| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| The Cascajal [kas-kah-hal] Block hints at a writing system for this culture. An excavation at this culture’s El Manati site unearthed the Las Limas figure, a prominent example of were-jaguar art. These people were the first to play the “ball game,” and their ability to extract latex from nearby trees led them to be known as the “rubber people.” For ten points, name this oldest Mesoamerican civilization, known for the construction of large stone heads. | Olmec civilization |
| This conflict essentially ended after the Battle of Ascalon. During this military campaign, Peter Bartholomew boosted morale when he claimed to have unearthed a relic in the city of Antioch. This campaign was initiated by a speech proclaiming “Deus vult!”, or “God wills it!”, by Urban II. This conflict led to the establishment of kingdoms in Edessa and Jerusalem. For ten points, name this initial medieval campaign to capture the Holy Land. | First Crusade (prompt on Crusade (s)) |
| Six decades after one city lost this status, the Mississippi River changed course and separated the city from the rest of its state. After Kaskaskia and Vandalia held this status in the early 19th century, it was held by a city that is home to Oak Ridge Cemetery and was the site of the “House Divided” speech. For ten points, name this political status that has been held since 1837 by Springfield, where Abraham Lincoln thus served as a state representative. | capitals of Illinois (prompt on partial answer; prompt on “state capital” by asking “what state?”) |
| A leader of these people named Rollo was granted the Duchy of Normandy by Charles the Simple, while another leader of this group founded the Rurik Dynasty in Russia. Members of this group formed the Great Heathen Army, which invaded the British Isles to avenge the death of Ragnar Lodbrok. These people sacked the monastery of Lindisfarne and sailed to Greenland and Vinland on their longships. For ten points, name these Scandinavian raiders. | Vikings (or Norsemen; accept Varangians after “Rurik” is said) |
| A captain of this type of ship, John Worden, was partially blinded in combat from a nearby explosion. John Ericsson designed one of these ships whose wreck was discovered off the coast of Cape Hatteras in 1973 and which mostly floated a foot and a half above the waterline. The USS Cumberland was rammed and sunk by this type of ship, two of which fought to a standstill in the Battle of Hampton Roads. For ten points, name this type of armored ship, exemplified by the Monitor and the Virginia. | ironclads (prompt on descriptive answers about armored ships before said; prompt on Monitor before read; prompt on Virginia or Merrimack before read) |
| This work’s second and third movements were inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. William Arms Fischer later added lyrics to an English horn solo from this piece’s second movement to create the quasi-spiritual “Goin’ Home.” A flute melody in this work’s first movement supposedly resembles “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” An 1893 journey to Iowa inspired, for ten points, what final symphony of Antonin Dvorak? | Symphony no. 9 in D minor, “From the New World” (or New World Symphony; “Symphony” not needed after mentioned) |
| This man was succeeded by Caleb Strong as Governor after the Boston Gazette published Elkanah Tisdale’s cartoon attacking him. This man, along with John Marshall and Charles Pickney, met agents of Talleyrand who demanded a bribe in the XYZ affair. A political cartoon of a dragon representing the unorthodox shape of Essex County lampooned, for ten points, what Massachusetts politician whose name now describes the practice of drawing congressional districts for political gain? | Elbridge Gerry (accept gerrymandering) |
| This physicist worked with the mathematician Roger Penrose on singularity theory. This man names a type of radiation that occurs due to pair production near the event horizon of a black hole. This Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1979 to 2009 was the subject of the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. For ten points, name this British physicist, an expert in black holes and the author of A Brief History of Time. | Stephen Hawking |
| In this country, a duel between Alan Breck and the son of an outlaw is settled by a contest involving musical instruments rather than with weapons. Frank Osbaldistone pursues his cousin to this country in a novel that was admired by this country’s native author, Robert Louis Stevenson. The primary setting of Kidnapped and Rob Roy is, for ten points, what country, the site of the Battle of Culloden during a Jacobite Rising? | Scotland (prompt on Great Britain or United Kingdom) |
