Cool Zooms, Part XIV Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alannah Myles

Canadian-born Alannah Myles released her eponymous album in 1989. Featured on this album, the single 'Black Velvet', a tribute to Elvis Presley, was written by David Tyson and Christopher Ward. This power ballad reached number one on the US charts and number two in many other countries including Germany and the UK. Myles won Canada's Juno Award for Single of the Year and a 1991 Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

This question put into the rotation by PR member MikeMaster99 who had the wonderful experience of living in Canada around this period.

Answer: French and English

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919, at the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the deaths of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. The leaders of the nations known as the 'Big Four' (USA, Great Britain, France and Italy) steered the negotiations, probably the reason that the treaty was written in English and French. The defeated powers were not represented at the conference. Each of the allied leaders had different objectives for the outcomes of the treaty and the resulting terms were incredibly severe. Germany was incensed that the whole blame for the war was being laid at their feet, with the burden of restitution placed entirely upon them. The discontent over the terms provided the right atmosphere for the development of radical groups that was the prelude to World War II.

French and English are the official languages of Canada, under the Official Languages Act of 1969.

This question was signed, sealed and ratified by Phoenix Rising executive officer, VegemiteKid.

Answer: Major General James Wolfe

General Wolfe, whose triumph at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec over the French in 1759 made Canada a part of the British Empire but cost him his life, now stands guard adjacent to the Observatory, but outside and apart from its walled boundary. Why is the statue of a British Army General displayed so prominently at a location known for astronomy, navigation and timekeeping? The simple explanation is that Wolfe's parents lived on the western edge of Greenwich Park, as attested by the blue plaque at Macartney House. Wolfe's body was repatriated and buried in Greenwich.

Question submitted by Humanist who was in Quebec City on Bastille Day in 2017 when a live cannonball carelessly left behind by General Wolfe was discovered.

Answer: Trivial Pursuit

The answers are all trivia board games.

In late 1979, Canadians Chris Haney and Scott Abbott decided to develop a trivia game after finding that their "Scrabble" set was missing a few tiles. In "Trivial Pursuit", players collect coloured wedges by answering trivia questions, with the original game containing these categories:
* Geography (Blue)
* History (Yellow)
* Arts & Literature (Brown)
* Science & Nature (Green)
* Sports & Leisure (Orange)
* Entertainment (Pink)

The original 1981 version of "Trivial Pursuit" was called the "Genus I" edition. Subsequently, dozens of different master game sets and mini packs were produced, including those named in this question. A Ruby edition marking the first 40 years of "Trivial Pursuit" has been released.

Phoenix Rising's psnz found a "Genus I" Mastergame and "Genus II" and "Young Players" sets in his games' cupboard and reflected that this game kindled his original interest in trivia.

Answer: James Doohan

James Montgomery Doohan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on March 3, 1920. He is best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in "Star Trek", where he played the Scottish Chief Engineer of the Starship Enterprise. What is not as well known is that he contributed to the initial development of the Klingon and Vulcan languages.

During World War II, James Doohan was in the Royal Canadian Artillery and landed at Juno Beach on D-Day. During this invasion he was wounded, apparently by friendly fire, and one of the bullets went through his right middle finger resulting in its amputation.
Doohan died on July 20, 2005 at his home. His body was cremated and a portion of his ashes was flown into space in 2012.

This question was boldly added into this quiz, where no question had been before, by Phoenix Rising member lg549.

Answer: SNAFU

Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) was an English doctor best known for publishing an expurgated version of Shakespeare's plays and several other works where he omitted or replaced words and phrases considered objectionable at the time. Parts of the acronyms used in this question may cause offense, so some of the terms have been bowdlerised.

"SNAFU" originally meant, "Status Normal: All Fouled Up" but the first word is more commonly "Situation" and a different word was used instead of "Fouled". While this meets the definition from the question, "SNAFU" generally refers to a bad situation which is, unfortunately, all too common. The acronym dates from World War II in the early 1940s and is a sardonic view of military organisation. American animated military instructional films from 1943-1945 featured a title character called "Private Snafu".

