A General Quizzle to Test Your General Knizzle

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

The smart money would have been on Jefferson, a legendary polymath (translation: all-around achiever) who did have many inventions to his credit, but no patents. The more studious may have suspected Hoover (a trained scientist with a geology degree from Stanford) or Carter (who holds an engineering degree from Annapolis). It is Lincoln, however, who received a patent in the 1840s for devising an innovation in ship design that would free a boat run aground. What a guy!

Answer: Orthodox Christianity

There are vampire stories all over the world (including Catholic Bohemia and Silesia), but the best known vampire traditions are in Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Russia, and even Transylvania (along with the rest of Romania)--all of which are traditionally Orthodox.

Answer: Duke Ellington

Ellington's best-known work preceded the bebop style. His compositions are considered by most musicologists to be the most sophisticated pieces in jazz up to that point.

Answer: A cappuccino has more foam

About a third of what you get in a cappuccino is foam, while a latte only has a spoonful on top. They can both be made with or without flavor, with whole or skim milk, and with various strengths of espresso.

Answer: Agatha Christie

Whether this was amnesia on her part or a plot to frame her adultrous husband for murder is still a matter of debate.

Answer: The National League

The National League was founded in 1876, the American in 1901. The "supreme being" thing refers to the genesis of the Greek goddess Athena. Some baseball purists do tend to subscribe to this idea of baseball having divine origins...but that is for another quiz.

Answer: Dionysus

Dionysus' mother demanded to see Zeus in all his glory. This proved to be a mistake, but her son (fathered by Zeus) went on to become the god of wine.

Answer: Souls of Black Folk

DuBois' work postulated a "dual consciousness" in African-American identity. Unlike most European immigrants, DuBois argued, African-Americans were prevented from assimilating into American society by racism. This contrasted with the views of Booker T. Washington, who argued in "Up from Slavery" that African-Americans could assimilate with vocational education and the resulting accumulation of African-American capital. Washington would go on to establish Tuskeegee University, while DuBois founded the Niagra Movement, which eventually became the NAACP.

Answer: Buddy Bolden

Bolden's lungpower was legendary--in days before amplification, he could play his cornet loud enough to call his bandmates to perform from all over the French Quarter. Trombonist Kid Ory was one of the first jazz artists to record, St. Cyr was a banjo player on the well-received records of King Oliver and Louis Armstrong, and soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet was one of the most recorded jazz artists of any age.

Answer: The Revolution of 1848

Hugo, who also wrote one of the best non-fiction accounts of the 1848 events, includes a vivid description of the hero, Jean Valjean, carrying his ward's fiance through the Paris sewers to avoid the deadly mob violence of the 1848 street riots.

Answer: Pete Townsend

Clapton would go on to have great success with Cream, Derek and the Dominos, and his own band. Page would become a legend playing for Led Zeppelin, and Beck has been one of the most respected rock guitar players among his peers for decades. Townsend has never played with any group of note other than his own band, The Who.

Answer: Babe Ruth

I have seen this called "the best baseball trivia question of all time", both for its irony (since Ruth became a star for the Yankees after being sold to them in 1919) and because it indicates the beginning of the Yankees' dominance over baseball and the Red Sox' relative decline, both largely because of Ruth's contributions to the Yankees.

Answer: Leopold von Ranke

Jomini and Klausewitz were both great scholars of the Napoleonic era, while Mahan is probably the most influential American naval historian of all time. Ranke was a pioneer in the philosophy of history, asserting that history should be written without guiding paradigms and should seek at all times to tell the whole truth.

Answer: He was a "bandit" or a "robber"

The Greek word in the majority text can mean either "robber" or "insurrectionist".

Answer: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Twain's novel is one of the most divisive books in American history. For some social activists, its free use of the "N-word" is completely unacceptable, and there have been calls to ban the book from school curricula. Many literary scholars, however, consider "Huckleberry Finn" to be one of the core books in the canon of American literature.

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