Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Thursday Quiz LXXXVI

The Thursday Quiz!

The Thursday Quiz is a twelve item is-it-or-isn't-it test of your knowledge, reasoning, stamina, and moxie!

Remember always the Fundamental Rules of the Thursday Quiz:

1. The Thursday Quiz is a POP quiz. No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. Violators will never be able to look at themselves in the mirror again.

2. Don't get all stressed out about it! It's supposed to be fun!

Sir Winston Churchill!

Twelve statements about the famous Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Which of them are spot on, and which of them are bloody rubbish?

1. While a war correspondent, Churchill was taken prisoner in the Second Boer War. He escaped and walked 300 miles across Africa to freedom, but promptly attached himself to another unit heading for combat.

2. In 1898, Churchill was involved with what is thought of as the "last British cavalry charge" during the Battle of Omdurman, where Sudanese forces who had attempted to opt out of the British Empire were decisively crushed.

3. Before his political career, Churchill was a highly successful novelist; his books were among the best-selling novels in the U.S. throughout the decade of the 1900s.

4. Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, was one of the leading architects of the disastrous Allied invasion of Gallipoli, Turkey, during World War I. After its failure, he had to leave the cabinet.

5. Churchill, a passionate anticommunist, prolonged Britain's involvement in the Russian Civil War and, at the end of World War II, had plans drawn up for a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union.

6. The idea of the aircraft carrier was basically invented by Churchill, who drew a diagram of a "floating airfield" on a napkin during a 1925 meeting and sent it to the Naval department for development.

7. Throughout his political and military career, Churchill continually published books and articles mostly in order to supplement his income, which was never large enough to support his expensive aristocratic lifestyle.

8. Churchill became Prime Minister of Britain on the exact same day that Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, September 3, 1933.

9. Although he would later become staunchly anti-Nazi, Churchill kept a regular, friendly correspondence with Adolph Hitler and visited him socially twice during the early 1930s until their relationship soured in 1936.

10. In 1936, Churchill's political reputation was damaged by his support for King Edward VIII during the famous Abdication Crisis. It was thought at the time that his political life was probably finished.

11. Churchill's famous line "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" referred to the men and women of the Resistance movement in Nazi-controlled France.

12. Immediately after the end of World War II, Churchill lost his post as Prime Minister.



Submit your answers in the comments.

11 comments:

PB said...

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat...
1. True
2. True
3. False
4. True
5. False
6. False - could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he was behind the tank, and I'm guessing he didn't come up with both.
7. False
8. False - Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister during the appeasement phase in the 30s.
9. False (well, no clue here, really)
10. True (mainly because there have been a lot of falses lately).
11.False - refers to the RAF.
12. True - which is why he was speaking at a graduation ceremony in Fulton, Missouri when he gave his Iron Curtain speech.

MJ said...

I have no sodding idea, so let's guess:
1. Bloody rubbish
2. Spot on
3. Bloody rubbish
4. Spot on
5. Spot on
6. Bloody rubbish
7. Spot on
8. Spot on
9. Bloody rubbish
10. Bloody rubbish
11. Bloody rubbish (i think he was talking about British soldiers)
12. Spot on

Cartophiliac said...

1. spot on
2. spot on
3. rubbish
4. spot on
5. spot on
6. rubbish
7. spot on
8. rubbish
9. rubbish
10. spot on
11. rubbish
12. spot on

DrSchnell said...

1. rubbish
2. spot on
3. rubbish
4. spot on
5. rubbish
6. rubbish
7. spot on
8. rubbish
9. spot on
10. spot on
11. rubbish
12. spot on

mrs.5000 said...

Let's see if I can beat 50%!
1 yes
2 no
3 no
4 no
5 yes
6 no
7 yes
8 no
9 no
10 yes
11 no
12 yes

d said...

ok. i looked at this earlier when i hadn't had any coffee yet and was all, 'wtf man? who's winston churchill?' let's see if i'm more capable of cognitive thought now.
1 ok. why not?
2 n
3 sure ok.
4 um. no.
5 this sounds right to me
6 i think he invented some sort of war machine so i'll say yes.
7 ok. yes.
8 sure
9 this sounds just crazy enough to be true.
10 yes
11 no
12 right? yes. i think this is true.

ok. so massive amounts of caffeine and exercise did not stimulate my brain enough to guess well on this quiz.

experiment undertaken and failed. good to know.

Elaine said...

1. No
2. Hmm...Sudanese? No
3. No
4. First Lord? Hmm. No
5. Hmm again. Maybe? means yes, I guess.
6. Maybe, so that is a yes.
7. Prolific, but not for that reason
8. Argh. Too coincidental
9. No
10. Maybe so....
11. NO. He spoke of the RAF
12. Yes.
Well, I read his autobiography and enjoyed it. He was in conflicts but now I can only come up with S Africa and northern India... phooey.
Ah, well. Ask me things about Geo Wash, why doncha?

Michael5000 said...

Long-Delayed Answers!

1. The Boer (War) Trek: YES. It was his initial claim to celebrity.

2. The Last Calvary Charge: YES.

3. Best-Selling Novelist: So I have long believed. It turns out, though, that the John Grisham of the 1900s was a DIFFERENT Winston Churchill. So, NO.

4. Gallipoli. Sadly, YES.

5. Reactionary Adventurism: YES.

6. Aircraft Carriers: NO.

7. Writing for Pounds: YES. Churchill always aspired to live quite high on the hog, which left him chronically hustling for side gigs. This is likely ANOTHER reason he was giving that speech in Fulton.

8. NO. Churchill didn't become Prime Minister until the war started.

9. NO. Churchill was leary of Hitler from the get-go, and very soon became fiercely anti-Nazi.

10. Abdication Crisis. YES. Churchill stood by the King, apparently for no reason other than that it seemed the decent thing to do.

11. NO, that quote applies to RAF pilots.

12. YES, Churchill was ousted at the end of the war, but later returned for several difficult years during the 1950s.

Michael5000 said...

That leaves the TQLXXXVI Gold Star to Cartophiliac, who nailed all 12 questions.

The Silver goes to PB, and Mrs.5000 comes up with the Blue.

Elaine said...

See? I thought you were being tricky--like, I knew about the Boer War bit, but "taken prisoner?" I thought he evaded capture! Novels? I did not think he wrote fiction. and so on.
So, my suspicions undid me, eh?

Cartophiliac said...

One of the answers I got correct, because I had literally been reading about it that day (or maybe the day before) in a book on the British Empire... Gotta love that serenyippity!