Questions are a mix of History and Geography or thereabouts.

RULES
1. Questions posted on Wednesday about midday UTC. Answers posted on Sunday or whenever I feel like it.
2. 2 points for each correct answer. Multi-part questions require all parts answered correctly for the 2 points. 1 point will be awarded for answers that are significantly on the right track. The 2nd point will be awarded to the first person to “fill in the gaps”. Bonus points may be awarded additional relevant information.
3. There is no Rule 3
4. Judge's decision final.
5. Do not edit your posts. If you want to add or correct something post a new reply. The points go to the first person to get the correct answer. "First" is taken as the posting time. If you edit a post, the editing time will be used.

NOTES
Where a question asks about a “State” this means a country, nation, principality, any territory wholly independent. If the question refers to one of the United States of America, then it will say “US State”.


1. How long is the River Plate?
Approx 170 miles - Send Clowns
2. What are the names of the two supposed “super continents” that separated and drifted to form the current arrangement?
Gondwana and Laurasia - Send Clowns
3. Who crowned Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of France on 18 May 1804?
He did. He snatched the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII during the actual coronation ceremony, and then crowned himself. - Send Clowns
4. Who, and in what year, was the first person to complete a navigation of the Northeast Passage?
Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, Swedish explorer. The first voyage through the Northeast Passage was completed by the summer of 1879. - Send Clowns
5. What caused controversy in Britain in Feb 1976?
A pile of bricks exhibited at the Tate gallery. - Lucifer
6. What and where is the largest ocean current in the world?
Antarctic Circumpolar Current. - Lucifer
7. Who described the Polish Union “Solidarity” as an anti-Socialist organ with a desire for the overthrow of a Socialist state
Arthur Scargill . - Lucifer
8. What would entitle you to become a member of the Caterpillar Club?
A successful landing from a parachute jump that was necessary due to an emergency. - Lucifer
9. Where was Queen Elizabeth I christened and who was her godfather?
Chapel of the Observant Friars. Thomas Cranmer. - Lucifer
10. The Pacific Ocean is the deepest ocean. What is the deepest sea?
The Caribbean Sea. - Lucifer
11. On 07 Nov 1982 British police found a pair of trousers that were stolen from who, whilst asleep on a train?
Sir Geoffrey Howe. - Lucifer
12. In Norse mythology, where do warriors go when they die and who takes them there?
Valhalla. Valkyries. - Send Clowns/ORAC
13. If you wanted a home where the buffalo roam, where would you live?
Africa or Asia. The term buffalo is commonly, but erroneously, applied to the North American animals that are correctly called Bison. - Checkboard
14. When and who was the first US soldier to be executed for desertion since the Civil War?
31 Jan 1945. Eddie Slovik, a 24-year-old U.S. Army private, was executed by a firing squad after being sentenced to death for desertion, the first such occurrence in the U.S. Army since the Civil War. - Lucifer
15. In Britain in 1752 what day followed Wednesday 02 September?
The British ended their use of the Julian calendar, switching instead to the Gregorian calendar, resulting in a major adjustment as Wednesday, September 2, was followed by Thursday, September 14. The correction resulted in rioting by people who felt cheated and demanded the missing eleven days back. - Lucifer
16. Why are the “horse latitudes” so called?
The term horse latitudes supposedly originates from the days when Spanish sailing vessels transported horses to the West Indies. Ships would often become becalmed in mid-ocean in this latitude, thus severely prolonging the voyage; the resulting water shortages would make it necessary for crews to throw their horses overboard. - aspinwing
17. Who kept her husband’s head in a red leather bag for 29 years?
Sir Walter Raleigh's wife. - Lucifer
18. What weapon was first used by the British in January 1943 to sink an Italian warship in Palermo harbour?
British chariots, or human torpedoes, score their first combat success by sinking the Italian light cruiser Ulpio Traiano in Palermo harbour. - ORAC
19. Who invaded what on 29 Sep 1966 and surrendered to a Catholic priest the next day?
20 Argentinian nationalists invaded the Falkland Islands. - Lucifer
20. What and where is the world’s longest cave system?
Mammoth Cave in central Kentucky. This limestone cavern is the longest cave system in the world. Cave area is about 10 miles in diameter but has 345 miles of irregular subterranean passageways at various levels, plus underground lakes and rivers. - aspinwing

Lost
Who or what was lost, went missing, disappeared….. on:

a. 20 Mar 1966
Footballs World Cup goes missing from Westminster Central Hall. - The Greaser
b. 12 Nov 1974
Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, is missing after family nanny Sandra Rivett murder. - The Greaser
c. 02 Mar 1978
Charlie Chaplin's body is stolen from his Swiss grave. - Lucifer
d. 12 Jan 1982
Mark Thatcher gets lost in Africa's Sahara desert on the Paris - Dakar rally. - Lucifer
e. 18 Jun 1928
Roald Amundsen disappears on a flight to Spitsbergen to aid in the rescue of survivors of the crashed airship “Italia”. - Lucifer

