Loose Ends Trivia Quiz

Answer: Female characters

Alison Bechdel first conceived the Bechdel Test in 1985, as a way to measure the development of female characters in popular film. To pass the Bechdel test, a movie must meet each of these three criteria, a movie must feature:

1. Two named women characters
2. Those characters must have a conversation
3. That conversation must not be about a male character

Some major motion pictures that fail the Bechdel test include "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), "Avatar" (2009), and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961).

Answer: I think, therefore I am

A Cartesian co-ordinate system has become quite standard in mathematics and cartography and can be briefly defined as either a two (x,y) or three (x,y,z) dimensional representation of space where points are defined in reference to an origin where all values are zero. Descartes' first publishing of the system came in 1637's "Discourse in the Method" and were elaborated in later works. Elsewhere in that 1637 writing was the first appearance of "je pense, donc je suis", the French translation of "Cogito Ergo Sum", or "I think, therefore I am".

The statement stands to reason that to simply doubt our own existence was proof that we possessed in reality an independent mind. The statement, in its various translations, became a fundamental tenant of Western philosophy for future generations as a baseline for establishing that any being capable of thought must exist.

Answer: 200

The Daytona 500 is the first race of every NASCAR season and also the most significant on its calendar. Considered the "Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing", the first Daytona 500 was run in 1959 and won by Lee Petty in a photo-finish that took three days to determine the winner. Before the track opened, stock cars would race on the beaches of Daytona in a course that combined sand and city streets. Alongside open wheel's Indianapolis 500, the two events are the signature events each year on the American auto racing calendar.

Answer: Albany, New York

James II would not ascend to the British throne until 1685, at the age of 52, but at the time of the British capture of New Amsterdam in 1664 he was the Lord High Admiral of the British Navy, and the Duke of York. The British invaders declared the land both the Province and City of New York, in James' honour. Up the Hudson River, the settlement of New Orange was renamed Albany in James' honour as the Scottish Duke of Albany.

Answer: Tina Fey

In the midst of hosting the Oscars in March of 2014, Ellen found a collection of friends in the audience to pose for one large selfie and immediately posted it to her personal Twitter account. She was able to gather a crowd of Jared Leto, Angelina Jolie, the N'Yongo siblings, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lawrence, Kevin Spacey, and Channing Tatum, along with the above mentioned folks into one crowded picture taken with Bradley Cooper holding the phone.

The act of the selfie had just been sparked by the rise of Instagram and the word was added to the Oxford English dictionary the year prior to this famous selfie.

Answer: Wendy's

A social media fad in early 2017 saw some users message prominent celebrities or businesses asking for perks or products if the user could garner a certain amount of retweets. With this in mind, 17-year old Carter Wilkerson asked fast food giant Wendy's over social media how many retweets it would take to earn a year's supply of chicken nuggets to which the company responded with 18 million. Wilkerson tweeted out his plea to his small following of friends and the support began to grow.

When the tweet broke the 3 million mark, and later eclipsed the record as the most retweeted tweet in Twitter's history, Wendy's relented and awarded the teen with his wish for free chicken nuggets.

Answer: True

Johnny Cash never spent more than an overnight in jail at a time, but became interested in performing to prison inmates in 1955, when he wrote "Folsom Prison Blues" after watching a documentary on the conditions inside the maximum security facility. After an initial performance in 1966, he returned in 1968 and recorded his 15-song performance and released it as a live album. The album's success led to a sequel, this time a live album release of his performance at San Quentin the following year.

Through his visits Cash became an outspoken advocate for prison reform, eventually leading to an invitation by Tennessee senators to speak to the United States' Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on national penitentiaries. Cash expressed concern with the blending of first-time offenders with those serving life sentences inside the prison walls, as well as the protocols for reintroducing released prisoners back in to society.

Answer: Gabon and Sierra Leone

Both Libreville, Gabon and Freetown, Sierra Leone were settled by escaped slaves proud to proclaim their new-found agency. Freetown was established in 1792 by British abolitionists who helped to settle liberated slaves from Africa, North America, and Europe. Libreville started as a French trading post on the Atlantic coast, but became home to liberated Congolese slaves when the French navy intercepted a Brazillian-bound ship in 1846.

In solidarity of the banishment of the Atlantic slave trade, Libreville was named in solidarity with Freetown.

Answer: Mercury

With the newly invented telescope, Galileo, Thomas Harriott, and Pierre Gassendi each observed Mercury in 1631. Copernicus hypothesized that Mercury was a planet in his heliocentric proposal for the order of the solar system a century before the telescope, all of which the telescope was able to verify.

Freddie Mercury references Galileo five times in a rapid verse in the midst of the song from 1975. Whether the line references the astronomer himself is unknown and a topic of debate, as "Galileo" referred to Jesus Christ in ancient Rome. The hectic opera also mentions "The Barber of Seville", the Spanish fandango dance, and the Italian clown opera character Scaramouche in the same verse as well.

Answer: Knowledge

Epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature and the extent of knowledge. Overarching questions epistemologists address include "What is knowledge?", "How do we acquire knowledge?" and "Are there limits to what we can know?". Epistemological debates can also occur between what constitutes factual knowledge versus opinions.