Losing Ground
Three Letters or Less
Accidentally Famous
Misleading Geography
The Elements
400

This massive transcontinental country lost a staggering 5 million square kilometers of land overnight when it officially dissolved on December 26, 1991.

What is the Soviet Union

400

This three-letter piece of software runs on your smartphone and can be downloaded from an online storefront.

What is an App

400

In 1886, a pharmacist trying to cure headaches accidentally created the syrup formula for this global, bubbly soda brand.

What is Coca-Cola

400

Despite its floral name, this massive autonomous territory of Denmark is actually covered in ice, while its neighbor Iceland is much greener.

What is Greenland

400

With the atomic number 1, this highly flammable gas is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe.

What is Hydrogen

800

Once spanning parts of three continents, this vast empire spent centuries losing territory to European rivals before being completely dismantled after World War I, leaving behind modern-day Turkey.

What is the Ottoman Empire 

800

This 3-letter creature is the only mammal capable of true, sustained flight.

What is a bat

800

An engineer investigating radar technology noticed a candy bar melted in his pocket, leading to the invention of this kitchen appliance.

What is the microwave

800

The "Panama Hat," famous for its stylish woven brim, actually originated entirely in this South American country, not Panama.

What is Ecuador

800

Making up about 78% of Earth's atmosphere, this gas is represented by the atomic symbol N.

What is Nitrogen

1200

Following its defeat in the Six-Day War of 1967, this country lost the entire Sinai Peninsula to Israel, though it later regained the ground through the 1979 Camp David Accords.

What is Egypt

1200

This is the traditional Japanese sash worn with a kimono.

What is an Obi

1200

A Scottish researcher came back from vacation to find mold killing bacteria in his petri dishes, accidentally discovering this world-saving antibiotic.

What is penicillin

1200

If you visit the historic monument known as London Bridge today, you won't find it in England; it was bought and moved to this US state.

What is Arizona

1200

This heavy, silvery d-block metal is the only metallic element that is liquid at standard room temperature.

What is Mercury

1600

This ancient empire, heavily fractured by internal strife, lost its entire western half in 476 AD when the Germanic chieftain Odoacer overthrew its final teenage emperor.

What is the Roman Empire

1600

This is the standard three-letter currency code used globally for the Japanese Yen.

What is JPY

1600

An engineer trying to make a super-strong adhesive ended up making a very weak one, which 3 million years later used to create these colorful notes.

What are Post-It-Notes

1600

The famous "Devil's Island" penal colony was not a tropical resort, but a notorious prison located off the coast of this South American territory.

What is French Guiana

1600

Marie and Pierre Curie discovered this highly radioactive element in 1898, naming it after Marie's native country.

What is Polonium

2000

In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte gave up France's ambitions in North America by selling 828,000 square miles of territory to Thomas Jefferson, effectively doubling the size of the United States.

What is the Louisiana Purchase

2000

This Sumerian city-state was one of the earliest major cities in human history, located in modern-day Iraq.

What is Ur

2000

In 1943, a naval engineer accidentally dropped a tension spring on the floor and watched it bounce, creating this classic walking toy.

What is the Slinky

2000

While the famous "English horn" woodwind instrument is neither English nor a horn, it actually originated in this European country.

What is Poland

2000

This dense, toxic halogen gas has atomic number 85 and is the rarest naturally occurring element in Earth's crust.

What is Astatine

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