Found
Who or what was found, discovered, recovered….. on:

f. 19 Mar 1962
300 year old skull found beneath Downing Street. - Lucifer
g. 14 Nov 1770
Scottish explorer James Bruce discovered the source of the Blue Nile on Lake Tana in northwest Ethiopia. - Lucifer
h. 01 Sep 1985
The wreck of the Titanic. - ORAC
i. 04 Nov 1922
King Tutankhamen’s tomb. - ORAC
j. 13 Dec 1642
New Zealand was discovered by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman of the Dutch East India Company. - ORAC

JH

10. Marianas Trench

18. X-boats - midget submarines

16. Horse Latitudes supposedly originates from the days when Spanish sailing vessels transported horses to the West Indies. Ships would often become becalmed in mid-ocean in this latitude, thus severely prolonging the voyage; the resulting water shortages would make it necessary for crews to throw their horses overboard.

20. Mammoth Caves near Bowling Green Kentucky - well run park and a great place for children, 10 year old loved it.

8) Jump from a disabled aircraft by parachute
16) Spanish sailing vessels alleged to carry horses to West Indies at that latitude
18) Explosives set by frogmen ie frogmines.

15) 14th September when reformed Gregorian calendar adopted

Aspinwing the Marianas is an ocean trench, hence it's depth.

1. 274 km
2. Gondwana and Eurasia (former sometimes called Gondwanaland, but since Gondwana means "Gond-land" most geologists think this is silly)
3. He crowned himself
4. Baron Adolf Eric Nordenskjöld in 1878 in the Vega
8. Being saved by a Martin Baker ejection seat
12. Asgard, taken by the Valkyr
16. I think because sailors often saw horses floating, having been thrown off other ships, though that may be the mythical reason

6) Antarctic Circumpolar Current (21,000 km in length)
4) Lieutenant Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel in 1823, successfully navigated and surveyed Kolyuchin Bay

1. Rio de la Plata - 270 km

13. Kansas

9) Greenwich, and Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury)

5) Texas Chainsaw Massacre & BBFC refusal to pass film

7) Arthur Scargill

6. Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Aspin, Lucifer, I thought there was a rule that you had to get a few answers before posting, not just put up individual posts :( !!

11) Sir Geoffrey Howe

Sorry, do I have to get a few together? - haven't seen these quizzes before and it doesn't say on the rules here.

Aspins started doing singles, so I did as well to get the answers in.

Ah, it does seem to have been dropped. Oh well, will make marking tricky :D

10) Caribbean Sea (22,788 ft) (6,946 meters)

17) Sir Walter's body was buried after his execution but his embalmed head was kept by his wife Elizabeth Throgmorton. She kept it in a red leather bag, by her side, for the last 29 years of her life. Their son Carew took care of it until his death in 1666. Carew was buried in his father's grave with the head, but in 1680 Carew was exhumed and re-buried, with his father's head, in West Horsley, Surrey.

Worrying person!

19) 20 Argentinian nationalists invaded the Falkland Isles and surrendered to a Catholic priest the following day.

14) On 31 January 1945, Eddie Slovik was executed by firing squad near the village of Ste-Marie aux Mines for the crime of desertion during the closing days of the Battle of the Bulge, in order to deter other potential deserters. Later pardoned by Jimmy Carter.

a) Jules Rimet trophy
b) Lord Lucan

Well Lucifer seems to be a bit good with google.;)

Correct answers from:
Send Clowns 1, 2, 3, 4, 12 (part)
Lucifer 6, 7, 8, 9 (part), 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19
aspinwing 16, 20
The Greaser a, b

Lucifer
Re 8 - I’ll give you the points, but it actually does need to be a successful landing after the jump.
Re 9 - 1 point for Cranmer, but where specifically in Greenwich?
Re 11 - how the hell did you get that!!!:mad: :mad: :mad:

Send Clowns - you get 1 point for Valkyr (or Valkyries), but where specifically in Asgard?


Scores so far
Lucifer - 19
Send Clowns - 9
aspinwing - 4
The Greaser - 4


Now, about posting answers singly or waiting until you have a few. In the Music Quizzes scran has a rule about it but it’s mostly ignored, and difficult to enforce. I thought about this but what’s a “few”? It is better for everyone if you can post several together. I’ll try to come up with a workable rule for next week. Suggestions welcome.

JH

To finish off 12, they are taken to Valhalla. Bad news is that it is only a temporary stop! The reason they are recruiting warriors are as cannon fodder for the great "final battle" at Ragnarok!

13. Might have been Kansas a 100 years ago. But they're not in Kansas anymore Toto! The wild Buffalo are now roaming the plains in Montana in the Yellowstone national reserve.

18. Palermo saw the first use of human torpedoes/chariots. Like a torpedo with a couple of saddles on top. Very little brothers of the midget subs.

e. Roald Amundsen. He was lost in a floatplane whilst looking for survivors of the crash of the airship Italia up near the north pole.

h. The wreck of the Titanic.

i. The tomb of Tutankhamun.

j. New Zealand (by Abel Tasman, pace the earlier Polynesians etc).

