Twelve Months a Year Trivia Quiz

Answer: space shuttle explosion

In late 1985, NASA designed a new program called the Teacher in Space Program in an effort to get children interested in space travel. Out of 11,000 people, Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher from Concorde, New Hampshire, was chosen to take part in the program.

Her mission would be to conduct lessons from space aboard the shuttle Challenger. After many delays, Challenger finally lifted off on 28th January 1986. Seventy-three seconds later, in front of a horrified crowd which included the crews' families, Challenger suddenly exploded. All on board died.

The cause of the disaster was a faulty seal on the right Solid Rocket Booster.

Answer: air crash

Carrying mostly Taiwanese families returning home from overseas holidays, China Airlines Airbus A300 stalled and crashed as it approached Chiang Kai Shek Airport near Taipei. There were no survivors.

Answer: Two planes collided on the runway

This became the world's worst aviation disaster. 592 people died when two Boeing 747s, Pan Am flight 1736 and KLM flight 4805, collided on the runway. One of the causes of the disaster was thick fog which prevented the cockpit crews of both planes from seeing each other.

Answer: Titanic

At the time, Titanic and her sister ship, Olympic, were the largest moving objects man had ever built. They incorporated the best in British shipbuilding and were thought to be 'unsinkable' due to a series of 'water-tight' compartments in the hull.

Sadly, five days into her maiden voyage, Titanic sank in the north Atlantic after colliding with an iceberg. 1,523 people, including fifty-two children under the age of thirteen, died. Only 705 survived.

Answer: Hindenburg

Back in the mid-1930s airships were believed to be the future of long-distance travel, and at a length of 804 feet, the German airship Hindenburg, was the largest of them all.

In Lakehurst, New Jersey, USA, at 7pm on 6th May 1937, a ground crew was preparing to tie the Hindenburg to its mooring mast when, without warning, the airship suddenly burst into flames and crashed to the ground. Out of the 97 on board, 35 died.

Answer: Allison

In twenty-four hours on 8th June 2001, Tropical storm Allison dumped twenty-eight inches of rain on Houston, Texas. Forty-one people died and eight-hundred homes were flooded.

Answer: volcanic eruption

Luzon Island is one of the seven hundred islands that make up the Philippines. On 15th July 1991, the 5,725-foot-high volcano Mount Pinatubo erupted. The eruption destroyed almost the entire island, killed 722 people and affected global weather systems for nearly four years.

Answer: submarine

On 12th August 2000 the Russian nuclear submarine, Kursk, was operating a torpedo-firing training exercise in the Barents Sea when two explosions, caused by a fluid leak from a torpedo, ripped the sub apart. The entire crew of 118 died.

Answer: hurricane

Without modern weather forecasting, the citizens of Galveston were unaware of the hurricane directly on course for their tiny, offshore island. Among the obliterated buildings was the town's orphanage, which had been home to ninety children. Approximately 8,000 people died.

Answer: earthquake

Just after 5pm on 17th October 1989, Loma Prieta, California USA, was hit by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Most of the deaths were caused by falling buildings or collapsed freeways.

Answer: fire

To reach the top of the slope, a set of cable cars travelled up a narrow underground tunnel. On 11th November 2000, one of these cable cars caught fire with 180 people trapped inside. Only 12 survived.

Answer: toxic gas

Just after midnight on 3rd December 1984, the Union Carbide Factory in Bhopal, India, accidentally released forty tonnes of highly toxic gas; 8,000 died and 600,000 were injured.

Answer: fire

The astronauts were in the small Command Module on top of the Saturn 1B rocket on the launch pad. Just after 6:30pm, the module suddenly caught fire. By the time a rescue crew managed to open the three escape hatches, the astronauts were dead.

Answer: Columbia

Columbia's mission, dedicated to scientific experiments and research, had worked to schedule and, on Saturday 1st February 2003, the shuttle began re-entry to Earth's atmosphere. The first signs of trouble came when temperature sensors began showing excessive structural heating. Just after 9am, the shuttle disintegrated. All on board died.

Answer: influenza

Known as the "Spanish Flu", the first strain of this virus appeared in the USA in March 1918 and by the end of 1920 it had claimed the lives of 40,000,000 people worldwide.