Canada is a big country with many unusual place names. "Snafu Lake" is a body of water in the south of the Yukon Territory. Its name is derived from the military acronym. Flowing from "Snafu Lake" is "Snafu Creek".

"KAOS" is an alternate spelling of "chaos". A frequent usage has been the "International Organization of Evil" in the "Get Smart" TV series (1965-1970). In this context KAOS was not an acronym.

"ISHYGDDT" is an internet acronym, meaning "I Seriously Hope You Guys Don't Do This". A polite version of "FISH" is "Forget It, Stuff Happens" although users might choose to use other words for "Forget" and/or "Stuff".

OMG! WTF! PR's psnz FUBARed this.
(Oh My Goodness! What a Terrific Feat! Phoenix Rising's psnz Finally Untangled this Beyond All Remonstration.)

Answer: Wonderbra

Necessity played a role in Israel's creation. When World War II broke out in 1939, materials for apparel manufacturers were rationed and elastics were a bust... you couldn't get them and they were an essential, particularly for bra makers. The diagonal slash, designed by Pilot, meant that the bra fitted the wearer better but, what was more impressive is that it did so without elastic. Marketed under the label "Wonderbra" it gave his then employer, the Canadian Lady Corset Company, a massive competitive advantage. Pilot would later set up his own companies in the US, marketing the product as the "Wonder-Bra" but he failed to inspire buyers and much stock remained on the rack. The Wonderbra would go though a range of enhancements over the decades, surviving the scares of bra-burning feminists of the 1960s, and went from being an "unmentionable" to becoming a visible part of a woman's sex-appeal. However, Wonderbra was not without its share of knockers. An advertising campaign instigated in 1994, which featured a busty Eva Herzigova, saw posters being ordered removed, for fear they would cause traffic accidents.

Phoenix Rising's pollucci19 showed great bra-vado in delivering this question.

Answer: Curare

Curare is an alkaloid poison extracted from a wide variety of South American plant species. When hunting, indigenous tribes would use arrows or spears dipped in curare to paralyze the prey. More purified forms were used in the 19th century to treat conditions including tetanus and was found to interfere with nerve impulses. Its paralyzing (muscle relaxing) properties were shown to result from effects on acetylcholine receptors. A synthetic form of curare, intercostin, was used by Griffith and Johnson at the Montreal Homeopathic Hospital in 1942 to supplement anaesthetics used on a patient undergoing an appendectomy. This work helped pioneer the use of muscle relaxants in anaesthesia.

The question was injected into the quiz by PR member MikeMaster99, who works with colleagues dedicated to the very challenging task of making synthetic versions of a wide range of natural product medicines.

Answer: The name Rachel

Meghan Markle (whose full name is Rachel Meghan Markle) found fame as an actress in 2011 when she landed the role of paralegal Rachel Zane in the US legal drama series 'Suits'. She later gained a much greater level of international fame when she began dating Britain's Prince Harry in 2016. Harry and Meghan made their first public appearance together at the Invictus Games held in Toronto, Canada in 2017. Meghan was living in that city at the time, as despite being set in New York 'Suits' - like many other US TV shows - was largely filmed in Canada. On her marriage, Meghan became a princess and gained the titles of Duchess of Sussex, Countess of Dumbarton and Baroness Kilkeel.

Meghan's father, Thomas Markle, worked in the TV industry and she attended Northwestern University, while in 'Suits' Rachel Zane studied law at Columbia University. Her final scenes in the show were particularly apt as they showed Rachel's marriage to her co-worker Mike Ross - but he wasn't British or a prince.

This question was written by Phoenix Rising's Fifiona81 who isn't called Rachel but can be a bit zany.

Answer: Puck

Robin "Puck" Goodfellow was a mischievous fairy from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". He is responsible for much of the play's drama.

Canadian Wayne Gretzky possessed such skill with a puck that he is considered the greatest ice hockey player to ever play the game. "The Great One's" playing career in the National Hockey League spanned two decades.

