General Knowledge Quiz

[MotCO]

Ulanbataar (capital of Mongolia)?

 

[SuspectUsual]

Astana?

 

[Peterthegreat]

Not Ottawa.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Ulanbataar (capital of Mongolia)?

Not Ulanbataar

 

[Peterthegreat]

Astana?

Because it is the Kazakhstan capital, Astana.
Please capitalise your victory with a question.

 

[SuspectUsual]

What word became widely used in English because of something that happened in rural Ireland in 1880?

 

[Gloster]

Boycott?

 

[SuspectUsual]

Boycott?

That didn't take long!

Yes, Captain Charles Boycott, the land agent of an absentee landlord in County Mayo who was shunned by everyone in the community when he tried to evict some tenants after a year of poor harvests, and his name began being used when that became a wider tactic

However, please don't boycott this thread, and instead give us the next question

 

[Gloster]

What well-known object would, if its designer had had his wish, have been known as the Shrew?

 

[Strat-tastic]

The computer mouse.

 

[Gloster]

The computer mouse.

No.

A clue: an alternative name acceptable to the designer was Scarab, which had been used previously.

 

[DaleCooper]

No.

A clue: an alternative name acceptable to the designer was Scarab, which had been used previously.

The Sinclair C5

 

[Gloster]

The Sinclair C5

No, much faster.

 

[DaleCooper]

No, much faster.

Spitfire

 

[Gloster]

Spitfire

Correct. Evidence for R.J.Mitchell’s preference for Shrew or Scarab is apparently to be found in Supermarine’s board minutes. His comment on the choice of the name Spitfire was, roughly, ‘That’s just the sort of bloody silly name they would choose’.

To you to take off with the next question.

 

[DaleCooper]

Correct. Evidence for R.J.Mitchell’s preference for Shrew or Scarab is apparently to be found in Supermarine’s board minutes. His comment on the choice of the name Spitfire was, roughly, ‘That’s just the sort of bloody silly name they would choose’.

To you to take off with the next question.

Thank you.

Next question:

Who or what is Pepper's Ghost?

 

[Acathater]

Magicians stage trick where an image is projected onto a glass sheet, apparently appearing from nowhere

 

[DaleCooper]

Magicians stage trick where an image is projected onto a glass sheet, apparently appearing from nowhere

That's it, your turn...

 

[Acathater]

Open house - I can't think of anything interesting enough at the moment

 

[D6130]

I'll jump in if I may:

Which actor played the lead role as the Prince of Salina in Lucchino Visconti's 1963 film of Giuseppe Tommaso di Lampedusa's novel "Il Gattopardo" ("The Leopard"), set in 19th century Sicily against a background of the gathering pace of Garibaldi's democratic revolution? ....and for a bonus point, who played the female lead?

 

[DaleCooper]

I'll jump in if I may:

Which actor played the lead role as the Prince of Salina in Lucchino Visconti's 1963 film of Giuseppe Tommaso di Lampedusa's novel "Il Gattopardo" ("The Leopard"), set in 19th century Sicily against a background of the gathering pace of Garibaldi's democratic revolution? ....and for a bonus point, who played the female lead?

Marcello Mastroianni

 

[D6130]

N

Marcello Mastroianni

No....non era lui.

 

[Gloster]

Anthony Steel?

 

[D6130]

Anthony Steel?

Not him either.

 

[MotCO]

Omar Sherif?

 

[D6130]

Omar Sherif?

Afraid not!

A small clue:

The actor concerned was American....but his female co-star - who died quite recently - was Italian.

 

[Peterthegreat]

Was the female Claudia Cardinale?

 

[RyanOPlasty]

Was the female Claudia Cardinale?

Burt Lancaster?

 

[D6130]

Was the female Claudia Cardinale?

She was.

Burt Lancaster?

He was.

Although @Peterthegreat correctly guessed the answer to the supplementary bonus question, the pizza goes to @RyanOPlasty. Please don the red shirt and march on Rome with Garibaldi and his thousand.

 

[RyanOPlasty]

The Liverpool and Manchester railway claims to be the world's first inter-city railway, but neither Liverpool nor Manchester was a city at the time.

What was the world's first public railway between two cities that had city status at the time the railway opened?