| Many immigrants of this ethnicity arrived in the U.S. by the credit-ticket system. Denis Kearney gained fame for speeches attacking members of this ethnicity, who entered the U.S. after the passage of the Burlingame Treaty. People of this ethnicity were brought to America to build the western legs of the Transcontinental Railroad, and their immigration was targeted by an 1882 Exclusion Act. For ten points, name this immigrant group who established namesake “towns” in cities like San Francisco. | Chinese-Americans |
| This state grew out of the territory of Great Moravia and was first ruled by the P˘remyslid Dynasty. The Utraquist religious group in this state negotiated toleration at the Council of Basel. Its ruler was the only king among the electors of the Holy Roman Empire, and it often served as the site of the Empire’s capital city. The Council of Constance condemned a heretic movement in this state led by Jan Hus. A revolt by Protestants in this state started the Thirty Years War. For ten points, name this monarchical Central European state whose capital was Prague. | Kingdom of Bohemia |
| The Thirty Years War began in Bohemia when representatives of the Protestant estates performed this action to diplomats sent by the Holy Roman Emperor. A description is acceptable. | a defenestration (accept descriptions along the lines of throwing them out the window) |
| When this man’s re-election hopes looked grim, he asked his cabinet to sign a pledge to end an ongoing war during his lame duck term. This man noted “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away” in his second inaugural address, having won a landslide re-election on the National Union ticket over George McClellan. For ten points, name this U.S. President who was assassinated a month into his second term by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. | Abraham Lincoln |
| Lincoln’s second inaugural address concludes with a foreshadowing of his leniency for the defeated Confederates; he calls on Americans to “bind up the nation’s wounds” with a pair of instructions for peaceful treatment. Give either instruction from Lincoln’s speech. | ”Withmalice toward none,withcharity for all” (accepteitherorbothunderlinedphrases) |
| This country was the last to approve the free trade agreement CETA, as Paul Magnette led an oppositiongroupinthiscountry’ssouth.ThiscountrywasthebirthplaceofSalahAbdeslam,anaccomplice of the November 2015 terrorist attack in Paris; four months later, Abdeslam was captured in this country. In March 2016, ISIS supporters bombed Maalbeek Metro Station and an airport in this country’s capital city. Prime Minister Charles Michel leads, for ten points, what country where French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemings meet in a Parliament in Brussels? | Kingdom of Belgium |
| CETA is a free trade agreement between the European Union and this country. The TTIP is a proposed trade agreement between the EU and this country’s southern neighbor. | Canada |
| This action was achieved via the Instrument of Accession, developed by Lord Mountbatten. The Radcliffe Line’s establishment preceding this event led to mass incidents of inter-religious violence. Nathuram Godse assassinated a prominent opponent of this action before it took place. Muhammad Ali Jinnah led the Muslim League during this process, in which violence racked in the provinces of Jammu and Kashmir. Twelve million people were displaced as a result of, for ten points, what splitting of the former British Raj into Muslim and Hindu states? | partition of India (accept equivalent descriptions, such as the division of Pakistan and India; prompt on partition of Pakistan, because it was divided into Pakistan and Bangladesh later) |
| Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny,” speech delivered during the Partition, invoked the stroke of this specific moment when the Partition formally occurred. In a 1981 novel, Saleem Sinai is born at this moment. | midnight (on August 15, 1947; accept Midnight’s Children) |
| This man served as Thomas Dewey’s Vice Presidential running mate in 1948, though Dewey famously lost to Truman. Eisenhower initially called this man’s appointment to succeed Fred Vinson a “damned-fool mistake.” In 1954, this man used the phrase “with all deliberate speed” in his ruling to desegregate schools in Brown v. Board. For ten points, name this former governor of California who served as the Chief Justice of a notably liberal Supreme Court. | Earl Warren |
| Warren was recently surpassed as the longest-serving Governor of California by this man, who also served as governor from 1975-83. | Jerry Brown |
| One possibly apocryphal story about this man states that he fired at enemy troops with a crossbow while lying ill on a stretcher. Before embarking on his most famous campaign, this man put Isaac Komnemnos in chains after a raid on Cyprus. This man was victorious at the battle of Arsuf and managed to anger Leopold V of Austria during the siege of Acre, who later imprisoned him. After failing to conquer Jerusalem, this man was forced to negotiate peace with Saladin. For ten points, name this English leader of the Third Crusade, whose nickname refers to his bravery. | Richard I or Richard the Lionhearted |
