Random Trivia Questions and Answers

Random Trivia Questions Part 1

1. In what year did the Exxon Valdez cause a huge oil spill off the coast of Alaska?

Answer: 1989.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska occurred in 1989, when the ship, Exxon Valdez, spilled approximately 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. The resulting spill is considered one of the most devastating environmental disasters in U.S. history and caused tremendous damage to the natural environment, economy, and local population of Alaska.
In addition to causing devastation for much of Alaska, the Exxon Valdez oil spill had many unintended consequences both domestically in the United States and internationally.

In Alaska:
– The disaster cost $9 billion or more in damages for cleanup, restoration, and compensation.
– Thirty-five thousand local residents were affected by the oil spill; most are still affected today
– There is a high risk for future damage. More than a quarter of the Prince William Sound coastline remains contaminated with toxic fuel.
– The fishery is still recovering. Salmon populations in Prince William Sound plummeted, and there were no sockeye salmon runs for 3 years following the spill.
– Tourism in Alaska has been negatively affected. There were 14% fewer cruise ship passengers in Prince William Sound after the disaster, compared to before, and 11% fewer passengers who boarded tour boats during the summer months.

2. The phrase “dog days” dates from:

Answer: Ancient Rome.

The phrase “dog days” is a reference to the hot, dry days of summer, when Sirius (the Dog Star), the brightest star in the heavens, rose just before or at sunrise. This occurred in late July and early August.
Sirius is part of Canis Major, one of the constellations named for the great hunter Orion’s dogs, and has been associated with dogs since ancient times.

3. Queen Victoria was known to carry what hereditary disease that prevents blood from clotting?

Answer: Hemophilia.

Hemophilia A and hemophilia B refer to a group of inherited bleeding disorders caused by a deficiency in one of several different blood clotting factors. The major types of Hemophilia are A and B, severe hemophilia, moderate hemophilia and mild hemophilia.
Hemophilia is usually inherited as an X-linked recessive genetic disorder. Females can be carriers of the defective gene, but rarely experience symptoms unless they are also carriers for another X-linked disorder, such as Lesch-Nyhan syndrome (a rare neurological disorder). Rarely, hemophilia occurs due to spontaneous mutation in the sufferer or their parents.

Hemophilia is primarily a male disease, not only because males inherit the X chromosome from their mothers but also because females rarely express the gene. Only one in five thousand to one in twenty thousand women have hemophilia.

4. Who was the first explorer to reach the North Pole?

Answer: Robert E. Peary.

Robert Edwin Peary was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, on January 6, 1856. Although his family had moved to Iowa by the time he was five years old, young Robert decided that his future lay in the North. He became a fur trapper, and by the age of 26 had ascended Cook’s Inlet as far as Glacier Bay and had reached the northern shore of Greenland. For 25 years thereafter he spent much of his time exploring the Arctic with Capt. Matthew Henson and three other black men: Ootah, Egingwah, and Seegloo.

5. Who gave use the quote, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”?

Answer: Alexander Pope.

Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 – 30 May 1744) was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
Pope was born to Edith Pope (née Turner) and Alexander Pope Senior. Both parents died by the time he was eight years old, so Pope was raised by his paternal grandfather John Pope in Twickenham, then a country village outside London. He went to Twickenham Grammar School, where he began the study of Latin.

6. Which of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World was created to cure Nebuchadnezzar’s wife’s homesickness?

Answer: Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Located in present-day Iraq, they were built by King Nebuchadnezzar for his homesick wife, Amytis of Media in the 6th century BC. The gardens were described as a spectacular feat of engineering, created to calm Amytis’s homesickness and remind her of her homeland’s mountains and rivers.
Ancient sources describe the hanging gardens as a remarkable feat of irrigation engineering; placed atop an acropolis on the west bank of the river Euphrates, they featured an elaborate system that delivered water to the topmost story via a series of aqueducts and ziggurats.

