Five general knowledge questions—Quick Quiz answers

By British Expat, 31 January 2015

We asked you five “pot luck” general knowledge questions. Here come the answers!

1. What is a wordle?
   It’s a word cloud based on a given piece of text, in which the size of each word shows the frequency with which that word appears in the text. Named after the online toy created by Jonathan Feinberg.
2. What is the capital of Burma (Myanmar)?
   Naypyidaw (officially Nay Pyi Taw). Until 2005 the capital was Rangoon (Yangon), but was then officially moved to a greenfield site in the middle of the Burmese jungle. It didn’t formally get its name until 27 March 2006, nearly five months after it was designated the capital. It now has a population of well over a million, but is still largely under construction.
3. Tabasco is a hot sauce made exclusively from three ingredients. What are they?
   Tabasco peppers, vinegar and salt. The tabasco pepper was nearly wiped out in the 1960s by the tobacco mosaic virus. It originated in the Mexican state of Tabasco (hence the name, although the plant is spelt with a lower-case T), but that wasn’t the origin of the sauce…
   • Bonus point if you can name where the sauce originated.
     Tabasco sauce has been made since its invention in 1868 by the McIlhenny Company from its headquarters on Avery Island, Louisiana. Although McIlhenny still grows tabasco peppers on the island, they’re now used for seed stock so that their supplies can be grown in locations with a more reliable climate. The company is one of only a few US companies that hold the Royal Warrant.
4. Benjamin Kubelsky is better known by what name?
   Jack Benny, US vaudevillian and later radio and television comedian. He was born in Chicago to Meyer Kubelsky, a saloon owner and haberdasher from Poland, and Emma Sachs Kubelsky from Lithuania. One of the US’s leading performers in the mid-20th century, Benny originally performed as a violinist under his birth name but was put under legal pressure to change his performing name by (then) famous Czech violinist Jan Kubelik.
5. Phil Collins replaced whom as the lead singer of Genesis in 1975?
   Peter Gabriel. Gabriel left Genesis that year to pursue a solo career, feeling that the definition of fixed roles within the group were stifling its members’ creativity; his first single, “Solsbury Hill”, is partly about his departure. Collins in turn left in 1996, having already kickstarted his own successful solo career barely six years after Gabriel’s exit.

How did you get on? Why not let us know?