The word 'puck' is an Old English word meaning "mischievous demon". Anyone who faced one of Gretzky's shots on goal would appreciate that etymology.

Phoenix Rising team member JCSon wonders what Gretzky might have done with Robin Goodfellow in a faceoff.

Answer: Street

Photographer Fred Herzog (1930-2019) was born in Germany but emigrated to Canada in 1952. He is best known for the pictures of street scenes of the city of Vancouver that he took from the 1950s onwards. His work was not widely recognised until much later in his life and the first major exhibition of his work was a retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2007. Herzog's photography is particularly notable for having been taken in colour at a time when black and white photography was much more common for images of that type and as such provides a distinctive record of urban life in the mid to late 20th century.

This question was produced in a flash by Fifiona81.

Answer: Dr Frederick Banting

In 1921, Canadian physician Charles Best, along with his assistant Frederick Banting, first discovered insulin, the hormone responsible for regulating blood sugar levels. They isolated the hormone from a dog's pancreas then used it to prove that it lowered the dog's blood sugar levels. With further assistance from a Scottish physiologist and a Canadian chemist, they purified it to such an extent that it was used to treat a diabetic boy. Best and Banting won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1923 for their discovery.

Animal insulin was used on humans until the first synthetic insulin, created from E. Coli bacteria, was released in 1978 by drug company Eli Lilly.

Francis Crick is the co-discoverer of human DNA and Jonas Salk created a polio vaccine. Marion Gilchrist was the first female graduate from the University of Glasgow and also one of the first female medical graduates in Scotland.

This question was created by leith90 who likes to give her pancreas a work out to keep it in peak condition. 'Use it or lose it' is her motto.

Answer: Polar bear

Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States are the five countries included in the range of the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) which - along with the Kodiak bear - is the largest land carnivore extant. Polar bears inhabit a relatively small ecological niche, adapted to the cold temperatures of the Arctic, making them a 'vulnerable' species due to climate change. They are able to reach a top speed of 40 km/h (25 mph) in short bursts, but cannot maintain it without becoming overheated, therefore, they do not rely on speed for hunting. Although the Inuit no longer use the polar bear for food and clothing, the animal remains a powerful central figure in their spiritual and cultural lives.

Question submitted by Humanist who resembles Nanook of the North when wearing his Canadian wool sweater, knit cap and scarf.

Answer: Uranium

Uranium glass has fallen out of fashion, but had its heyday in the early 1900s. There is only a miniscule amount of uranium mixed in during the glass-making process, usually less than 1%, and it is not considered as dangerous as it sounds! Uranium is a naturally-occurring element, extracted from pitchblende ore, which is also the source of the more volatile radium, isolated by the Curies. Nobelium would be rather useless in any sort of glassware, as it has a half-life of about 3 minutes. Radon is a rather potent gas, and a carcinogen.
The province of Saskatchewan, Canada, is one of the largest areas of uranium production in the world.

This question brought to you by ozzz2002, who felt a real glow from writing it.

Answer: Equal number of male and female events

The Commonwealth Games is an international sporting event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations, a political organization comprised almost exclusively of former British Empire territories. The 2018 Games was a landmark for gender equality as it marked the first time there were an equal number of events for male and female athletes at any major multi-sport competition.

Queen Elizabeth II attended the 1970 Games in Edinburgh, Scotland for the first time in her official capacity as Head of the Commonwealth. She attended every Games since until the 2010 Games hosted by Delhi, India. The Queen was also unable to attend the 2018 Games.

Between 1930 and 2018, only three nations finished on top of the medal table at the Commonwealth Games (Australia 13 times, England 7 times, and Canada once). Australia finished on top in 2018 with 198 medals (80 gold, 59 silver, 59 bronze). England took home 136 (45, 45, 46). Canada's total of 82 (15, 40, 27) was the third highest total.

Team member JCSon submitted this question to Phoenix Rising's organizing committee for consideration.

