| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| This monarch died at Newark Castle during a conflict with Robert Fitzwalter called the First Barons’ War. This king feuded with Pope Innocent III over his appointment of Stephen Langton to the post of Archbishop of Canterbury. This ruler, who was nicknamed “Lackland,” negotiated a legal document with a group of rebellious noblemen at a meadow at Runnymede. For ten points, name this ruler, the only English king of his name, who signed the Magna Carta in 1215. | John (or John Lackland; accept John I) |
| This man was killed by Tomyris, a female leader of the Massagetae, after he treacherously attacked her. This ruler conquered Media and Lydia and, after destroying the Neo-Babylonian Empire, he gave himself the title of King of Kings, or shahanshah. Alexander the Great visited this man’s tomb in his capital, Persepolis. For ten points, name this “Great” founder of the Persian Empire. | Cyrus the Great (or Cyrus II) |
| This company gained a foothold in China by distributing lamps under the name Mei Foo. A Puck cartoon depicts this company as a snake fighting an infant. McClure’s magazine exposed the practices of this company via muckraking journalist Ida Tarbell. Chevron was formed from the breakup of the monopoly of this company in 1911. For ten points, name this American-based petroleum company founded by John D. Rockefeller. | Standard Oil Company |
| The school of “subaltern studies” generally studies people originally from this continent. A refugee family that immigrated from this continent is the focus of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. The principle of relative pluralism in a religion that originated on this continent is typically illustrated by the parable of the blind men and an elephant. Gayathri Spivak, the Hmong, and Jainism all originated from, for ten points, what largest continent on Earth? | Asia |
| An attack on this country’s broadcasting company, the RTS, took place during the Bulldozer Revolution in 2000. One of its leaders ordered the assassination of Ivan Stambolic and was targeted by a 1999 NATO bombing. Kosovo’s independence from this state has not yet formally been recognized by much of the world. Slobodan Milosevic once ruled, for ten points, what former Yugoslavian republic that lost its access to the sea after the 2006 secession of Montenegro but maintains its capital at Belgrade? | Republic of Serbia |
| John Ingram served as the final leader of this movement. One side in this event coaxed the Occaneechi into attacking the Susquehannock and vandalized the Green Spring estate. This rebellion, which ended when its leader died of dysentery, was prompted by governor William Berkeley’s failure to address fears of Indian attack. Jamestown was burnt during, for ten points, what 1676 rebellion of disgruntled Virginian settlers? | Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion |
| The North and South basins of this body of water are separated by what used to be the Lisan Peninsula. The Mesha Stele, or Moabite Stone, was discovered along its banks. A pillar overlooking this body of water is known as “Lot’s wife.” The Qumran caves along its shore were home to a sect of Essenes whose writings were rediscovered beginning in 1946. A set of “scrolls” were discovered near, for ten points, what salty body of water bordered by Jordan, the West Bank, and Israel? | Dead Sea |
| An opera by this man is based on a real-life incident recorded in the Divine Comedy in which the title man impersonated Buoso Donati. The aria “O mio babbino caro” is from this composer’s Gianni Schicchi [skee-kee]. In another of his operas, a character is often introduced with the “Star-Spangled Banner” and marries a woman who sings “Un bel di” and commits seppuku. For ten points, name this Italian composer who depicted Lieutenant Pinkerton and Cio-Cio San [cho-cho sahn] in his Madame Butterfly? | Giacomo Puccini |
| This country’s ruling party has been accused of holding slush funds through Senator Luis Barcenas’ Swiss bank accounts. The leadership of this country’s Socialist Worker’s Party is vacant after a dispute with Susana Diaz led Pedro Sanchez to resign. In October 2016, this country’s Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy of the People’s Party, was sworn in for a second term after a 10-month period of political deadlock. For ten points, name this Iberian country whose capital is Madrid. | Spain |
| This case was cited a decade later in Griffin v. Prince Edward County, which forbade a plank of the “Stanley plan” calling for a voucher system. Those vouchers were part of Harry Byrd’s plan of “massive resistance” against this Supreme Court ruling, which was decided unanimously. Thurgood Marshall argued for the NAACP in this case, which overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. For ten points, name this 1954 case that declared “separate but equal” segregation of public schools unconstitutional. | Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas |
