Elims of the quiz conducted on 12/9/2021 as part of the BCQC September Opens in memory of Chief Engineer Ajai Ragde.

1. Elims-Answers
Kunal Sawardekar and Omkar Dhakephalkar | BCQC September Opens

2. Ajai Ragde
(7 Oct 1958-2 Aug 2019)
Father, Friend, Quizzer, Mentor, Chief Engineer

3. Answers

4. Q1
• USS Oriskany (CV-34) was an Essex-class warship of the US Navy that was
commissioned in 1950 and served in the Vietnam War. Decommissioned in 1976,
several possible fates for the Oriskany were discussed including deactivation and
conversion into a resort in Japan, though no final decision was taken (the struck-
off vessel served as a set for the sequences set in Hell in What Dreams May Come in
the meantime).
• In 2004, it was decided to sink the Oriskany as a habitat for marine life, and this
was done in 2006 off Pensacola, FL. The wreck is now rated as one of the world’s
top wreck-diving sites, and its nickname reflects its size, its function in the Navy,
and the name of a natural wonder.
• What is it called?

5. Great Carrier Reef

6. Q2
• In 1964, Leicester Hemingway, Ernest's brother, attempted to establish a country
dubbed the Republic of New Atlantis, on an 8 × 30 foot bamboo raft anchored
outside the territorial waters of Jamaica.
• He claimed half the “island” on behalf of USA based on an 1856 law, and declared
his own nation on the rest of the “occupied half”.
• This law, taking its name from a natural product, is also the basis of USA's claim on
Midway Atoll in the Pacific.
• What is this Act?

7. Guano IslandsAct

8. Q3
• This river was known to Europeans since at least the Middle Ages, but due to its
unusual course it was not known to be one unified river (it flows north until its
middle reaches, when it begins flowing south, with an inland delta further
confusing matters) until the 19th century.
• The name of the river is thought to come from a Berber phrase for “river of rivers”
and lends its name to two countries.
• What river?

9. Niger

10. Q4
• In 1911, during the Delhi Durbar held to invest George Saxe-Coburg Gotha as Emperor of
India, one of the ceremonies was to be an obeisance paid to the King-Emperor by Indian
princes. While most of the grandees such as the Nizam and Maharaja of J&K did the
needful in full regalia, Sayajirao III Gaekwar of Baroda shocked onlookers by removing
most of his jewels and regalia before approaching George and his consort Mary. Once he
approached their throne, he did something that even further outraged the Viceroy Lord
Hardinge and every Briton in attendance.
• Sayajirao later tried to explain his actions by pleading “nervousness and confusion in the
presence of Their Majesties”. However, the British saw his actions as a deliberate insult,
and he was ostracized by the authorities until his death in 1939. Modern historians agree
with the British interpretation of his actions and consider it a “brave and symbolic act of
resistance”.
• What did Sayajirao do?

11. He turned his back on the royal couple
after a cursory bow

12. Q5
• The name of this geographic feature possibly comes from a Latin adjective
meaning white, or from the name of a Greek goddess.
• It also lends its name of several similar geographic features all over the world, with
an adjective in front of this name - e.g. the Southern _______ in New Zealand,
Pontic _______ in Turkey, Dinaric _______ in the Balkans and the Bohemian
_______ in Nebraska, USA as well as the Montes _______ on the Moon (slightly
different spelling on this one).
• What is the name?
(Blanks all same but not indicative)

13. Alps

14. Q6
• In Neal Stephenson’s novel Reamde, the protagonists meet a Hakka woman called
Yuxia in the city of Xiamen who refers to herself and her people as “Big-______
Women”.
• Later questioning by the protagonists reveal that this stems from the Hakka
people’s steadfast refusal in Imperial China to follow a certain practice, which
made them unique among Han sub-groups during that period.
• What practice?

15. Foot binding
• Yuxia calls herself “big-footed woman”

16. Q7
• This Turkic language is now extinct and has no major speakers. However, it was the
literary language of Central Asia until the Soviet conquest. It is currently taught in
schools in Uzbekistan, where it is considered a classical language and is a
precursor to the KarlukTurkic languages that include Uzbek and Uighur.
• The name of the language comes from a 13th century kingdom and ultimately
from a son of Genghis Khan.
• What is this language, that once enjoyed an official status in India?

