The New Monday Quiz loves you very much.
1. In theory, St. Valentine's day celebrates one, or maybe a few, people named St. Valentinus. This or these early Roman Christian(s) would have died at roughly the same time that, far to the east, people in China are said (although this is also historically murky) to have been figuring out what you can make from sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. What can you make from sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate?
2. It sounds like it would be really old, but St. Valentine's Church in Rome was built for a important secular international event held in 1960. What was it?
3. Our modern association of Valentine's Day with romantic and sexual love is thought to have been started by a 14th century English poem called Parlement of Foules. Its author, a successful and influential diplomat and civil servant, also wrote literary works like The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women, Troilus and Criseyde, and then also one that is still widely read today. What was his name?
4. The disorder once called Saint Valentine's Malady has been seen as a strange divine blessing and as a curse from the gods. It's characterized by uncontrolled jerking movements due to abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity. What do we call it these days?
5. In the country that has the greatest number of Catholics, February 14th is close to a very important celebration and gets little attention. An equivalent romantic holiday, Dia dos Namorados, is celebrated on June 12. What's the country?
6. The feast day of Saint Valentine (February 14th, of course) was removed in the Roman General Calendar of 1969. This document, which is the most recent revision to the Catholic liturgical year, was released under the authority of a Pope who served for the 15 years between John XXIII and John Paul I. What was his papal name?
7. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, there is a St. Valentine's Day celebrated on July 6. On July 6, 1885, a rabies vaccine was used for the first time. The little boy was saved -- before the vaccine, you know, rabies was almost invariably lethal -- and happily, the extremely brainy French scientist who administered it was never prosecuted for practicing medicine without a licence. Who was this key figure in the history of microbiology?
8. On Valentines Day 1900, 20,000 British troops invaded the Orange Free State. The Second __________ had begun.
9. The victims of the “Saint Valentine's Day Massacre” were members of the North Side Irish gang. The perpetrators were presumably connected with the South Side Italian gang. Who was the boss on the South Side?
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| Hilarious reconstruction of the event in Some Like it Hot. |
10. On Valentine’s Day 1989, the Ayatullah Khomeini introduced the word fatwa to a mainstream Western public through his virulent objection to a contemporary novel. What was the book?
11. Will you be my Valentine?