| This man was put in charge of an economic and rearmament program called the Four Year Plan. This man’s chief of staff, Karl Koller, convinced him to write a telegram asking for a transfer of power. After the failure of Eagle Day, a large air assault ordered by this man, he began a system of strategic bombing called the Blitz. This man committed suicide the day before his execution, which had been ordered by the Nuremberg Trials. For ten points, name this head of the Luftwaffe and right hand man of Adolf Hitler. | Hermann G¨oring [ger-ing] |
| G¨oring created this Nazi paramilitary group, nicknamed the Brownshirts. They supported Hitler’s rise in the 1920s and were succeeded by the SS after the Night of the Long Knives. | SA (or Sturmabteilung [sh-turm-ab-thai-loong]) |
| Santa Clara County’s 1886 lawsuit against a corporation of this type was relied upon by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision. John MacDonald resigned as the first Canadian Prime Minister due to bribes from this industry. One cartoon depicted a man in this profession rolling bowling balls down Wall Street after the Panic of 1873; that man, Jay Gould, took over the Union Pacific company in this industry. For ten points, name this lucrative 19th-century business conducted by the Southern Pacific, Central Pacific, and Union Pacific lines. | railroads |
| Promontory Summit, site of the inauguration of the United States’ firsttranscontinental railroad, is located in this Western state. | Utah |
| One ruler of this name was targeted by the Harem Conspiracy and built his funeral complex at Medinet Habu. The Sea Peoples fought the Battle of the Delta against the third ruler of this name. Nefertari was wed to a leader of this name, who ordered the construction of the temples at Abu Simbel; that pharaoh of this name won a battle fought near the Orontes River at Kadesh. For ten points, identify this common name of Egyptian pharaohs, the second of whom was dubbed “the Great.” | Ramesses (accept Ramesses II, III, and/or the Great) |
| Ramesses the Great fought the Battle of Kadesh against these people, who were led at the time by Muwatalli II. | Hittites |
| This general liberated a set of ten cities known as the Decapolis as part of the reorganization of the eastern provinces. He was appointed to fight Mithradates VI in Asia Minor after his successful, six-week campaign against the Cilician pirates. This man was killed by Ptolemy XIII after his defeat in a civil war where he squandered his advantage from the Siege of Dyrrachium and lost the decisive Battle of Pharsalus. For ten points, name this member of the First Triumvirate and rival of Julius Caesar. | Pompey the Great (or Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) |
| Pompey and Caesar had been allied with this man in the First Triumvirate. Enormously rich, he died after his overconfident invasion of Parthia and defeat at the Battle of Carrhae. | Marcus Licinius Crassus |
| A church in this city commemorates William Caxton with a stained glass window. According to legend, Brutus of Troy defeated giants with biblically inspired names, Gog and Magog, on the site of this city’s Guildhall. A namesake tower in this city once held two princes thought to be murdered by King Richard III. This city’s St. Paul’s Cathedral was rebuilt after a disaster in 1666. For ten points, name this city that was destroyed in a Great Fire, the capital of England. | London |
| This architect was responsible for much of the rebuilding following the Great Fire of London, including designing the new St. Paul’s Cathedral. | Sir Christopher Wren |
| This businessman is named Secretary of the Interior in Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. A product made by this man’s company is taken as the name of a Betelgeusian alien who saves Arthur Dent from the destruction of Earth in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, years are dated back to the year that this man’s company first produced the Model T. For ten points, name this American automobile manufacturer. | Henry Ford |
| This author of the aforementioned Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy wrote a short story in which Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged lands his UFO at the feet of Genghis Khan, calls him a tosspot, and flies away. | Douglas Adams |
| The first major battle of this war was a failed attempt to capture and hold the city of Khafji. In this war, a Scud missile attack on the barracks at Dhahran killed 28 American soldiers. In this war, the Republican Guard was destroyed on the Highway of Death while retreating to Basra. Norman Schwarzkopf commanded a coalition force during, for ten points, what war whose end was marked by numerous burned oil wells in Kuwait, as Saddam Hussein’s forces retreated in 1991? | First Persian Gulf War (accept Operation Desert Storm) |