17. Chagatai
(here written in Nasta’liq)

18. Q8
• The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance ideally meant that Chile should
have supported Argentina during the Falklands War.
• However, they were still fighting among themselves over a border dispute in a
Patagonian channel and hence aided the British instead.
• Which channel was this, fittingly named after an English entity?

19. Beagle Channel

20. Q9
• While George Curzon was a keen student of geography and a
Viceroy of India, he never quite managed to have one of British
India’s boundaries named after him. However, Curzon did give his
name to a border proposed by the British Foreign Office – the so-
called Curzon Line.
• This proposal was ignored by both parties, and the victory of one of
the parties in a subsequent war meant that the victor country
incorporated territory far beyond this line. However, in the
aftermath of WW2, the other country found itself in a much more
dominant position and enforced a border settlement that pretty
closely follows the Curzon Line.
• What two countries does/did the Curzon Line divide?

21. Poland and the Soviet Union
(accepting Poland and Belarus)

22. Q10
• A mountain range in Southern Spain covered in snow is one of the country's most
famous tourist locations, especially for skiing.
• What mountain range is this, whose name, if you are not careful would mislead
you to California?

23. Sierra Nevada

24. Star-Marked Questions Begin

25. Q11*
• This famous recording was made in 1949 by the original writer, and this is the form
you will have heard, particularly in the performances of a certain musical act. In
one of the most famous examples of false memory, several people claim to have
heard it nine years earlier than the recording was made, whereas in reality fewer
than 1,000 people could have listened to the original version (which was neither
recorded nor broadcast).
• It was said to have greatly moved its initial audience, though the author was said
to have remarked that despite the rhetoric, he feared that his people would have
to do the needful with “the butt ends of broken beer bottles” due to supply
shortages.
• What is this work, the second of a series of three that addressed fast-moving
developments over a period of five weeks?

26. Churchill’s We shall fight on the beaches
speech

27. Q12*
• In 1747, James Lind conducted a series of experiments to find a cure for scurvy and
determined that consumption of citrus fruit prevents the disease. While the British
Authorities were slow to act on this, by the Napoleonic Wars the Royal Navy had
come around and their almost scurvy-free record through the conflict gave them a
major edge.The citrus was sourced from Mediterranean islands such as Sicily.
• However, after the Wars, bureaucrats decided to replace the Sicilian imports with
a product of the British Empire, and unwittingly reduced the amount of Vitamin C
actually consumed by sailors to almost nothing. This led to a resurgence in scurvy
cases, particularly in polar expeditions.
• What substitution had the British made that reduced their sailors’ Vitamin C
consumption?

28. Replaced Sicilian lemons withWest Indian
limes
• The latter are a significantly poorer source ofVit. C

29. Q13*
• One surprising aspect of this 1618 event is that all 3 participants survived.
• Partisans of these three men explained their survival by claiming that angels had
saved them, whereas their detractors suggested that a heap of dung may have
saved their lives. A less biased analysis shows that all three suffered serious
injuries including broken bones, and their survival is possibly due to chance.
• What was this event?

30. The Defenestration of Prague

31. Q14*
• The southern parts of the Arabian peninsula depend on a south-eastern monsoon
for their water supply. In the coastal regions of Yemen and Oman, monsoon winds
between June and September bring in heavy fog, the resulting condensation from
which supports plant growth and recharges groundwater reserves.
• The local term for this phenomenon has a different meaning - denoting a season -
in standard Arabic. This standard Arabic meaning has in turn led to the word being
used in yet another way that we would be familiar with.
• What is the localYemeni/Omani word for these winds?

32. Khareef

33. Q15*
• In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest-lived person to have been a British
head of state. The person she supplanted in this record was head of state for a
mere 9 months, and had an almost 53-year period of retirement after this brief
period of power, almost 20 of these being in exile.
• Who was this person?

34. Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of
England, Scotland & Ireland

35. Q16*
• The State Emblem of
Telangana shows the
Char Minar and a gate
belonging to the
Kakatiya dynasty.
• At which fort would
you find this gate?

36. Warangal

37. Q17*
• Kim Il-Sung needed intellectuals on his side while developing the Juche ideology
and hence instead of persecuting them in the beginning (he did do so later), he
welcomed them equal to the worker and farmer.
• How is this reflected in the national symbology?

