| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| This location’s governor, George McMillan, was kept as a POW and held for four years. A plan to recapture this island was delayed for over a month by stiff resistance at Saipan. Japanese forces had earlier invaded this island and defeated a vastly inferior marine force that was attempting to defend the Plaza de Espana. For ten points, name this Pacific island originally seized from Spain in 1898. | Guam |
| This conflict included an ambush by Seneca warriors during the Battle of Devil’s Hole. During this conflict, Jeffery Amherst designed a simple biological weapon at the Siege of Fort Pitt. This conflict hastened the passage of the Proclamation of 1763, which blocked settlement west of the Appalachians. Smallpox blankets were used in, for ten points, what colonial conflict against a leader of the Ottawa tribe? | Pontiac’s War (accept Pontiac’s Rebellion; accept Pontiac’s Revolt) |
| This complex’s eastern gallery features a relief depicting 92 asuras and 88 devas using Vasuki during the Churning of the Sea of Milk. Jayavarman VII ordered the construction of this temple which was originally designed to mimic India’s Mount Meru. This temple was originally dedicated to Vishnu but was later converted for Buddhist worship. For ten points, name this temple in Cambodia. | Angkor Wat |
| These objects were constructed in preparation for war with Aegina despite the wishes of Aristides after a vein of silver was found at Laurium. Themistocles oversaw the construction of two hundred of these warships for Athens. These warships had two rows more than the penteconter and one row more than the bireme. For ten points, name this Greek ship named for its three rows of oars. | trireme (prompt on generic terms related to ancient Greek/Athenian warships) |
| This man was once rescued by Otto Skorzeny in the Gran Sasso raid, allowing him to take control of the short lived Salo Republic. This man had earlier been given power by Victor Emmanuel III after his Blackshirts staged a 1922 March on Rome. He subsequently signed the Pact of Steel, forming an Axis with Adolf Hitler. For ten points, name this fascist leader of Italy. | Benito Mussolini |
| This event was blamed on Babcock & Wilcox’s negligence by the Kemeny Report. Edward Teller suffered a heart attack in the aftermath of this event which he attributed to Jane Fonda’s reporting. Dick Thornborough ordered an evacuation during this event which began with a failure in reactor number 2. For ten points, name this 1979 meltdown at a Pennsylvania nuclear plant. | Three Mile Island disaster |
| This person, Brutus, and Cassius, are being eaten by Satan for all eternity in Dante’s Inferno. This figure is given a piece of bread dipped into a dish in the Gospel of John. This figure brought soldiers to the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper after being paid thirty pieces of silver. For ten points, name this disciple who betrayed Jesus. | Judas Iscariot |
| This leader refused to behead Hemu instead having his regent do it for him. The Navaratnas or “Nine Jewels” advised this man. This man’s army won the Second Battle of Panipat which allowed him to reclaim Delhi. The jizya tax was temporarily suspended by this man who attempted to mix Hinduism and Islam by creating Din-i-ilahi. For ten points, name this Mughal ruler, the grandson of Babur. | Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (accept Akbar I; accept Akbar the Great) |
| This man struggled against Sidney Rigdon to take leadership as a founding member of the Quorum of the Twelve. This man sought to found the state of Deseret and inadvertently led his followers against James Buchanan’s troops during the Utah War. He had set out east after leaving Illinois. For ten points, name this founder of Salt Lake City who led the Mormons after Joseph Smith’s death. | Brigham Young |
| Brigham Young left Illinois from this town, where Joseph Smith served as mayor until his death. | Nauvoo |
| This war’s Treaty of Lubeck ended Christian IV’s participation by giving him parts of Saxony. Count Tilly’s victory at White Mountain ended the “Bohemian Revolt” stage of this conflict, which began when Catholic ambassadors were thrown out of a window. The Peace of Westphalia ended, for ten points, what religious conflict that lasted from 1618 to 1648? | Thirty Years’ War |
| The Peace of Westphalia also ended the Eighty Years War between the Dutch and this country. | Spain |