| In the aftermath of the Gulf War, a no-fly zone was established in northern Iraq to protect this ethnic group, who had been targeted in a chemical attack in Halabja in 1988. | Kurdish people |
| This man wrote a now-lost manuscript to Edmond Halley about “the motion of bodies in an orbit.” A constant sometimes named for this man was first measured using a torsion balance by Henry Cavendish and is written as big G. One law named for this man technically says that the derivative of momentum with respect to time is equal to the force, but is more commonly written F = ma [F equals m times a]. For ten points, name this English physicist and namesake of three laws of motion. | Sir Isaac Newton |
| Newton described his theories of classical mechanics, including his laws of motion, in this book. Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead wrote a book with this title that attempted to formally prove all of mathematics. | Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica |
| War in which it took place, a victory for the Union over the Confederates. | American Civil War |
| Confederate leader and head of the Army of Northern Virginia who successfully retreated after the battle. | Robert E. Lee |
| River near which the battle was fought, well upstream of Washington, D.C., and which named the Union’s largest army. | Potomac River (accept Army of the Potomac) |
| State in which the battle was fought, just across that river from Virginia. | Maryland |
| Document that President Lincoln announced after the victory, pledging to free slaves in the New Year. | Emancipation Proclamation |
| Union general who failed to press the advantage against the retreating Confederates, costing him his job. | George McClellan |
| Photographer who documented “The Dead of Antietam” two days after the battle. | Mathew Brady |
| Items found with a lost copy of Special Order 191, detailing Confederate troop movements prior to Antietam. | three cigars |
| Elected position he held as leader of the Fifth Republic, unlike the appointed Prime Minister. | President |
| Puppet government that opposed him, set up by Nazi Germany to administer southern France. | Vichy France |
| Vehicles that he commanded during World War II. German vehicles of this type were known as panzers. | tanks |
| Anti-Soviet military alliance that de Gaulle partially withdrew from in 1966. | North Atlantic Treaty Organizaiton |
| Bloody World War I battle in which he was taken prisoner while Marshal Petain commanded French forces. | Battle of Verdun |
| French colony that won its independence in the E´vian Accords during de Gaulle’s leadership of the Fifth Republic. | French Algeria |
| Military operations he authorized in the Sahara Desert, which France also carried out above Pacific atolls. | nuclear tests |
| World War II conference where he met with Roosevelt and Churchill and agreed to force an “unconditional surrender.” | Casablanca Conference |
| European empire on the western end of the Silk Road, which encircled the Mediterranean around 1 AD. | Roman Empire (or Rome) |
| Primary purpose served by caravanserai along the Road; similar institutions in America include Best Western. | inns (accept any description of temporary roadside lodging, including hotel and/or motel service) |
| Plague that spread from China to Europe across the Silk Road, killing nearly a third of Europe. | Black Death (or the bubonic plague) |
| Region, controlled by the Parthians and Sassanids and including modern Iran, that the Silk Road passed through. | Persia (prompt on Iran if given before mentioned) |
| Enormous empire that dominated the Silk Road after the expansion of Genghis Khan. | Mongol Empire |
| Arab caliphate that governed large parts of the Silk Road under rulers like Harun al-Rashid. | Abbasid Caliphate |
| Term for the mixing of religions, as in the mixture of Hellenic and Buddhist traditions along the Silk Road. | syncretism (accept word forms, like syncretic faiths) |
| Hellenistic kingdom that dominated parts of the route and names a camel with two humps often used on the Silk Road. | Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (accept Bactrian camel) |
| This organization operates the connected Sackler and Freer Galleries of Art. As of November 2016, this organization has run two successful Kickstarter campaigns, raising funds to preserve (+) Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz and Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 spacesuit, which were each donated to this organization. The (*) National Mall is the home of 11 facilities run by this organization, including one devoted to Air and Space. For ten points, name this group of American historical museums that is largely centered in Washington, D.C. | Smithsonian Institution |