38. Alongside the hammer and sickle, the
WPK also shows the paintbrush (calligraphic writing)

39. Q18*
• In 2020, there was an initiative to
get a Blue Plaque for this building
in Hackney. The Cabinet Sec. in
charge of Arts and Culture said it
“is a fine example of our
borough’s reputation for
providing a welcoming and safe
refuge for people from all over
the world and its tradition for
championing equalities and
women's rights.”
• A symbol of the Empire, what
sort of women sought refuge
here?

40. Ayahs

41. Q19*
• Japan had invaded Manchuria in China in 1931 to establish the puppet state of
Manchukuo, and invaded other parts of China following clashes in 1937. Despite this,
the Chinese government did not declare war on Japan as they were aware of the
great extent to which the country relied on imports of war materiel and foreign
military aid.
• Some years into their war, the situation changed, and Chiang Kai-Shek was finally
able to declare war on the Japanese.
• In what month and year did Chiang finally declare war?

42. December 1941
The Chinese concern was that the US as a neutral country would not sell arms or
provide military aid to a belligerent. Post Pearl Harbour, this was no longer a concern.

43. Q20*
• The Perth Agreement was agreed to by 15 national leaders
in 201s, and led to all 15 countries changing their
respective domestic laws. When the new laws came into
effect in October 2012, the first people affected were
Senna Kowhai Lewis (then aged 5) and her 3-year old
brotherTane Mahuta Lewis.
• This is although that the main intent of the law was to
affect the (at that time unborn) children of their 3rd cousin.
• What was decided in the agreement?

44. Ending male-preference primogeniture in
favour of equal primogeniture
• As a result of the agreement, Senna replaced her brother as 28th in line to the
British monarchy.

45. Star-Marked End

46. Q21
1. The Secret InternationalTerrorist Organization,
2. A rank depicting the leader of the rebels,
3. A diminutive of an alias
4. A version of the phrase “ti ćeš to učiniti” meaning “you shall do this”
5. The name of a famous writer
were all considered explanations for what name by British Intelligence?

47. Tito

48. Q22
• What term was used by the Portuguese to refer to Asian militiamen who fought
under them in Sri Lanka?
• Originating from Urdu meaning an ‘army’ it ultimately ended up in English to refer
to Asian seamen.

49. Lascar

50. Q23
• Whereas the modern English term now means an underground cell, initially the
term was used to refer to the main keep of the castle itself.
• What term that comes form the Latin for ‘lordship’?

51. Dungeon (from Donjon)

52. Q24
• Located in Sydney, this
Mosque is primarily used
by a certain Australian
community. The name of
this mosque is meant to
signify “the shared legacy
of the Australian society
and the <people of this
country>” and has
historical significance.
• What is the name?

53. Gallipoli Mosque
• It is located in the Auburn suburb.

54. Q25
• An air corridor is a designated
region of airspace that an aircraft
must remain in during its transit
through a given region often
imposed by a military or via
diplomatic means.
• Here you see three air corridors
that were functional during 1945–
1991.
• Which city were they servicing?

55. (West) Berlin

56. Q26
• Which European nature reserve
is this an e-bike tour advert for?

57. Gibraltar

58. Q27
• This map shows the
first two digit of
postal pin codes
representing the
zone and sub-zone.
However, not
represented here,
are the pin-codes
starting with the
number 9.
• Why?

59. Used by the Army Postal Service

60. Two parters
• Answer (a) and (b) correctly
• Each part has one point

61. Q28
• List the three vertices of the PolynesianTriangle.
• 1 point for two, full 2 for all three.

62. Hawaii, Easter Island, New Zealand

63. Q29
• While Norsemen were the first people to permanently settle Iceland starting in the
9th century, the Icelandic sagas recount that the first Norse settlers encountered
scattered groups of men on the island, who departed because they did not want to
live alongside the Norsemen.
• These men are called “Papar” in Icelandic records.
• (a) What was the ethnicity of these men?
• (b) What was the occupation of these men?

64. (a) Irish
(b) Monks

65. Q30
• In 1928, the King of this country visited Europe and was very inspired by the flag of
Weimar Germany. On his return home, he had the flag of his country changed to a
similar design, but with the yellow stripe of the German flag replaced by one in a
colour much more culturally significant to his country.
• While this country’s flag changed more than 26 times over the next 90 years,
many versions had the colours of this 1928 version, either in a horizontal or
vertical orientation - arguably including the current flag.
• (a) What country’s political history can be traced through these flag changes?
• (b) What colour was the yellow in the German flag replaced by?

66. (a) Afghanistan
(b) Green

67. Finals
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