| Richard the Lionheart would have worked with this red-haired German leader in the Third Crusade, had he not drowned in the Saleph River. | Frederick I or Frederick Barbarossa |
| In one episode, this show’s protagonist tells the audience that General Longstreet died for “sitting too high on his horse” during a reenactment of the Battle of the Wilderness. The protagonist of this show has his career jeopardized when his wife, played by Robin Wright, leaves him prior to the New Hampshire primary. For ten points, name this series about Frank Underwood, a ruthless politician played by Kevin Spacey, which is produced and distributed by Netflix. | House of Cards |
| Frank Underwood attended a military academy in South Carolina before going to Harvard Law School. Name either the fictional academy in the show or the real-life academy on which it is based. | The Sentinel or The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina |
| The developer of this psychological concept related it to Parkinson’s Law, studied it through the American Soldier Project, and used it to predict the events of Pearl Harbor and the Vietnam War. William Whyte coined this term in 1952 in Fortune magazine, but it was first applied to military situations by Irving Janis, who used it to explain the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion. This phenomenon requires high group cohesiveness and often takes place when people prioritize harmony and conformity. For ten points, name this phenomenon in which a group of people fail to reach a rational outcome, whose name was inspired by George Orwell’s 1984. | groupthink |
| Irving Janis carried out his work on groupthink while teaching at this university, where Harold Bloom teaches literary theory and Donald Kagan teaches ancient Greek history. | Yale University |
| Gutzon Borglum sculpture of George Washington and three other presidents in South Dakota. | Mount Rushmore |
| U.S. President commemorated with a National Park in North Dakota and a bust between Jefferson and Lincoln on that sculpture. | Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (prompt on Roosevelt) |
| Sioux chief depicted in a monumental, unfinished sculpture in South Dakota. | Crazy Horse |
| Small mountain range home to those sculptures, west of the Badlands. | Black Hills (National Forest) |
| Technique for blasting underground rock with water that led to a recent Dakota oil boom. | fracking (or hydraulic fracturing) |
| South Dakotan author of The Greatest Generation who anchored the NBC Nightly News in the 90s. | Tom Brokaw |
| Religious movement led by Wovoka that prophesied the end of white expansion. | Ghost Dance |
| 1890 incident at the Pine Ridge Reservation in which followers of that movement were attacked. | Wounded Knee Massacre |
| Empire he created after a victory over France, uniting the former states of the Holy Roman Empire. | Germany (accept German Empire or German Reich; prompt on Second Reich) |
| First Kaiser of that empire, who Bismarck served for decades. | Wilhelm I |
| Religion he targeted in the kulturkampf, as he favored the Protestant majority. | Roman Catholicism |
| The pair of militaristic concepts that Bismarck claimed would “resolve” the “great questions of the time.” | blood and iron (accept in either order; prompt if only one is given) |
| The country to the north that he invaded in 1864 for the territory of Schleswig-Holstein. | Denmark |
| Conference he organized to regulate the Scramble for Africa. | Congress of Berlin (or Berlin Conference) |
| ForeignpolicythatBismarckchampioned,respondingtothegivencircumstancesratherthanfollowing ideology. | realpolitik |
| Duchy seized with Schleswig and Holstein in 1864, of which Bismarck was made a Duke at the end of his career. | Lauenberg |
| International organization that oversees the process, increasing the size of its General Assembly as countries become independent. | United Nations |
| Term sometimes used to describe countries freed as a result of decolonization, and often used to describe less-affluent countries. | Third World |
| Country that became independent from Egypt and Britain in 1956, and whose southern portion declared its own independence in 2011. | Sudan (accept South Sudan) |
| Country that formed in a merger between former British colonies like Singapore, North Borneo, and Sarawak. | Malaysia |
| African country that gained its independence after the Mau Mau uprising. | Kenya |
| French territory that split into Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia upon decolonization. | French Indochina |
| Country that unilaterally declared independence from Britain as a white-governed state under the rule of Ian Smith. | (Southern) Rhodesia (do not accept Zimbabwe) |
| Colony that, after gaining independence, spiraled into a civil war between the MPLA and UNITA. | Angola |