| This ruler’s empire was visited on a diplomatic mission by Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo. This man’s forces defeated Bayezid the Thunderbolt at the Battle of Ankara, and he emerged victorious at the Battles of the Kondrucha River and the Terek River against the (+) Golden Horde under Tokhtamysh. Mikhail Gerasimov exhumed this man’s body in 1941, supposedly triggering Hitler’s invasion of Russia. This ruler, whose capital was (*) Samarkand, supposedly got his nickname due to an arrow wound on his leg. For ten points, name this crippled Mongol ruler. | Timur the Lame (or Tamerlane or Timur-i Leng) |
| This city’s Mill Pond, once part of an Atlantic harbor, was filled in in the 19th century to create Bullfinch Triangle and a Haymarket Square. Other land reclamation projects in this city created the Back Bay neighborhood and lowered (+) Beacon Hill. The 15-year-long “Big Dig” constructed the Central Artery of I-93 through this city and brought I-90 past (*) Logan International Airport. The Freedom Trail passes by the Old North Church and Fanueil Hall in, for ten points, what capital city of Massachusetts? | Boston |
| An army fighting for a king of this name lost the Battle of St. Quentin, after which he accepted the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis; that second French king of this name died shortly thereafter in a jousting exhibition. A war between (+) three prospective rulers of this name forms the core of the French Wars of Religion. A monarch of this name said (*) “Paris is well worth a mass” in his conversion to Catholicism. For ten points, name this common name of French kings, the fourth of whom founded the House of Bourbon. | Henry (accept Henry II, the War of the Three Henrys, Henry IV) |
| Combatants in this conflict were given Sharps rifles, which quickly became known as “Beecher’s Bibles” due to the crates in which they were delivered. The Lecompton (+) Constitution failed to resolve this conflict thanks to allegations of voter fraud. During this conflict, the Pottawatomie Massacre was perpetrated by men led by (*) John Brown. The issue of popular sovereignty helped prompt, for ten points, what 1850s conflict in which pro-slavery “Ruffians” and abolitionist “Free-Staters” battled in the Great Plains? | Bleeding Kansas (accept close equivalents along the lines of Bloody Kansas; prompt on the Border War) |
| The history and end of this policy are recounted in My Traitor’s Heart, written by the exiled Rian Malan. A person who was imprisoned because of this policy documented his (+) incarceration in the book Long Walk to Freedom. The breakdown of this policy provides the backdrop of Nadine Gordimer’s novel July’s People, in which the Smales family flees from (*) Johannesburg. Nelson Mandela opposed, for ten points, what discriminatory policy of South Africa? | Apartheid (prompt on descriptive answers that don’t use the word Apartheid) |
| Description acceptable. Herodotus argued for a non-traditional account of this event, in which the victim was kept in Egypt by King Proteus for ten years. Prior to this event, the perpetrator had married and lived with Oenone [en-OH-nee], a nymph on Mount Ida. Those who took the (+) Oath of Tyndareus pledged to fight those who would try this feat, which Aphrodite engineered to satisfy her bribe in the (*) Judgment of Paris. For ten points, name this mythological event in which the “face that launched a thousand ships” was taken from Sparta to Troy, triggering the Trojan War. | Paris’ abduction of Helen of Troy (or of Sparta) (accept equivalents, like Paris’ kidnapping of Helen; prompt on descriptions of the start of the Trojan War) |
| This man signed an agreement with Pierre Laval over the Aozou Strip. The Grand Council removed this man from power on the 25th of July, but he was later reinstated as ruler of the Republic of (+) Salo. This leader’s party was given a majority in parliament through the Acerbo [ah-chair-boh] Law. This leader appointed Rodolfo Graziani to defend Libya after his success in conquering (*) Ethiopia. Victor Emmanuel III granted power to this man after his Blackshirts marched on Rome. For ten points, name this fascist dictator of Italy during World War II. | Benito Mussolini (prompt on Il Duce) |
| A rumor that home-based conscripts in this nation would be sent overseas triggered the Terrace Mutiny. William Lyon Mackenzie King dealt with a 1944 conscription crisis in this country, which hosted the signing of the (+) Atlantic Charter. Forces from this nation launched the Dieppe Raid and made up most of the soldiers landing on (*) Juno Beach during D-Day. For ten points, name this Allied country that fought in World War II alongside its southern neighbor, the United States. | Canada |
| This Mediterranean island was home to the ancient Minoan civilization. | Crete |