| This composer wrote the song “Swanee,” a concert staple of Al Jolson. He composed a song that describes “the things that you’re li’ble/To read in the Bible” called “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” The words to “Summertime” were written by this composer’s brother Ira. He fused jazz and classical music to depict street sounds in An American in Paris. For ten points, name this composer of the opera Porgy and Bess. | George Jacob Gershwin |
| What jazzy orchestral work by Gershwin opens with a clarinet glissando? | Rhapsody in Blue |
| This man was the victim of a scam where he was sold overpriced company shares by Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, and John Fisk during the Erie War. This man’s control of the Staten Island Ferry and takeover of the Hudson River and New York Central railroads granted him his nickname. For ten points, name this American shipping magnate who also funded and names a university in Nashville, Tennessee. | Cornelius Vanderbilt |
| Cornelius Vanderbilt was given this nautically-inspired nickname, which now names the mascot of Vanderbilt University. | Commodores |
| This man broke with tradition by forming an “Unholy Alliance” with Francis I and marrying a Christian girl from his harem known as Roxelana. This man was victorious against Louis II at the Battle of Mohacs [mo-hotch], but was unable to capitalize in a failed 1529 siege of Vienna. This man’s reforms of the kanun and sharia led him to be called the “lawgiver.” For ten points, name this longest reigning Ottoman sultan. | Suleiman I (or Suleiman the Magnificent; accept Suleiman the Lawgiver before mentioned; prompt on just Suleiman) |
| Suleiman was the son of this sultan, who conquered the Mamluks in 1517. | Selim I (or Selim the Grim; prompt on Selim) |
| This empire was divided during the War of the Two Brothers, during which Huascar’s claim to the throne was suppressed. Shortly after these people were defeated at Cajamarca, these people used a room full of gold to pay the ransom of their last emperor, who had been captured by Francisco Pizarro. For ten points, what Peruvian-based empire controlled the city of Cusco? | Incan Empire |
| This last emperor of the Incas was captured by Pizarro. | Atahualpa |
| This city was the site of a Richard Drew photograph entitled “The Falling Man.” The Hamburg Cell carried out an attack on this city that coincided with the crash landing of Flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field and the collision of Flight 77 into the Pentagon. For ten points, name this city whose World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001. | New York City (or NYC) |
| This American artist’s Bent Propeller, which sat in a plaza in the complex, was destroyed in the 9/11 attack. His mobiles are prominent in New York’s MoMA. | Alexander Calder |
| This man was victorious against Tokhtamysh of the Golden Horde at the Battle of the Terek River. The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid was captured by this man at Ankara. After battles, this man would infamously stack the skulls of his foes into large pyramids. For ten points, name this descendant of Genghis Khan who established an empire at Samarkand and was named for his injury. | Tamerlane (accept Timur the Lame; accept Timur Lang; accept Tamburlane) |
| Tamerlane sacked this Indian city in 1398, soundly defeating a sultanate ruled by the Tughlaq dynasty. | Delhi (Sultanate) |
| Continent from which most American slaves were imported. | Africa |
| Inventor whose seed-removing “gin” device spurred the need for slaves? | Eli Whitney |
| Cashcropprocessedbythatinvention,nicknamed“King”foritsimportancetotheSoutherneconomy. | cotton |
| Geometrically-named trade system that brought slaves to America. | Triangle trade |
| African country that Henry Clay helped found as a colony for freed slaves. | Liberia |
| Senator who called slavery a “positive good” in a February 1837 speech. | John C. Calhoun |
| City where the first stock exchange was located, the capital of the Netherlands. | Amsterdam |
| Modern southeast Asian country where the Dutch colonized Batavia, what is now Jakarta. | Indonesia |
| Economic union it forms with Belgium and Luxembourg, whose name is a portmanteau of the three countries. | Benelux |
| Dutch city that is home to the International Court of Justice. | the Hague |
| Country that granted the Netherlands independence after the Eighty Years’ War. | Spain |
| Colorfully named royal house that William the Silent led during the fight for independence. | House of Orange |
| Group of nomadic steppe people that he unified. | Mongols |
| Grandson of Genghis who built a capital at Xanadu. | Kublai Khan |
| Capital city of Genghis’ empire. | Karakorum |
| Modern country where he died campaigning against the Xia [shee-ah] and Jin. | People’s Republic of China |