7. Who was the first woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives?

Answer: Jeanette Rankin.

Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress and an ardent pacifist who was one of only a handful of legislators to vote against entry into World War II. Jeanette Pickering Rankin was born on June 11, 1880, in Missoula, Montana. After earning a degree in education from the University of Montana in 1901, Rankin became a teacher. In 1910 she moved to Seattle for further studies at the University of Washington and remained to teach until 1912. She also became active politically and joined numerous organizations including the national suffrage movement led by Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul. In 1913 Rankin helped found the Congressional Union for Women Suffrage (later called the National Woman’s Party).

8. In mathematics, the whole number “one million” is represented by the number “one” followed by how many zeroes?

Answer: 6.

The figure of one million is a gargantuan number, and an incredible amount of things can be expressed with the word million. There are 1,000,000 seconds in a day, 1,000,000 feet in a mile, and 1,000,000 pennies in a dollar. Although it may seem like we use this word frequently in our everyday language because of its prevalence in numbers and measurements, it is still an incredibly large and vague number to use that needs much greater definition for everyday use.

9. Which film actor, best known for performances in action-packed Westerns, changed his given name of Marion Michael Morrison to one that’s a little more tough and manly?

Answer: John Wayne.

The careers of some actors are perfectly suited for the rest of their lives. The role that made them a star can be revisited again and again with great effectiveness. This is especially true of John Wayne; he is linked with Westerns. There is probably no other actor who starred in so many films where he played the hero of the film as a cowboy than Wayne. Almost every one of his movies seemed to be a cowboy movie. He even sang and danced his way through many musicals that featured scenes in the Wild West or desert lands.

10. What movie star said: “If what you’re doing is funny, you don’t have to be funny doing it”?

Answer: Charlie Chaplain.

Charlie Chaplain was born on 16 April 1889 in a house on 6 Corsica Street, Toxteth, Liverpool, Lancashire. He was the third of four children born to Hannah Chaplin, a music hall singer, and Charles Chaplin, an alcoholic stage comedian.

Chaplin’s father died two days after his birth and he was brought up by his mother, who sent him out into the world at age 14 [1891]. The young man made a living as a singer on the streets of London. He soon began to develop an act that included juggling and magic tricks. In 1910, he performed in New York City at Fred Karno’s comedy opera house. He became an overnight success when one reviewer wrote that he was “the funniest man on earth.

Random Trivia Questions Part 2

11. The ugli fruit is a new form of:

Answer: Citrus fruit.

The ugli fruit is about the size of a large grapefruit or a navel orange. It is very juicy with thick skin, it is tart and thorny like an orange but without the peel. The fruit contains many seeds, which makes it tart and bitter. The ugli fruit is used as an ingredient in desserts and jams. It is sometimes used in the production of juices, soups, cakes, sauces, pastes and even alcoholic drinks. It is cultivated for its fruits all over the world especially in the Caribbean region.

12. What Shakespearean character had a mother called Gertrude?

Answer: Hamlet.

Hamlet is the title role and protagonist of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet. The player controls Hamlet through the eyes of an unknown observer, who watches over him in the form of a ghost. The game starts out with Hamlet in his dorm room ruminating on the death of his father and other matters. It is at this point that he comes across a magical mirror that is able to show things as they truly are, and not how they appear to be. This magical property will come into play as the story progresses. If you have any question about online game, just ask me
As the story continues, Hamlet comes across various characters from his past, such as family members, school teachers, etc.

13. In Geometry, how many total sides are there on a nonagon?

Answer: 9.

A nine-sided polygon.
The term “nonagon” was used by Simon Stevin (1548–1620) in 1586 and subsequently attributed to Thomas Wilson in his 1653 book “The arte of rationalie”, which contains a proof of Wilson’s theorem. The name comes from Latin nonus (“ninth”) and Greek ἀγόνος (agónos) (“node”), because the vertices all have degree 9.