Damn, I wasn't back from work in time to complete 12. And I would contest 16 - I understand it is not that the horses are thrown overboard (that would make it the "no more horses" latitudes) but that they would often be seen floating in the sea - an unusual location for a horse!

ORAC has finished 12, and got 18, h, i, j

Send Clowns - chucking the horses overboard is the reason you find quoted everywhere, because presumably that’s what actually happened, but your explanation makes a lot more sense for why it got the name, so have a point for logic/persistence.


Scores so far
Lucifer - 19
Send Clowns - 10
ORAC - 9
aspinwing - 4
The Greaser - 4

JH

9) Elizabeth was christened in the hall of Greenwich palace

I lie: it was the Chapel of the Observant Friars, beside Greenwich Palace.

5) An Argentine destroyer fires shots across bows of British research ship 'Shackleton'

Jolly Hockeysticks -

I think ORAC beat me to the answer to Question-13. However, there is some small dispute over the state of Kansas as the inspiration.

So - I will just go with the answer being - - - -

"on the Range"

Is this "the " answer you were looking for?

ps - Author generally attributed to - Brewster Higley
- Composer attribution to - Daniel Kelley

any extra points for "detail"?
:)

d) Mark Thatcher gets lost in Africa's Sahara desert on the Paris - Dakar rally

f) 300 year old skull found beneath Downing Street

c) Charlie Chaplin's coffin was dug up and stolen (with him inside!) by 2 Eastern European refugees in Switzerland

e) Roald Amundsen went missing in a Latham flying boat whilst looking for the Italia airship crash survivors

g) James Bruce discovered the source of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia

Guys,

I have just realised how embarrassingly little I have achieved today when I saw every other post was Lucifer; (No offence JH - broadening my mind is an achievement!) and have robbed loads of you of a chance. So - somebady put a block on google for me, and I'll occupy my time making up a random quiz thus putting google skills to good use (if you guys want me to).

Lucifer.

Now going to hide the computer from myself, and sign up to PPRuNe rehab.

Thanks Hockey, can't say fairer, and it makes up for having popped into work and missed the chance to finish the answer to question 12. :D I learnt about the Horse Latitudes thing in the Navy - they tell you some useful stuff.

Excellent idea, Lucifer.

Press reveals Princess Margaret is having an affair with a younger man, Roddy Llewellyn.

Christened in Fryer's Church, Greenwich. Her godfather was Lord Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Ans D

Shergar - racehorse kidnapped, and never seen again.........

No. 13

They are Bison not Buffalo.

I thought of Shergar for D, but apparently Shergar was taken in 1983.

Buffalo is the common name of bison bison or bison athabasca the Plain and Forest Bison of North America. Not strictly true buffalo, but that's a little picky ...

I'm picky...:D :D :D

Lucifer has got the rest of 9, c, d, e, f, g

Just 5 and 13 left.

Scores so far
Lucifer - 30
Send Clowns - 10
ORAC - 9
aspinwing - 4
The Greaser - 4

JH

Perhaps, in 1976 a pile of bricks was exhibited at the Tate gallery is the one you are looking for?

How about Maxwell Wildlife Refuge, Kansas for 13? http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/getaways/030200/buff02.html

Only thing I can think of!

13) Custer State Park, South Dakota

Lucifer has got 5, it was the pile of bricks.

Now re 13. I though you were getting warm with the short discussion on the previous page, but now you’re getting colder again.

JH

13: If you wanted a home where "the buffalo roam" then you would live on "a farm, be foul tho" ... (one quote being the anagram of the other).:D

If you want a home where the buffalo roam, it'd be where the deer and the antelope play.
Or maybe the second largest city in New York State.:D

Seguin, Texas.

Anagramatically further, you will find an "athabasca" either "at a casbah" or even "at a Ca bash", to name but two.:)

OK JH -

One more try at this question #13 answer. It is - - - - -

"On the banks of Beaver Creek in Kansas, USA"

and more it would have been in 1872 that you were there.

Or - do you want the name of the Kansas town that currently claims to be the locale of this song? :confused:

Pretty big hint, there JH:

Buffalo: any of several cud-chewing mammals of the family Bovidae (order Artiodactyla). The name is often applied to the bison (q.v.) of North America.

The Indian buffalo (Bubalus bubalis), also called water buffalo and carabao, roams wild in southeastern Asia and is kept as a domestic animal throughout the warmer parts of the Old World.

In that case, I would say they are native to India, and that is the answer you may be looking for.

They used to roam wild in Australia, but spoiled the wetlands, so an eradication & control program was instituded throughout the Northern Territory.

As they are said to run wild in southeastern Asia, I'll go that one as my backup answer!

Well done Checkboard - full marks.

I'm surprised it took so long. All I was looking for was an answer anywhere in Africa/Asia where there are real buffalo. In fact anywhere other than North America, where there are BISON.

That wraps it up for this week. Final scores later.

JH

Final Scores
Lucifer - 37
Send Clowns - 10
ORAC - 9
aspinwing - 4
The Greaser - 4
Checkboard - 2

JH