| This waterway is named after a kingdom that was absorbed by Portugal in 1914. Upstream of the Boyoma Falls, this river is known as the Lualaba, and a planned dam along its (+) Inga Falls would be the largest hydroelectric project in the world. A widening of this waterway known as the Malebo Pool has two national capitals along its banks. A set of rapids along this river is named after an explorer who was sought by Henry Morton (*) Stanley, David Livingstone. The national capitals of Kinshasa and Brazzaville are on the banks of, for ten points, what second-longest river in Africa? | Congo River |
| James Madison vetoed this man’s proposed 1817 Bonus Bill. As Secretary of War under James Monroe, this man created the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This man’s involvement in the (+) Petticoat Affair led to his resignation as vice president. As a senator, he rejected the Compromise of 1850, claimed slavery was a “positive good,” and was a chief advocate for states’ rights during (*) the nullification crisis. For ten points, name this member of the Senate’s “Great Triumvirate,” a senator from South Carolina. | John Caldwell Calhoun |
| A Supreme Court case arising from this U.S. state debated the validity of a December 12th “safe harbor” deadline. Republicans operatives were flown into this state to cause the Brooks Brothers Riot. (+) Katherine Harris served as its Secretary of State during an election marked by awkward “butterfly (*) ballots,” which may have caused this state’s voters to mark their ballots for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore. For ten points, name this state whose 25 electoral votes clinched the 2000 Presidential election for George W. Bush, the brother of its Governor, Jeb. | Florida |
| This artist created several multicolored versions of an electric chair in Sing Sing prison, as well as images from newspapers of a race riot and car crashes, in his Death and (+) Disaster Series. He used the technique of screen-printing to create multiple copies of his subjects, working in a studio called the Factory. A series of 32 canvases by this artist includes (*) flavors like Onion and Split Pea. For ten points, name this Pop artist of the Marilyn Diptych and Campbell’s Soup Cans. | Andy Warhol (or Andy Warhola) |
| One leader of this country created a secret police called the Securitate and was overthrown after protests in Timisoara led to full scale revolution. The Allies bombed this country’s oil fields at (+) Ploesti to deny Nazi Germany vital fuel. A right-wing group known as the Iron Guard was put down by Conducator Ion (*) Antonescu in this country, which was forced in 1940 to cede Transylvania to Hungary. For ten points, name this country, ruled during the Cold War by Nicolae Ceausescu [chow-chess-coo] from Bucharest. | Romania |
| One person who held this title reduced his army to the size of three hundred men and routed the Midianites using trumpets and clay jars. Another of these leaders repeatedly defeated the Philistines, but lost his (+) uncut hair and committed suicide by toppling the temple of Dagon. (*) Deborah is the only female holder of this title named in the Bible. Gideon and Samson were among, for ten points, what Israelite rulers whose history is recounted in the seventh book of the Bible? | Biblical judges (accept Judges of Israel, Old Testament judges, and other elaborations that use the word judge; accept shofet or shoftim) |
| This man was the subject of the Rettig Report, commissioned by his successor, Patricio Aylwin. This man formed Codelco by consolidating his country’s copper mining industry, and he oversaw a period of economic revival due to the reforms of the (+) Chicago Boys. This man initiated an effort to execute political prisoners known as the Caravan of Death and took part in a (*) CIA-sponsored effort to support right-wing dictatorships called Operation Condor. For ten points, name this ruler of Chile who, in 1973, overthrew Salvador Allende [ah-yen-day]. | Augusto Pinochet [pin-oh-shay] |
| This man dissolved parliament after Franz von Papen lost heavily in a vote of no confidence. After Marinus van der Lubbe was caught attempting to set (+) fire to government buildings, this leader suspended civil liberties in the Reichstag fire decrees. This man rose to fame after working with Erich (*) Ludendorff to orchestrate a victory at Tannenberg. For ten points, name this final president of Weimar Germany, a politician who appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor well after being honored as the namesake of a zeppelin. | Paul von Hindenburg |
| This man executed Raynald of Chatillon after his victory at the Battle of the Horns of Hattin. This leader was ambushed at Montgisard by (+) Baldwin IV. This man refused to marry Joan, Queen of Sicily, shortly after his defeat at Arsuf. This man ended a conflict by promising that (*) Christian pilgrims would be allowed to freely enter Jerusalem. For ten points, name this Muslim founder of the Ayyubid dynasty during the Third Crusade. | Saladin (or An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub) |
| This founder of a settlement at Vinland was the first European to reach America, doing so before Columbus. | Leif Erikson |