouse Strait, or Sōya Strait, is a strait dividing the southern part of the Russian island of Sakhalin from the Japanese island of Hokkaidō.Japan's territorial waters extend to 3 nautical miles into Sōya Strait (along with 4 other straits) instead of the usual 12. This is reportedly to allow Japan to maintain a key principle of its domestic policy, while also safeguarding its security interests and treaty commitments.What does Japan gain from reducing its territorial waters in these straits?

Answer 11To allow Nuclear-armed US warships to enter / exit the Sea of Japan without transiting Japanese waters

Japanese law prohibits the presence of nuclear weapons on its territory

Question 12Connect these pictures from 2015:

Answer 12Commemorations of the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain

The pictures are wreaths in the colours of the RAF and Polish Air Force roundels, and modern Canadian, British and Czech warplanes painted in World War II colours to commemorate British, Commonwealth, Polish and Czechoslovak fighter pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain

Question 13In 1984, Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn were being presented with an award from the National Viewers and Listeners Association (now known as Mediawatch). As part of the event, Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne were asked to perform a sketch with someone. The actors were not very enthusiastic, and Hawthorne later said that he and Eddington resented what they saw as an attempt to "make capital" out of their popularity. They asked Jonathan Lynn to get them out of it, but he was not able to help them.

The resulting sketch was described by Lynn as "dreadful" and by Bernard Ingham (who claims to be the author of the sketch) as having gone down a bomb. Who was the instigator, and Eddington and Hawthorne's co-star, in the sketch?

Answer 13Margaret Thatcher, who was a huge fan of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, and was PM of the UK throughout the shows' original runs.

Question 14Most Germanic noble families take their names from the lands that they own or rule (e.g. the von Hapsburg family takes its name from Hapsburg Castle in Switzerland). One member state of the Holy Roman Empire, however, took its name from the family that purchased in in 1699 and 1712 in order to gain a seat in the Reichstag of the Empire. Name this state, which also forms the basis of a modern country.

Answer 14Liechtenstein

Question 15This is the cap badge of the Mahar Regiment since Independence, and features two Vickers Machine Guns crossed over a Katar. The Katar replaced an earlier symbol, which had been chosen because of its significance to Mahar troops. The change to the Katar was made after independence, when the old symbol was judged to be too politically sensitive. What was the previous symbol, which is still politically fraught today?

Answer 15The Koregaon Pillar

The Koregaon Pillar commemorates the Battle of Koregaon in 1815, when an East India Company force of 800 (including 500 Mahar troops) defeated 28,000 soldiers led by Peshwa Baji Rao II

Question 16Leland Stanford was a 19th Century railroad tycoon, Governor of California and the co-founder (along with his wife) of Stanford University.

One of his claims to fame was an experiment he commissioned, conducted by photographer Eadweard Muybridge at a farm he owned in Palo Alto in 1878, which accidently created one of the first motion pictures.

What was the purpose of the experiment, on which Stanford was alleged to have bet a large amount?

Answer 16To prove that all four of a horse’s hooves leave the ground when galloping

AnswerAustralia

Question 17This man was a Baroque artist from Antwerp, and became a leading court painter in the court of Charles I of England. He created many paintings of the King and his family, including this one, painted for the sculptor Bernini to model a bust on. A certain fashion that was popular at Charles’ court at the time, also seen in this picture, thus was present in many of his paintings, and has been named after the painter. Name the painter / the fashion

Answer 17Anthony van Dyck / Van Dyke beard

Question 18Unlike other European monarchies, the Kingdom of Denmark had an important source of revenue independent of their aristocracy and Parliament. This source of income lasted from the Renaissance to the Early Modern Period, until it was abolished by the Copenhagen Convention in 1857.What was this source of revenue, that arose from Denmark’s unique geography?

Answer 18Sound Dues / A toll to be paid on shipping from the North Sea in the Baltic Sea (or vice versa)

Question 19The idea for this service came from many sources, chiefly Thomas Schelling. Events in 1962 proved the critical need for it, and it was set up in 1963 and continues to this day. The service was first actually used in 1967, and has been used several more times in the decades since.The erroneous popular conception of this service came about as a result of two 1964 films (one of which was a satire), but was really cemented in the public imagination by the 1966 live action Batman TV series. What service?

