Obscure general knowledge
This is the only letter that does not appear in the name of any U.S. state
What is Q?
This country is the only one in the world whose national flag is not a quadrilateral.
What is Nepal?
This element has the chemical symbol Hg, taken from its Latin name hydrargyrum
What is mercury?
This civilization developed one of the earliest known writing systems, called cuneiform
What is Sumer?
This word means “a fear of long words,” ironically making its own name quite long
What is hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia?
This ancient Roman city was buried by Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 alongside Pompeii
What is Herculaneum?
This capital city sits at an elevation of roughly 3,640 meters (11,940 feet) above sea level.
What is La Paz, Bolivia?
This part of a neuron carries electrical signals away from the cell body
What is the axon?
This Egyptian queen formed an alliance with Julius Caesar and later Mark Antony
Who is Cleopatra VII?
This punctuation mark, shaped like two vertically aligned dots, can introduce a list or explanation
What is a colon?
This is the longest river entirely within one country
What is the Yangtze River?
This African country has three official capital cities, with different branches of government based in each
What is South Africa?
This phenomenon causes a star's observed light to shift toward the red end of the spectrum when it is moving away from Earth
What is redshift?
This Persian king invaded Greece and fought the famous Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE
Who is Xerxes I?
This word describes something that can be interpreted in two or more different ways
What is ambiguous?
This philosopher wrote The Republic
Who is Plato?
This lake, located in Siberia, contains roughly 20% of the world's unfrozen surface freshwater
What is Lake Baikal?
This organelle is responsible for modifying, sorting, and packaging proteins for transport
What is the Golgi apparatus?
This ancient Greek historian is often called the “Father of History"
Who is Herodotus?
This literary device gives human qualities to animals, objects, or abstract ideas
What is personification?
This 17th-century mathematician and philosopher is famous for formulating the laws of planetary motion
Who is Johannes Kepler?
This Caribbean island is divided between France and the Netherlands, with the French side and Dutch side having different names
What is Saint Martin / Sint Maarten?
This principle states that measuring a quantum particle's position more precisely necessarily limits how precisely its momentum can be known
What is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?
This 5th-century BCE Athenian statesman gave his name to the famous age of classical Athens
Who is Pericles?
This rhetorical device uses a deliberately contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a possible truth, such as “less is more"
What is an oxymoron?