A molecular biologist from Madurai, our quizmaster enjoys trivia and music, and is working on a rock ballad called ‘Coffee is a Drink, Kaapi is an Emotion’. @bertyashley
Quiz | Easy like Sunday morning: What has April 23 ever given us?
Queen Victoria wanted this constructed to avoid getting seasick. The only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland, what’s this called?
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1 / 10 |
On this day in 1516, Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria endorsed the ‘Reinheitsgebot’ in Munich. It was a regulation that set the standards for the sale of a certain beverage. This was done to ensure that it was brewed only from three ingredients — water, malt and hops. This law shows us how popular this drink has been since then and why every year in October in just two weeks, eight million litres of it are drunk there. What drink is this?
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Born this day in 1858, this German physicist was a Nobel laureate responsible for Quantum Theory. He was also responsible for bringing Einstein into mainstream physics. With the motto of ‘persevere and continue working’, his name has been given to laws, constants and particles. Who was this scientist?
3 / 10 |
On this day in 1867, a plan for which Napoleon III had got approval from Queen Victoria was shut down. The Queen had agreed to this historic plan because of her tendency to get seasick. The then government and the public thought it was a ‘calamitous’ decision and stopped it. Finally in 1994, the 50-km-long structure was opened. By what rhyming two-word name is this historic entity known?
4 / 10 |
Born this day in 1899, Minoru Shirota was a Japanese physician and microbiologist, who invented a sweetened probiotic milk beverage. Each bottle is fermented with about eight billion live bacteria of the strain Lacticaseibacillus casei shirota. Named after the Esperanto word for yogurt, what popular drink is this?
5 / 10 |
On this day in 1920, the Turkish Grand National Assembly met for the first time in Ankara. They denounced the government of Sultan Mehmed VI and announced a temporary constitution, bringing an end to an empire which had lasted 600 years and at one time covered more than a million square kilometres. Named after the founder, Osman I, what empire is this which lives on as a small piece of home furniture?
6 / 10 |
Born this day in 1928, this actress actually made her onscreen debut as a four-year-old in a controversial series called Baby Burlesks. She stopped believing in Santa Claus at age six when the Santa in the mall asked her for an autograph. Although a mocktail with ginger ale and lime soda is named after her, she never drank it as it had too much sugar. Who was this actress who later became an ambassador for cancer survivors?
7 / 10 |
Born today in 1936, Roy Orbison was an American singer-songwriter whose biggest hit was a song inspired by his wife Claudette. She interrupted a conversation between Orbison and his co-writer Bill Dees to announce she was going out. When Orbison asked if she had enough cash, Dees said, “A ___ ___ never needs any money.” What is the title of the song, which also inspired a 1990 film starring Richard Gere?
8 / 10 |
Born John Felix Anthony this day in 1977, this American wrestler and actor is regarded as one of the greatest in his profession. After being bullied in school for being skinny, he turned to body building and eventually won the WWE championship a record 13 times. Who is this athlete who is famous on the internet for not being seen?
9 / 10 |
Born this day in 1990, Dev Patel is an English actor whose mother got him into Taekwondo because he was a Bruce Lee fan, and then made him audition for Skins, a British TV series. He eventually had a breakthrough with his award-winning performance as Jamal Malik in a movie about a poor kid winning Kaun Banega Crorepati. What movie was this which was responsible for an Indian composer’s first Oscar?
10 / 10 |
On this day in 2005, Jawed Karim took a 19-second video in front of two elephants at the San Diego Zoo and uploaded it to a site which he and two friends had started. Titled Me at the zoo, this was the first video of what is now more than 800 million on which website?
