Niche Childhood Obsessions
This 1871 blaze destroyed over 17,000 buildings in Chicago, famously (though incorrectly) blamed on Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.
What is the Great Chicago Fire
This U.S. desert, home to Joshua trees, spans parts of California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.
What is the Mojave Desert
This organelle, often called the “powerhouse of the cell,” produces ATP through cellular respiration.
What is the mitochondria
In 1773, colonists dumped tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxation in this famous event.
What is the Boston Tea Party
What is the only food item that never goes bad
What is honey
This hero completed 12 nearly impossible labors, including slaying the Nemean lion and capturing Cerberus.
Who is Hercules
This longest river in South America flows more than 4,000 miles and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
What is the Amazon River
This force, discovered by Newton, pulls objects toward one another and keeps planets in orbit.
What is gravity
Completed in 1914, this man-made waterway dramatically shortened the route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
What is the Panama Canal
This is the only letter that doesn’t appear in any U.S. state name.
What is Q
This boy king, whose tomb was discovered nearly intact in 1922, became one of the most famous pharaohs in history.
Who is Tutankhamun (King Tut)?
The Pyrenees Mountains form a natural border between these two European countries.
What is France and Spain
This law, formulated by Charles Darwin, explains how traits that improve survival and reproduction become more common in a population over generations.
What is the theory of natural selection
This 1215 document forced King John of England to accept limits on royal power and is seen as a foundation of constitutional government.
What is the Magna Carta
Bananas are berries, but these small fruits are not considered true berries.
What are strawberries
Locked exit doors and inadequate fire escapes contributed to the tragic deaths of workers in this infamous 1911 industrial disaster.
What is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire
This river, the longest in Europe, flows through central Russia and empties into the Caspian Sea.
What is the Volga River
This layer of Earth’s atmosphere contains the ozone layer, which absorbs most of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
What is the stratosphere
This empire, ruled by figures like Sargon and Hammurabi, was one of the earliest great powers of Mesopotamia.
What is the Babylonian Empire
This mammal is the only one capable of true flight, using its wings to navigate the air.
What is a bat
This emperor, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, established the Pax Romana and became Rome’s first official emperor in 27 BCE.
Who is Augustus?
This remote archipelago in the South Atlantic, located about 1,200 miles east of Argentina, has been the subject of a sovereignty dispute between the U.K. and Argentina.
What are the Falkland Islands
This subatomic particle, discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, explained discrepancies in atomic mass and led to rapid advances in nuclear physics.
What is the neutron
This 18th-century intellectual movement emphasized reason, scientific inquiry, and individual rights, influencing revolutions in America and France.
What is the Enlightenment
The dot over the lowercase “i” and “j” has a name—it’s called this.
What is a tittle