Sunday Quiz all about museums
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.
START THE QUIZ
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On March 28, 1794, this museum opened to the public after being open for a few months only for members. Originally built as a grand fortress in Paris, it was then turned into a palace before becoming the largest museum in the world. It is so big that even if you spent just 30 seconds with each piece, it would take 100 days to see all of them. What is the name of this museum, the origin of which no one can correctly determine?
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The word museum comes from the Greek “mouseion,” the temples dedicated to the Muses and the arts they inspired. The earliest known mention of such an institution is from around the 4th century BC, when a certain Greek Philosopher founded a mouseion at his Lyceum school for the collection of specimens for his zoological studies. Who was this legendary polymath who was the teacher for Alexander the Great?
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The Museum of Endangered Sounds exists online to allow streaming of once popular technological sounds that are now no longer heard, such as VCR loading noises, CD skipping noises, Windows 95 startup etc. One of the most popular sounds is a particular noise that used to be jokingly referred to as ‘whale song’. This was a reference to the variety of noises when a certain technological function was carried out. What sound is this which should bring back many memories to 90s kids?
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Sue is the nickname for FMNH PR2081, which is the largest and best-preserved dinosaur fossil. Sue was going to be put in a private collection before companies including Disney and McDonald’s helped fund $8.3 million for the Chicago Field Museum to purchase her for display to the public. Named after Susan Hendrikson who discovered it, what type of dinosaur was Sue?
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Avant-garde Danish artist Arthur Koepcke had loaned his $116k artwork to the Neues Museum in Nuremberg, Germany. In 2016, a 91-year-old woman who was visiting the museum looked at the exhibit and proceeded to spoil the artwork unknowingly. She used a ballpoint pen to carry out the work of vandalism and her enthusiasm was attributed to her being a cruciverbalist. What work of art was this that you would probably find in another part of this newspaper?
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The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum focuses on the history of the coal industry in Eastern Kentucky. Built in the 1920s, it features many exhibits including an underground mine tour in which visitors can ride a rail car through a coal mine. In 2017 they decided to switch to a different power source, and in the process save up to $10,000 a year. What is the source of power for the Kentucky Coal Mining museum that makes it a very ironic but logical choice?
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The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC is the fifth most visited museum in the world. It showcases mankind’s greatest achievements in aviation and spaceflight including the Wright Brothers’ aeroplane, Apollo 11 module, the Bell X-1 and a model of the starship Enterprise. On April 1, 2013, they displayed an invisible jet that they reportedly took on loan from Lieutenant Diana Prince. Whose plane was this?
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The Muzej prekinutih veza in Croatia is a collection of personal items, each of which has a story and a description. This innovative museum was started by two artists who, after a particularly tumultuous time in their lives, jokingly decided to set up a museum to store the things they didn’t want to see in their lives. The collection grew as people started volunteering. What is this museum dedicated to which is also a theme in many songs and films?
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There is a small museum in the middle of the barren Jornada del Muerto desert in New Mexico, which is only open for 12 hours each year — six in spring and six in autumn. The displays are a few pebbles of glass, a chunk of concrete and an abandoned ranch house. Admission is free but visitors are strictly warned not to overstay their time. Known as Trinity Site, what world-first event does this museum commemorate?
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Two hours north of Tokyo in a town called Chichibu, there is a one-of-a-kind museum called ‘Chinsekikan’ that houses over 1,700 exhibits. It is devoted to collecting and displaying ‘jinmenseki’, which are items of a certain type that happen to look like human faces. In English, this phenomenon is known as ‘pareidolia’, where there is an incorrect perception of a pattern. This museum houses exhibits that look like ET, Donkey Kong, Nemo and rockstars such as Elvis. What are these items, which you might find yourself?
