Though I generally do pretty well at both at pub trivia and in online competitions like Sporcle and Learned League, it has become clear to me over the last couple months that I have a couple of big blind spots and a bunch of small ones that are holding me back from being all that I can be, trivia-wise. On the theory that the best way to learn something is to teach it, this feature is an effort by me to address those blind spots.
I am going to try to post five questions on a single topic every day. The topics will vary, but I’m going to concentrate on geography, sports, current events, and history, because those are my weak areas. There is no score keeping and there are no prizes. I hope that some of the trivia heads on my Facebook and Twitter feeds who see these will enjoy them and have fun playing along and learn some stuff, but I’m not trying to found a trivia empire here.
As for the name: It’s a Field of Dreams reference, as this project is based on the theory that “If you build it [your own trivia questions] they [the answers to other people’s trivia questions] will come.” Yeah, it’s a stretch, but in my defense I only thought about it for like a minute.
Alright, without further ado, on to our first category: Inspired by the recent Doctor Who Christmas special, let’s consider World War I.
- A 1967 song by The Royal Guardsmen describing the second confrontation between two combatants was loosely inspired by the 1914 Christmas Truce. Very loosely – one of the combatants was a fictional character. Name both combatants.
- What first name did the wife of Archdude Franz Ferdinand share with a French mathematician for whom a certain class of prime numbers are named as well as with an English actress who appears in the Game of Thrones television series?
- “If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengeance, I dare predict, will not limp.” These words were taken from The Economic Consequences of the Peace, a 1919 book by what British economist whose predictions of the dire consequences of the high reparations imposed by the Versailles peace treaty unfortunately proved correct.
- In 1914 the name of the capital city of Russia was changed because the original name sounded too German. Give the new name, which itself only lasted until another change in 1924.
- Maréchal and Rosenthal are the two French prisoners of war who escape from the mountain prison of Wintersborn in which 1937 film directed by Jean Renoir? The film is based on a similarly named nonfiction book by British journalist Norman Angell.
↓ Answers below ↓
- Snoopy, The Red Baron (Manfred von Richthofen)
- Sophie
- John Maynard Keynes
- Petrograd
- La Grande Illusion (Grand Illusion)
