General Knowledge 50

Question 1

What do Americans call the autumn?

Answer 1

Fall

Question 2

What was the last name of the hydrographer to the Royal Navy that created a scale in 1805 that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or on land?

Answer 2

Beaufort (Sir Francis Beaufort)

Question 3

True or false? The North Pole is much warmer than the South Pole.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Which strong wind, often a descriptor in nautical contexts, does the U.S. National Weather Service define as 34 to 47 knots?

Answer 4

True Gale

Question 5

What word means the amount of water vapour in the air?

Answer 5

Humidity

Question 6

What term is given for a period of unseasonally warm weather in mid to late autumn?

Answer 6

Indian summer

Question 7

What name is given to all forms of water, liquid or solid, that falls from clouds and reaches the ground?

Answer 7

Precipitation

Question 8

Which popular nautical term refers to the belt near the equator where sailing ships sometimes get stuck on windless waters?

Answer 8

The doldrums

Question 9

What does an anemometer measure?

Answer 9

Wind speed

Question 10

What name is given to the point when the water vapour in the atmosphere is at its maximum level for the existing temperature?

Answer 10

Saturation point

Question 11

If a young domestic cock is called a cockerel, what is a young female chick called?

Answer 11

A pullet

Question 12

Chickens live and interact within a well-developed social hierarchy known as what?

Answer 12

Pecking order

Question 13

Which state in New England, USA, gives its name to a common chicken breed famous for its egg-laying?

Answer 13

Rhode Island (Rhode Island Reds is the name of the breed)

Question 14

What surname of a loudmouthed cartoon character also refers to a particular Italian breed of chicken?

Answer 14

Leghorn (Foghorn Leghorn)

Question 15

True or false? The chicken is the closest living relative to the T-Rex.

Answer 15

True

Question 16

Is the longest recorded flight of a chicken: (a) 13 seconds, (b) 33 seconds, or (c) 53 seconds?

Answer 16

(a) 13 seconds

Question 17

What name is given to a male chicken that has been castrated or neutered?

Answer 17

A capon

Question 18

True or false? There are more chickens in the world than any other bird.

Answer 18

True

Question 19

What name is given to a miniature version of a regular chicken?

Answer 19

Bantam

Question 20

Which contagious domestic poultry disease is named after an English city?

Answer 20

Newcastle disease (first reported on a farm near Newcastle upon Tyne in 1926)

Question 21

Chicken George was an ancestor popularised in which book and TV miniseries?

Answer 21

Roots

Question 22

The first KFC in the UK opened in Preston, Lancashire, in which decade?

Answer 22

1960s (1965)

Question 23

In which 1936 film, written and directed by Charlie Chaplin, does his Little Tramp character struggle to survive in the industrialised world?

Answer 23

Modern Times

Question 24

Name the incompetent policemen featured in the slapstick comedies produced by Mack Sennett.

Answer 24

The Keystone Cops

Question 25

In Safety Last!, which actor is seen dangling from the hands of a large clock?

Answer 25

Harold Lloyd

Question 26

In which 1921 romantic film does leading man Rudolph Valentino play a handsome Arabian in the Saharan desert?

Answer 26

The Sheik

Question 27

The Battle of the Century is a Laurel and Hardy film famous for its use of more than 3,000 what?

Answer 27

Cream pies

Question 28

In the 1917 film Teddy at the Throttle, Gloria Swanson plays a damsel in distress who rescues herself from which bad situation because the “dashing” hero arrives too late?

Answer 28

Being tied to train tracks

Question 29

Who directed the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation?

Answer 29

D. W. Griffith

Question 30

In The Kid, who played Charlie Chaplin's adopted son and sidekick?

Answer 30

Jackie Coogan

Question 31

Which portly comedian was paid 3 million dollars over three years by Paramount Pictures to star in 18 silent films?

Answer 31

Fatty Arbuckle

Question 32

Which star of the 1923 horror film The Hunchback of Notre Dame was given the nickname 'The Man of a Thousand Faces'?

Answer 32

Lon Chaney