Although a regular nonagon is not constructible with compass and straightedge, there is a simple procedure for drawing one with an unmarked straightedge, which can easily be extended to “trigon” and “hexagon” constructions in higher dimensions. This was known to Johannes Kepler.

14. Who was the mother of King James 1 of England?

Answer: Mary, Queen of Scots.

King James I was born on June 19, 1566 at Dunfermline Palace. His birth name was Henry. He was the second son of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley.
His parents were forced to separate when he was four months old because his father Darnley was murdered. His mother tried to get him and his siblings to safety by sending them to different places so that they would not be killed. James’ oldest brother Charles was killed in a fight with a man called Ruthven. The assassination attempt happened when Charles tried to get James back from the care of an abusive guardian.

15. Who is the “Queen of Soul”?

Answer: Aretha Franklin.

Aretha Louise Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. Franklin began her career as a child singing gospel with her family. In 1960, at the age of 18, she embarked on a secular career recording for Columbia Records. However, following the release of several commercially unsuccessful singles, she was dropped from the label in 1966. She signed with Atlantic Records in 1967 and soon released “Respect,” which became her signature song and the top-selling record of her career. In 1988 she signed to Arista Records.

16. What was abolished in Britain in 1965 for all crimes except treason?

Answer: Capital punishment.

Capital punishment was abolished in Britain in 1965 for all crimes except treason. This was during a period when public executions were abolished, usually by hanging. It was replaced with a mandatory sentence of life in prison. In 1998 it became forbidden to extradite someone from Britain to face possible capital punishment abroad. Part of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) states that extradition should not be allowed if it is known that the person could face execution or torture. Before this time, people who committed certain offenses under military law could be executed, even if they were civilians.

17. This substance is produced by the human body when a person is angry or frightened:

Answer: Adrenalin.

Adrenalin is a commonly used name for epinephrine.
Epinephrine is a hormone produced by the medulla of the adrenal gland that prepares the body to deal with emergencies. It also raises blood pressure and heart rate, dilates or opens air passages in the lungs, and dilates or widens blood vessels in the skin.
Adrenalin is available in either injection or inhalation forms. It can be given by injection into muscles, under the skin, into a vein, or into an artery. The effects of injected epinephrine usually last about 30 minutes but may last longer if larger doses are given. A common side effect of injected epinephrine is headache.

18. What American state is Silicon Valley in?

Answer: California.

In the early 20th century, the Valley was rich in fruit farms and had a role in producing food. As of 2014, high-tech workers reside in Silicon Valley. Menlo Park’s population, for instance, doubled from 4,092 people to 8,265 people between 1970 and 2000.

High-tech companies such as Hewlett Packard and Intel have been established there. Silicon Valley has become a popular location for companies to base their offices because of its economy and as an option for young entrepreneurs. Some residents are concerned that the increasing cost of living will cause middle-class families to move away from the area.

19. Which is closer to Earth, the Sun or the Moon?

Answer: Moon.

The Sun is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) away at its closest, while the Moon is about 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away at its closest. Both objects are so big that they appear about the same size in the sky to us on Earth. They both take roughly a month to go around Earth. However, compared with everything else in our solar system, the Moon is very small and orbits much closer to Earth than any other planet or asteroid. The Sun’s surface – the photosphere – is 10 times too far away for us to see it clearly with an ordinary telescope.

20. The sensing organs known as Ampullae of Lorenzini are found on what class of animal?

Answer: Fish.

As seen in many fish, (see image 1) ampullae of Lorenzini are sensory organs derived from epithelial cells. They are small, jelly-filled sacs that are connected to a nerve and lead to the brain. The ampullae contain an electrolyte solution, similar to seawater, which flows into the organ via osmosis. These organs detect the pressure changes characteristic of moving prey and predators in the vicinity of the fish. This enables them to detect these movements and flee or attack as appropriate.