One, Two, Three Little Categories... Quiz

Answer: ONE NATION

The American Pledge of Allegiance is a short oath containing the phrase "one nation, under God." It debuted in 1892 for the Chicago World's Fair. Most American schoolchildren grow up reciting the Pledge in public school. In 1954, the words "under God" were added, a quotation taken from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

The addition was a source of considerable argument. On the one hand, it proclaimed America's resistance to communism, but on other, America has no official state religion.

Answer: ONE NATION

A title parodying the Pledge of Allegiance, Funkadelic's tenth album is called "One Nation Under a Groove." Funkadelic have some of the greatest titles in all of music; this is the album that features "Groovallegiance," "The Doo Doo Chasers," and "Lunchmeataphobia (Think! It Ain't Illegal Yet)." It may shock you, after hearing all that, that the band was slightly anti-establishment.

Answer: ONE NATION

The party officially called "Paulie Hanson's One Nation" is a populist independent party in the Australia. The party leans far to the right of other Australian political parties and runs on an independent ticket. Since the party was founded in 1997, it has been the subject of attention and criticism, not least because of Hanson herself.

She has a propensity for public stunts: in 2017, as a way to encourage the banning of burqas, she arrived at Parliament wearing one.

Answer: TWO STEP

This is "two-step verification." One-factor security authentication typically satisfies one of four checks: knowledge (a password), possession (a key), characteristic (biometric proof) and location (your IP address). The use of two-step (and higher) authentications is increasing, and increasingly annoying. Most of us have become familiar with using our phones as a second step for verification.

This has a few problems. It's not too hard to copy a SIM card, and you can direct a targeted user to a fake website or phone call to steal their authenticating code for yourself. Also, since many people send e-mail from their phones, an unlocked phone can be a single point of access to both verification steps.

Answer: TWO STEP

The country western two-step, which is the basis of the Texas waltz, the Texas polka and the jitterbug, has spawned countless variations and descendants. Confusingly, a two-step has three steps, two quick, then one slow. Add in an extra slow step and you get the Texas shuffle.

In the evolution of dance, the two-step was succeeded, predictably enough, by the one-step, which is very similar to a foxtrot.

Answer: TWO STEP

The Bekväm stool sold by the world's largest furniture store is, you have probably guessed, a step stool with two steps. It is made of eco-friendly, fire-resistant, shock-absorbent rubberwood. "Bekväm," like so many IKEA products, is a Swedish word with no cognates that intrigues, delights, and tempts the English speaker... it simply means "comfortable."

Answer: THREE EYES

Being a member of the Hindu trinity (the Trimurti, which also includes Brahma and Vishnu), Shiva has a number of symbols associated with trios. The third eye marks the open ajna chakra, the gateway into the unconscious and the intuition. Because our intuition connects to a higher reality, when the third eye of Shiva is opened, anything it perceives will be destroyed; this is how Shiva overcame Desire itself.

Answer: THREE EYES

Nibbler is a black, bear-like creature from "Futurama" with two eyes on his face and an eyed tentacle on top of his head. When he's found by the main crew on a faraway planet, he acts completely defenseless, and they dress him up in a diaper and a cape.

After hanging around in that state for several seasons, Nibbler reveals himself as a Nibblonian, an advanced, extremely intelligent species that can live for thousands of years. Fans were shocked to discover that, seasons earlier, Nibbler's shadow was hidden in the very first episode, when he pushes Fry into the cryogenic chamber that brought him to the year 3000.

Answer: THREE EYES

Tuataras are one of the many strange animals that live only on New Zealand. The single species of tuatara closely resembles the other lepidosaurs - lizards and snakes - but they are so strange that they belong to an order all their own. In the past, other members of its taxonomic family, the Sphenodontidae, roamed North America and Europe. Study the skull of a tuatara and you'll see a tiny hole in its forehead where its third eye, called the parietal eye, pokes out. Actually, almost all lizards have parietal eyes, but most lizards' cannot be seen with the naked (human) eye, while a tuatara's can.

It is probably used to detect light dispersed by cloud cover.

Answer: FOUR COLORS

"Sorry!" is a simple board game for up to four differently-colored players. First published in 1934, it's older than Monopoly. The gameplay, which involves moving a legion of pawns to the end of a track, is downright ancient, drawing inspiration from the Indian game Pachisi (branded as Parcheesi in the U.S.). Hasbro also makes a parody version of the game called "Sorry! Not Sorry!" which has truth-or-dare-type questions; it released alongside "Botched Operation" and "The Game of Life: Quarter Life Crisis."