| Descendant empire that was named for the color of its tents and established in Europe after Genghis’ death. | Golden Horde |
| Grandson who ruled that empire in a conquest of the Kievan Rus’. | Batu Khan |
| This region was subject to Operation Paul Bunyan, after two soldiers were (+) axe murdered. Contests held in this region include building the highest flagpole and creating sham “peace villages” in an attempt to lure out defectors. This region was established in the (*) Armistice Agreement of 1953, serving as a buffer along the 38th parallel. For ten points, name this zone that buffers North and South Korea. | Korean Demilitarized Zone (or DMZ; prompt on Korea (n peninsula) before mentioned; prompt on the 38th Parallel before mentioned) |
| This country was the site of a siege of a Vatican embassy where soldiers played loud Guns N’ Roses music in order to force a dictator to leave the building. (+) American troops launched a 1989 invasion of this country in Operation Just Cause. (*) Manuel Noriega was removed from power in, for ten points, what Central American country where he had violated the neutrality of a namesake canal? | Panama |
| This city was the site of an Albert Speer-designed spectacle in which 152 searchlights were aimed at the sky to create a “Theater of Light.” In this city, (+) Robert Jackson helped press charges of crimes against humanity against men like Joachim von Ribbentrop. (*) Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will shows a rally held in this city. For ten points, name this city in which captured Nazis were put on trial. | Nuremberg (accept Nurnberg) |
| This colony experienced the “Plundering Time” after its government was forced out at the Battle of the Severn. This colony provided safe haven for all (+) Trinitarian Christians in the Toleration Act, the first of its kind in North America, even though its founders were (*) Catholic. For ten points, name this colony founded by Cecil Calvert, better known as Lord Baltimore. | Province of Maryland |
| This city was founded after a prophecy to restore Numitor to the throne was complete. The appearance of six, and then (+) twelve, birds chose the site for this city. This city’s founders were raised by a she-wolf after they were abandoned at birth. One of this city’s (*) two founders killed the other after a disagreement on where to place this city. Romulus and Remus founded, for ten points, what city on seven hills? | Rome |
| This crop was placed under armed guard by Frederick the Great as part of a ploy to increase its value. A disaster caused by this crop resulted in (+) Catholic children attending Protestant schools in exchange for soup. In 1845, an outbreak of this crop’s namesake (*) blight led to widespread hunger in a portion of the United Kingdom. The Great Famine was caused by the failure of, for ten points, what staple Irish crop? | potatoes |
| This event’s lack of resolution led Mehdi Bazargan to resign. During this event, Tony Mendez set up a fake film studio so that some of its victims could claim affiliation and (+) escape. This event lasted 444 days, leading Jimmy Carter to be decisively (*) defeated in the 1980 election by Ronald Reagan. For ten points, name this event in which American diplomats were held by supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran. | Iran hostage crisis |
| This woman lent support to the Ninety-Nines advocacy group after becoming famous for a journey that ended in Culmore, North (+) Ireland. This woman teamed up with Fred Noonan for another journey that was last tracked near Howland (*) Island. While attempting to circumnavigate the globe, this pilot disappeared over the Pacific. For ten points, name the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. | Amelia Earhart |
| This institution was the site of the first printing press in the North American British colonies. Increase Mather once served as the (+) president of this facility, whose sister school was Radcliffe College. This college was established in (*) 1636 to make it America’s longest standing educational institution. For ten points, name this Ivy League school, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that rivals Yale. | Harvard University |
| Name this Romanian dictator who was overthrown in 1989 and executed by firing squad three days later on Christmas. | Nicolae Ceausescu |
| This country was once ruled by puppet president Babrak Karmal, whose installation prompted Operation Cyclone where Stinger missiles were given to the CIA-backed (+) mujahideen. This Middle-Eastern country was invaded as a result of the Brezhnev Doctrine, though Mikhail Gorbachev would (*) withdrawthetroops.Fortenpoints,theSovietUnionattacked what country with capital at Kabul? | Afghanistan |