October 21 Trivia – answers and explanations
Here are the answers to all 13 questions in the October 21 Trivia quiz, each with a short explanation. Fifteen questions from every corner of knowledge. Haven't played yet? Take the quiz first and compare your score.
Play the quiz · 13 questions1. The Great Barrier Reef lies off the coast of which country?
Answer: Australia
The Great Barrier Reef lies in the Coral Sea off the northeast coast of Queensland, Australia, stretching about 2,300 km. It is the world's largest coral reef system and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1981.
2. Which actor plays Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films?
Answer: Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp has played Captain Jack Sparrow since the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), a role that earned him an Oscar nomination; Orlando Bloom played Will Turner.
3. In tennis, which word is used for a score of zero?
Answer: Love
In tennis a score of zero is called love, as in 'fifteen-love'; the term is often traced to the French l'oeuf (egg), whose shape resembles a zero. In cricket, by contrast, a zero score is a duck.
4. Which country is the largest in the world by land area?
Answer: Russia
Russia is the world's largest country, covering about 17.1 million square kilometres, roughly 11 percent of Earth's land, spanning Europe and Asia across 11 time zones; Canada is a distant second at about 10 million.
5. Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?
Answer: Marie Curie
Marie Curie was the first woman awarded a Nobel Prize, sharing the 1903 Physics prize with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel for work on radioactivity. She won again in Chemistry in 1911, the only person honoured in two different sciences.
6. Which is the largest hot desert in the world?
Answer: The Sahara
The Sahara in North Africa is the world's largest hot desert, covering roughly 9.2 million square kilometres across about 11 countries. Overall it ranks third among deserts, behind the cold polar deserts of Antarctica and the Arctic.
7. How many legs does an adult spider have?
Answer: Eight
Adult spiders have eight legs, four pairs attached to the cephalothorax, which is a defining trait of arachnids. Insects, by contrast, always have six legs and antennae, which spiders lack.
8. Which bean is the main ingredient of traditional hummus?
Answer: Chickpeas
Traditional hummus is based on cooked chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, garlic and salt; 'hummus' is simply the Arabic word for chickpea. The dish comes from the Levant and Egypt, with early recipes recorded in medieval Arabic cookbooks.
9. The TV series 'Game of Thrones' is mainly set on which fictional continent?
Answer: Westeros
Most of the action in Game of Thrones takes place on Westeros, the western continent home to the Seven Kingdoms and King's Landing. Essos lies east across the Narrow Sea and is where Daenerys Targaryen's storyline largely unfolds.
10. Which metal is liquid at room temperature?
Answer: Mercury
Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at ordinary room temperature, freezing only at about -39C. Lead, zinc and tin are all solids, melting at roughly 328C, 420C and 232C respectively.
11. Which composer wrote the 'Ode to Joy' finale of his Ninth Symphony?
Answer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven set Friedrich Schiller's poem 'An die Freude' in the choral finale of his Symphony No. 9, premiered in Vienna on 7 May 1824 when the composer was profoundly deaf.
12. Which cheese is the traditional topping of a Margherita pizza?
Answer: Mozzarella
A traditional Neapolitan pizza Margherita is topped with tomatoes, mozzarella (buffalo mozzarella or fior di latte), fresh basil and olive oil, the red, white and green said to echo the Italian flag.
13. Which country hosted the first modern Olympic Games, in 1896?
Answer: Greece
Athens, Greece staged the first modern Olympic Games from 6 to 15 April 1896, held at the Panathenaic Stadium after the 1894 Paris congress led by Pierre de Coubertin unanimously chose Greece as the birthplace of the ancient Games.