Answer 19The Moscow–Washington hotline

Question 20(Western) Samoa in 2009 became the only country to do this voluntarily. Rwanda and Burundi have been considering doing this, but have not been able to decide on the issue.East Timor (1975), Southwest Africa (1918) and Korea (1910) did this at the behest of occupying / colonising countries. Okinawa did this in 1978 after military occupation ceased.Several countries have done something similar, but exactly opposite.What? (Specific answer required)

Answer 20Switch from driving on the right side of the road to the left side of the road

Question 21Y was a luxury food in medieval Gaelic society, and had widespread non-culinary uses such as the payment of taxes, rents, and fines; facilitation of hospitality; care of the sick and infirm; and strengthening of social bonds.There are three main theories why Y would be placed in X, a common environment in Scotland and Ireland – protecting Y from thieves; preservation (because of the low-temperature, low oxygen and highly acidic nature of X); and a primitive kind of food processing.Identify XY, which had been in the news in 2016 due to a find.

Answer 21Bog Butter

Question 22The westernmost territory of Chile is the Province of Isla de Pascua. The entire territory is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and much of it is covered by a national park to preserve its very unique physical heritage. This area suffered an ecological catastrophe in the late 17th / early 18th century due to various reasons, including the introduction of rats and the end of the Little Ice Age.Give the English Name of this territory, which is almost synonymous with its physical heritage.

Answer 22Easter Island

Question 23Felix Martin Julius Steiner was a Obergruppenführer in the Waffen SS, and was placed in command of a unit called Army Detachment Steiner, assigned three divisions and told to attack the northern portion of a salient formed by the 1st Byelorussian Front. However, two of the assigned divisions were deployed defensively and could not attack until relieved. Knowing this, and after conferring with his commander Gotthard Heinrici, he reported that he was unable to carry out the order.What much parodied incident did this lead to?

Answer 23Hitler’s meltdown in the Führerbunker

Question 24This region was known as Dakshina Kosala in ancient India, the current name came about during the time of the Maratha Empire, and supposedly takes its name from the following domains:Ratanpur, Vijaypur, Kharound, Maro, Kautgarh, Nawagarh, Sondhi, Aukhar, Padarbhatta, Semriya, Champa, Lafa, Chhuri, Kenda, Matin, Aparora, Pendra, Kurkuti-kandri, X, Patan, Simaga, Singarpur, Lavan, Omera, Durg, Saradha, Sirasa, Menhadi, Khallari, Sirpur, Figeswar, Rajim, Singhangarh, Suvarmar, Tenganagarh and Akaltara

This explanation is not accepted by some archaeologists, who point out that there is no evidence that all of the above entities existed. Another explanation is that the name is a corrupted form of “Empire of the Chedis”. What is this name, which has had official recognition since 2000?

Answer 24Chhattisgarh

Special RoundHistory of Geography –

Part II5 Questions

4 points per right answer5 points for getting all 5 answers right

1. This former British colony was granted Dominion status in 1907, but this was rescinded in 1934 due to a financial crisis. After this, no local government was formed for 15 years, until in 1949, a referendum took place, where 52% of the people voted to join Canada. Which former country?

2. This city-state was set up by the Treaty of Versailles, in order to provide port facilities to another newly-created nation. Ethnic tensions followed elections in 1933, and continued for the next 6 years, until attempts to change the status of the area led to World War II. Which semi-independent city-state?

3. This country was formed after World War I as a kingdom, but became a republic after World War II. Though thinkers such as those belonging to the Illyrian movement promoted cultural and linguistic unification of its people, it eventually split due to ethnic and religious differences, and even its main language has now split into two different languages. Which country?

4. This country was formed in 1918, and apart from the two main ethnic groups, also contained large numbers of Germans, Hungarians and Ukrainians. After 1945, the Germans and Hungarians had been expelled and the Ukrainian parts of the country were lost to the USSR, leaving only two ethnic groups. The country later split peacefully. Which former country?

5. This country was created in 1955 as a result of the Geneva Conference, which also determined its northern border. It was at war almost the entirety of its 20-year existence, and was finally conquered and absorbed into its enemy, despite a peace treaty signed in 1973. After the conquest, the capital city was changed to the name of the former Head of State of its enemy. Name this former country

Answers1. Newfoundland2. Free City of Danzig3. Yugoslavia4. Czechoslovakia5. South Vietnam

Question 25Although this word is likely of Indian origin, and is still used in India today (albeit in a specific context), it was widely used to describe Chinese immigrants who helped build, among other things, the Transcontinental Railroad in the USA. Due to racist attitudes towards Chinese and other Asians, such immigrants were banned in the USA and Canada, and had to return to China in most cases. Even after the practise of hiring Chinese to perform menial labour overseas died out, the word survived, and one of FDR’s Fireside Chats contains a story of “Two Chinese _______”. What is the word.

Answer 25Coolie

Question 26Historically, Romanian-speaking people have been divided between three principalities – Transylvania, Wallachia and a third principality. In 1859, Wallachia and the third principality united to form Romania. After World War I, the formerly Austro-Hungarian province of Transylvania joined as well.Today this principality is divided between Romania and another country, with whom it shares its Romanian name. Name it.

