The Power of Seven Trivia Quiz

Answer: Greeks

Greek travelers went throughout Persia, Babylonia, and Egypt to find the original Seven Wonders. They chose the number seven because it symbolizes perfection in their culture. They wrote about these and an initial list was created in the second century BC.

The group includes the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Only the Great Pyramid, on the west bank of the Nile River in Egypt, still stands today.

Answer: The Arabs on trading routes

Ancient Arabs defined the Seven Seas as ones they typically sailed on during their trading voyages. These would include bodies of water like the Persian Gulf, the Bay of Bengal, and the South China Sea. Later, Phoenicians and Greeks changed the definition to add in parts of the Mediterranean.

In the 1500s, as Europeans explored North America, the list changed again. By the Colonial era, the phrase "sailing the seven seas" meant going to the other side of the globe and back.

Answer: Pride

The Seven Deadly Sins are transgressions which are fatal to spiritual progress and, as the Roman Catholic Church believes, can cause are person to forfeit heaven. It started with a monk named Evagrius Ponticus in the fourth century who authored a list of "evil thoughts".

These were then translated to Latin and revisited by Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s. Throughout the centuries, pride was considered the original and most serious of the deadly sins on the lists. These sins have been popular in books, movies, and television.

The creator of "Gilligan's Island" admitted that each of the seven characters was modeled on a particular sin with Gilligan representing sloth.

Answer: He didn't have one

The Brothers Grimm originally wrote the fairy tale in 1812 and revised it until their final version in 1854. There were a few differences between that story and the Disney movie. Perhaps one of the biggest is that in the fairy tale, none of the dwarfs had names! In 1912, a play was put on based on the story and the dwarfs were given names like Blick, Whick, and Snick. Finally, in 1937, Walt Disney took it to the big screen and, after much deliberation, gave the dwarfs the names they have today.

Answer: Pangea

Roughly 300 million years ago, Earth did not have seven continents. It, instead, had one giant supercontinent called Pangea. Studying the formation and breakup of this land mass ushered in the theory of plate tectonics. This states that land is created as a result of subterranean movements and the effects on Earth's crust. Over the next millennia, Pangea eventually split and re-split to form the seven continents of today.

Answer: A WWI achievement

Ian Fleming wrote 14 books between 1953 and 1966 about James Bond. There have been 27 total movies around this subject. Bond is a fictional spy in the British Secret Service and is known by his code number "007". The zeroes represent, in the book, the spy's right to use deadly force. Fleming chose to add the digit seven based upon the Zimmerman Telegram.

This was a secret communication in 1917 between Germany and Mexico and was one of the reasons that the United States entered WWI. The telegram was in cipher 0075 which had been broken.

Answer: Gold

For years, Spaniards had been in the New World and had been looting the gold and riches of Aztec and Incan tribes. There had been persistent rumors of seven cities made of gold. This was brought to the forefront in 1539, when a friar reported he had actually seen this site in what is now New Mexico. Expeditions formed, among them a large group led by Francisco de Coronado.

When they finally arrived, only adobe huts were to be found. It was believed the friar had potentially seen the cities lit from behind, which gave the buildings a glow.

Answer: ROY G BIV

The Greek philosopher Aristotle first questioning how rainbows got colors around 350 BC. The Romans elaborated on this idea and introduced the prism philosophy. Newton proved that light is made up of a spectrum of colors and noticed the sequence of the colors did not change.

He broke those into seven distinct groups. A rainbow shows those colors in order from red (the longest wavelength) to violet (the shortest wavelength). Over the years, mnemonics such as ROY G BIV or "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain" have been developed to help people remember the color sequence.

Answer: The Magnificent Seven

The film showcases the seven men coming together and fighting the bandits. The 1960 original cast included Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn, and Horst Buchholz as the group. The remake in 2016 was a cast headed by Denzel Washington.

The original has been called one of the greatest films of the Western genre and created sequels, a TV series, and the film remake. Both theater versions were box office hits.

Answer: Mirror

The Romans believed that every seven years life would renew itself and problems would be fixed. So, if a mirror broke and your visage was the last thing on its surface, you had to endure seven years of misfortune. It has been said the only way to try to counteract the effects is to remove the pieces and bury them under the moonlight.

The superstition of mirror damaging and the bad luck that accompanies it are found in cultures around the world.