General Knowledge : Part 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Hair

Its true! An act of devotion when one visits Tirupati is to 'donate' one's hair to show humility and subservience to God. Devotees routinely have their head shaved when they go to Tirupati as part of a pilgrimage. Now, given the fact that the temple town attracts anywhere close to 20-25 million pilgrims a year, that is a lot of hair. Almost all of it goes into feeding India's wigmaking industry, and the sale of this hair is an important source of income for the TTD.

This unique source of funds had the BBC feature the TTD in its program "Business Bizarre" a couple of years back.

Answer: Ananova

Ananova, the world's first internet newscaster began broadcasting from www.ananova.com. She was originally an "employee" of PA Media, Leeds, but the website is now run by Orange.

Answer: Winston Churchill

Churchill's wife, Clementine is said to have destroyed the painting when it was presented to the couple by the artist. According to Jonathan Jones of the Guardian newspaper ' This is a very unhappy painting. Old, grumpy, with an anger that no longer seems leavened by the humour and verbal creativity of the Churchill of legend, this is a reactionary curmudgeon surrounded by the shades of night', in an article written for the newspaper, in November 2001. An earlier copy of this painting may now be found in the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Answer: Sindh

Peccavi is a Latin word meaning, "I have sinned". Get it?!;)

Answer: True

Greenmailing was one of the causes which led to the overvaluation of shares in the 1980's and was quite prevalent till it was banned in the US by legislation.

Answer: True

Asterix's village of the indomitable Gauls found a mention in the map published in its 1977 May issue in its article on the Celtic World. Asterix, one of my most favourite comics has been translated into 20 different languages and enjoys worldwide popularity with young and old alike.

Answer: Hedy Lamarr

Well, no dumb blonde this lady, she learnt a lot about weapons from her husband, Fritz Mandel, an arms manufacturer whom she left when he was making arms deals with the Nazis. She came up with this idea of a radio signal which jumped frequencies along with composer George Antheil and was awarded a patent for it in 1942.

However, by the time the US Navy adopted the idea, the patent had expired and she never received any royalty for it. This method is still used today in cellular phone technology.

Answer: 1989

The last cricket test in Pakistan between India and Pakistan before the 2004 series in Pakistan was in Karachi in 1989, where a 16 year old boy named Sachin Tendulkar made his debut, facing up to the fiery pace of another young lad named Waqar Younis.

Although normal cricketing ties have resumed intermittently between the two neighbours, the last test match between India and Pakistan was only in 1999, when Pakistan won the test series against India in Calcutta. Relations were frozen soon after following the Kargil War in 1999 and the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2002.

Answer: General Electric

General Electric is the only company to have been listed originally on the Dow Jones Index when the Index was first published in 1896 that is still being listed on the DJIA. Interestingly, GE was dropped off the index in 1898, but made a comeback eight years later in 1906. All others have either been dissolved or absorbed into other companies or are still active stocks, but not on the DJIA anymore.

Answer: True

While a large number of people in Western societies consider themselves 'enlightened' because of the power given to women, they would perhaps be surprised to know that the concept of women's empowerment was something very close to Prophet Mohammed's heart. Even the law allowing a man four wives was revolutionary in those times since it put a limit to the number of wives a man may have and placed a lot of conditions which would make it virtualy impossible for a man to have four wives. Of course, the fact that these laws have been totally misinterpreted by some scholars is a different matter altogether.

Answer: Fuji

Fujiyama or Mount Fuji, is the most sacred mountain in Japan and until the Meiji Era, women were forbidden to climb its slopes. It is also one of the most represented natural features in Japanese art, with its distinctive cone , being the subject of many a painting. Of the other options mentioned here, Mount Everest was also a very sacred mountain to the sherpas of Nepal and only in the 19th century were foreigners allowed to climb its sacre slopes.

Answer: Babur

Babur(1483-1530), who was born as Ziauddin Mohammed in the tiny prinicpality of Farghana would go on to found one of the largest empires in Indian history. He was a descendant of both Ghenghis Khan and Timur and the blood of both these great conquerors ran in his veins.

In fact, he never originally wanted to conquer India, but saw an opportunity when he was 'invited' by the rebellious nobles of the Delhi Sultan, Ibrahim Lodi. In one of the most stunning battles, Babur's force of 10,000 mostly cavalrymen, defeated a force at least five times larger in half a day in the first Battle of Panipat in 1526. Babur would repeat this performance against Rana Sanga of Mewar, who led a united army of 100,000 Rajput warriors against Babur's troops, in the Battle of Kanwaha, in less than four months. Babur's autobiography, 'Baburnamah' is considered one of the classics of Persian literature for its simple poetic style and romantic content.

Although Babur founded the Mughal Empire, he did not rule it for long, falling ill and dying in December 26, 1530.

Answer: Bangalore

Bangalore is the anglicized version of the original name, "Bendakaluru" later shortened to "Bengaluru", which means city of the boiled beans. Legend has it that the founder, a local chieftain, by the name of Kempegowda, lost his way while hunting and would have starved to death but for the charity of an old woman who gave him a dish of boiled beans, which helped him survive and reach safety.

He built the city on the spot where the old woman's hut stood and called it "Bendakaluru" or the "City of Boiled Beans" in her honour.

It is my hometown too!

Answer: Gandalf

Sir Ian McKellen makes a cameo appearance in the scene where Harry is looking at the portraits of the famous witches and wizards in Dumbledore's office. It is said the makers of the movie could not think of any other famous fictional wizard as well known as Gandalf and who better to play him than McKellan himself. On a side note, intertextuality is the reference to a text of a similar genre in literature;).

Answer: Penicillin

Penicillin was discovered by Dr.Alexander Fleming, along with Ernst Chain and Howard Florey, who received the Nobel Prize for medicine for his discovery of the vaccine in 1928. He left a petri dish with a bacteria sample outside and when he looked at it the next day, found to his great surprise that mould growing on it, had killed the bacteria in several places. Thus, penicillin was synthesized from the fungus on that petri dish and continues to save millions of lives today.