Answer 26Moldavia / Moldova

Question 27The Mino was military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey in the present-day Republic of Benin which lasted until the end of the 19th century. They were given a different name by Western observers and historians due to their similarity to the semi-mythical people of ancient Anatolia and the Black Sea. King Agaja (ruling from 1708 to 1732) established a bodyguard of such a regiment armed with muskets. This tradition seemed to have continued among African leaders well into the 20th century. What was this unit named by Westerners?

Answer 27Amazons / Amazon Guards

Question 28This desert is the youngest desert in the world – it started being formed around 1960 and is named after an older geographic feature in the area. It covers over 45,000 square kilometres, and a powerful prevailing easterly wind has dispersed dust from this area over the entire globe – it has even been found in the bloodstream of Antarctic penguins.What is this desert?

Answer 28The Aralkum Desert / Desert on the bed of the now dry Aral Sea

Question 29The Congressional Space Medal of Honor is a US civilian decoration given to "any astronaut who in the performance of his duties has distinguished himself by exceptionally meritorious efforts and contributions to the welfare of the Nation and mankind.“Out of the 28 medals awarded so far since 1969, 16 have been awarded by George W. Bush, 14 of them in a single year of his presidency.Why were such a large number awarded by Bush?

Answer 29The Space Shuttle Columbia crashed in 2003, a little more than 2 years into GWB’s term. In 2004, in response to the Columbia disaster, all seven astronauts who died in Columbia, as well as all seven who died in the Challenger disaster, were awarded Space Medals of Honour

Question 30These are the first two paragraphs of a poem by Edgar Albert Guest:Into its massive walls were pouredThe gold that bore the eagle's stamp; Within each foot of it is storedThe grit of Valley Forge's camp. This wedding of divided seas,That is a finished fact today, Stands out among the victoriesThat glorify the U. S. A.

No alien land was asked to aid,No foreign friend was leaned upon; This by Americans was madeWhile all the world stood looking on. And molded into every partFrom coast to coast, to last for aye, There are the blood and flesh and heartAnd genius of the U. S. A.

What is the poem’s title?

Answer 30The Panama Canal

Question 31Prior to the establishment of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a common measure of a country’s territorial waters was the three-mile limit. One possible explanation for the selection of the three-mile distance of the limit is that three miles form a league, a commonly used nautical unit of measurement. However, a more accepted explanation is the reasoning given by Cornelius Bynkershoek, a Dutch jurist, in his 1702 treatise on maritime law.What was this explanation for the adoption of the three-mile limit?

Answer 31Three miles from the coastline is the limit of the area that can be targeted by cannons fired from the coast.

While more modern cannons could fire further than three miles, the distance represents the visual horizon from the height of a typical coastal fort, and thus, since coastal batteries could not see further than this distance, it represented the maximum effective range of land-based cannons.

Question 32Lancelot de Mole was an Australian engineer, who, inspired by a journey over rough terrain in Western Australia, submitted an idea (along with detailed designs) to the British War Office in 1912. No one at the War Office saw any use for the idea, and, to further complicate matters, his correspondence was lost.In 1919, de Mole made a claim as an inventor of the idea. A Royal Commission for Inventors recognised that, even though de Mole’s idea was the first of its kind to be received, and the design was better than those actually used in 1916, he could not be credited as inventor because “a claimant must show a causal connexion between themaking of his invention and the user of any similar invention by the Government” What did he invent?

Answer 32The Tank

Question 34The term"X" was introduced by the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz in his posthumously published book, Vom Kriege (1832), which appeared in English translation in 1873 under the title On War.“War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a X of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.”

Answer 34Fog of War

Question 35This series of climatic abnormalities is thought to have begun with the eruption of Mount Tambora in what is now Indonesia. This led to widespread crop failures in North America, Europe and China in 1816. Other areas, including India experienced flooding late in 1816, which then led to epidemics of cholera.From the perspective of observers in the Northern Hemisphere, the year 1816 lacked something, which gave this year its name.How is the year commonly known?

Answer 35The year without a summer

Question 36Starting in 1745, certain disaffected Scots began a certain practice during the loyal toast, a formal declaration of loyalty to the Sovereign, as a protest against the current dispensation.Because of this practise, for many years, finger bowls were not used on British royal tables, until King Edward VII re-authorised their use, deeming his dynasty sufficiently secure.What was this practise?

Answer 36Passing their drinks over water while toasting, to signify that they were toasting the King Over the Water, or the (exiled) Jacobite claimants to the British throne

Thank You!