1. World History & Empires
This ancient civilization built the monumental structure known as Machu Picchu high in the Andes Mountains.
The Incas
This planet in our solar system is often called Earth's "twin" due to its similar size, but it features a runaway greenhouse effect and surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead
Venus
This famous 19th-century Russian author wrote the massive epic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
Leo Tolstoy
Credited with inventing the first practical, commercially successful incandescent light bulb and the phonograph.
Thomas Edison
If you have it, you want to share it. If you share it, you haven't got it. What is it?
secret
Lasting for over a thousand years, this empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East, with its capital at Constantinople.
The Byzantine Empire
This chemical element has the symbol 'Au', derived from its Latin name aurum.
Gold
In Greek mythology, this tragic hero flew too close to the sun with wings made of feathers and wax, causing the wax to melt
Icarus
Often considered the world's first computer programmer, this 19th-century mathematician wrote an algorithm for Charles Babbage’s mechanical computer, the Analytical Engine.
Ada Lovelace
Forward I am heavy, but backward I am not. What am I?
The word "Ton" (not spelled backward literally, but spelled backward it's "Not").
In 1215, English barons forced King John to sign this historic charter, which limited royal power and laid the foundation for modern democracy.
The Magna Carta
Albert Einstein won his Nobel Prize in Physics not for his famous Theory of Relativity, but for explaining this effect involving light knocking electrons out of a material.
The photoelectric effect
This playwright is the author of classic tragedies such as Macbeth, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet
William Shakespeare
Developed in the late 1960s by the U.S. Department of Defense's ARPA, this early packet-switching network is widely considered the precursor to the modern Internet.
ARPANET
A man walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a glass of water. Instead of giving him water, the bartender pulls out a gun and points it at the man's head. The man says, "Thank you," and walks out. Why?
The man had hiccups, and the bartender scared them away.
This deadly pandemic swept through Europe and Asia in the mid-14th century, wiping out an estimated 30% to 60% of Europe's population.
Answer: The Black Death (Bubonic Plague).
This region of space has a gravitational pull so strong that not even light can escape from it once past the event horizon
A black hole
Published in 1847 by Emily Brontë under the pen name Ellis Bell, this gothic novel follows the stormy, toxic relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw
Wuthering Heights
This Scottish inventor is credited with creating the first working mechanical television system in the 1920s.
John Logie Baird
This famous logical paradox is credited to a Cretan philosopher who stated, "All Cretans are liars." If he is telling the truth, he is lying; if he is lying, he is telling the truth. What is it called?
The Liar Paradox (or Epimenides paradox).
This 19th-century military leader and Emperor of France met his ultimate defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Napoleon Bonaparte
In quantum mechanics, this famous thought experiment features a cat that is simultaneously considered both alive and dead until it is observed
Schrödinger's cat
This 1949 dystopian novel by George Orwell introduced cultural terms and surveillance concepts like "Big Brother," "Thought Police," and "Room 101."
1984
Invented in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Labs, this semiconductor device amplifies and switches electrical signals and forms the foundation of modern electronics.
transistor
I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with wind. What am I?
An echo