Answer: Marcellus Gilmore Edson

According to US Patent #306727, Marcellus Gilmore Edson, a Canadian, received a patent for "manufacture of peanut candy", in 1884. The patent was based upon heating ground peanuts to 100 degrees Fahrenheit to achieve a semi-liquid consistency. Without the heating, the grinding process would yield peanut flour.
The US National Peanut Board states, "Contrary to popular belief, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter." Apparently Mr Carver was given credit for several inventions that did not originate in his laboratory. Mr Carver did, in 1916, publish a treatise about peanuts called "How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption".

This question was penned by Phoenix Rising Team Member 1nn1 and determined it was only worth peanuts.

Answer: Elton John

Taron Egerton was born in Merseyside, near Liverpool in 1989 but moved to Wales when he was five and grew up in Anglesey and Aberystwyth. His name is a variant of 'taran', which means 'thunder' in Welsh. He is a 2012 graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he graduated with a BA (Hons) majoring in acting. After several small roles he gained wider attention in 'Kingsman: The Secret Service' and sequel, 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle'. In 2019, Egerton starred as Elton John in 'Rocketman'. It earned him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role nomination.

In June 2019, Egerton performed a live duet of "Your Song" with Elton John at Brighton as part of Elton John's farewell tour. On this tour Mr John explained that this was indeed his farewell concert as he wanted to spend more with his Canadian husband David Furnish and their two sons.

This question was driven home by Phoenix Rising team member 1nn1 who had to drive like a Rocket Man for five hours to make Mr John's final concert, and thought, afterwards it was going to be a long, long time before he sees Mr John again.

Answer: The line of latitude that is most of the border between USA and Canada

The 49th Parallel is the longest undefended border in the world. Britain and the United States agreed on the 49th parallel as the main Pacific Northwest boundary when they signed the Treaty of Oregon on June 15, 1846. Polk's pragmatic decision was to extend the border from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies, set in October 1818, all the way to the Pacific Coast. One consequence that arose from the treaty is that the 49th parallel cuts the Columbia River in two. To accommodate the issues of water management, the two countries agreed to a system of joint management of the river's water and power in the ratification of the Columbia River Treaty in 1964.

This question was amicably agreed with all relevant parties by Phoenix Rising member VegemiteKid.

Answer: Gilead

"The Handmaid's Tale" is a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood which is set in the not-too-distant future in the new nation of Gilead. In an article in the New York Times on March 10, 2017, Atwood describes Gilead as "a literal-minded theocratic dictatorship" and states that "The Republic of Gilead is built on a foundation of the 17th-century Puritan roots that have always lain beneath the modern-day America we thought we knew."

In the Hebrew Bible, Gilead was a mountainous region east of the Jordan River, situated in modern-day Jordan. The Hebrew word Gilead is thought to mean "hill of testimony" or "rocky region".

This question was hand made by Phoenix Rising's lg549.

Answer: Dr. Robotnik/ Eggman

With a name like Ivo Robotnik (sometimes known as "Eggman" or "Dr. Eggman") you'd half expect the guy to be a machine, but no, he is all human. And what an evil human he turns out to be. The bad Doc has an IQ of 300 and all he plans for is world domination, though he does like to steal the odd jewel or several. This is one dude that would be at the top of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) hitlist. You see he has a penchant for building robots to achieve his evil deeds but he doesn't fire up his machines with electricity, diesel or batteries... No, he makes slaves out of cute fluffy creatures such as squirrels and rabbits, installs them in his machines and then points them at Sonic and says "Kill". Way too evil.

Dr. Wily is from the "Mega man" series which started in 1987, Captain LeChuck and Largo LaGrande are two separate characters from "The Secret of Monkey Island" (1990) and Master Bison is from "Streetfighter 5" (2016). As an aside, the character of Dr. Robotnik was played by Canadian actor Jim Carrey in 2020 cinema release of "Sonic the Hedgehog".

This question was brought to you by a very prickly pollucci19 from Phoenix Rising.