Answer: FOUR COLORS

The flag of Mauritius is nicknamed the "Four Bands" for its four horizontal stripes of red, blue, yellow, and green. These colors are Pan-African plus: the red, yellow, and green appear on most of Africa's flag; and the blue, symbolizing water, also blazons its Indian Ocean neighbors of Comoros and Seychelles. Maryland has an outrageous and flamboyant state flag, divided into four cantons, with both diagonal pairs matching.

As a state on the border of the Union and Confederacy, Maryland had many citizens who supported both sides in the U.S. Civil War.

The gold and black checker represents the Union side, and the red and white cross represents the Confederacy.

Answer: FOUR COLORS

The four color theorem is a conjecture in graph theory which states that any map can be colored using only four colors without two same-color areas touching, no matter how you draw the borders. Two mathematicians at the University of Illinois, Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken, were able to prove the four color theorem is true using computer simulations.

It was the first time a computer successfully solved this kind of conundrum. The solution has been the source of both excitement and controversy, because the computation is too hard to understand. If a computer can demonstrate something but a human doesn't understand it, does that count as a "proof" in the mathematical sense?

Answer: FIVE STARS

The Admiral of the Fleet is the highest rank of Britain's Royal Navy (not to be confused with the four-star rank of Admiral). Five-star rankings are awarded in several of the militaries that base their rankings off the British system. Other examples include the U.K. Field Marshal and Marshal of the RAF, the U.S. General of the Army (again, not to be confused with the four-star rank of General), General of the Air Force, and Fleet Admiral, and the Field Marshal of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

The U.S. also has one higher rank, "General of the Armies." This is essentially an honorary rank that has only been conferred on one living man, John J. Pershing, for leading the American forces during World War 1.

Answer: FIVE STARS

Not two thumbs or an AAA, but five perfect stars. This type of rating is most closely associated with hotels, and originates from the Mobil Travel Guide. Mobil's guide-writers, Mario and Alden Stevens, were big fans of Michelin's restaurant guide, which only goes up to three stars.

The Mobil guide was bought by Forbes, whose Travel Guide has five stars in its logo. In more modern times, the illustrious star-rating system of Yelp was introduced in 2004.

Answer: FIVE STARS

Cassiopeia is one of the night sky's most recognizable constellations, a W shape formed by five stars. Cassiopeia was the queen of Aethiopia, who invoked the wrath of the sea monster Cetus by boasting of her beauty. The constellation is supposed to look like the posture of Cassiopeia on her throne. Two notable Milky Way supernovae are visible in Cassiopeia: Cassiopeia A, which would have been visible on Earth around ten thousand years ago, is one of the brightest sources of radio emissions in the galaxy. Cassiopeia B, called Tycho's supernova, shocked Europe in 1572 with the appearance of a "new star."

Answer: SIX FINGERS

Completely absent from the many films and shows based on Hannibal Lecter is this detail from the books: Hannibal's left hand has an extra middle finger. Polydactyly is a fairly common deformity, especially given many people's extra digits are removed near birth.

However, having an extra of a central finger is exceedingly rare. Other than showing an abnormality, there isn't any apparent symbolism to this detail. In the "Silence of the Lambs" sequel "Hannibal," an escaped Lecter disguises himself by performing surgery on himself, including lopping off the finger.

The screen adaptations also do not depict Hannibal as having red eyes, as he does in the book.

Answer: SIX FINGERS

Garry Sobers is a Barbadian cricket player born with an extra pinky finger on both sides. Sobers is one of the greatest cricket players of all time (I am told), noted for his ability to play all positions. Since 2004, the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy has been awarded by the International Cricket Council to the Best Men's Cricketer.

While the rate of polydactyly in Caucasians is less than 1 in 1,000 births, in blacks the incidence is about 1 in 143.

Answer: SIX FINGERS

Did Anne Boleyn have six fingers? Almost definitely not. The source for this factoid is a Catholic propagandist "biographer" named Nicholas Sander. He did everything in his power to promote an image of her that was deformed, sickly, and unattractive: Anne Boleyn had "an oval face of sallow complexion, as if troubled with jaundice.

She had a projecting tooth under her upper lip, and on her right hand, six fingers. There was a large wen [a wart] under her chin, and therefore to hide its ugliness, she wore a high dress ..." Tricky man he was, so as to conceal his agenda from the reader, he ends by saying: "She was handsome to look at, with a pretty mouth." I could go into other reasons to discount this, such as the fact high-necked dressed came into fashion after Boleyn's death, but I think the excerpt unmasks itself. What she probably had was a malformed or secondary nail on one finger. No sixth finger was found on her exhumed skeleton.