Art/Literature
This Norwegian Expressionist painted "The Scream" in 1893, inspired by a walk where he felt "a great scream through nature."
What is Edvard Munch
Robert Smith was originally hired to play guitar in Siouxsie and the Banshees when this guitarist abruptly left during a tour in 1979.
Who is John McKay
This African country, the only one to surround another country entirely within its borders, encircles Lesotho.
What is South Africa
This 1803 land deal with France doubled the size of the United States and cost about $15 million.
What is the Louisiana Purchase
This Australian mammal is one of only two egg-laying mammals in the world, and the males have venomous spurs on their hind legs.
What is the platypus
This American author's novel "The Sound and the Fury" uses four different narrative perspectives, including one from a character with cognitive disabilities, to tell the story of the Compson family's decline.
What is William Faulkner
This MTV show, which premiered in 1986 and aired alternative music videos in a late night Sunday slot, featured bands like the Cure, Joy Division, and Sonic Youth.
This strait, only about 13 miles wide at its narrowest point, separates Europe from Africa and connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.
What is the Strait of Gibraltar
This Supreme Court case established the principle of judicial review, allowing courts to strike down laws as unconstitutional.
What is Marbury v. Madison
This large reptile is the only living member of its order to have a third eye-like structure of top of its head, used to detect light changes.
What is the tuatura
This Baroque painter is known for dramatic use of light and shadow (chiaroscuro), as seen in "The Calling of St Matthew."
What is Caravaggio
This R.E.M. guitarist wrote the music for "Everybody Hurts" during sessions that eventually became Automatic for the People.
Who is Peter Buck
This Asian sea is technically a lake, has no outflow, and is shrinking due top upstream irrigation diverting its source rivers.
The Aral Sea
This 1850s legislation allowed settlers in two new territories to decide the slavery question for themselves through "popular sovereignty," effectively repealing the Missouri Compromise's geographic line.
What is the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
This process lets some lizards, like certain geckos, detach their tails when threatened by a predator, allowing them to escape while the tail keeps wriggling.
What is autotomy
This stream-of-consciousness novel by James Joyce takes place entirely on a single day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin.
What is Ulysses
Radiohead took their name from a song by this influential American art-rock band.
Who are the Talking Heads
This South American country has two capital cities - Sucre is the constitutional capital and seat of the judiciary, while La Paz, the seat of the government, houses the executive and legislative branches.
What is Bolivia
This labor strike in 1892 at a Pennsylvania steel plant turned violent when Pinkerton agents clashed with striking workers, becoming a major setback for the steelworker's union movement.
What is the Homestead Strike
This Arctic seabird makes the longest migration of any animal of Earth, flying from pole to pole and covering roughly 44,000 miles a year.
What is the Arctic tern
This Surrealist painter, known for melting clocks in "The Persistence of Memory," collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on a dream sequence for the film "Spellbound."
Who is Salvador Dali
This producer, known for ambient and art-rock with Roxy Music and David Bowie, co-produced U2's 'The Unforgettable Fire' and 'The Joshua Tree' alongside Daniel Lanois.
Who is Brian Eno
This landlocked European microstate is completely surrounded by a single country - Italy.
What is San Marino
This secret 1947-1948 series of policy decisions, articulated in a State Department telegram and later a magazine article by diplomat George Kennan, became the foundational doctrine for U.S. Cold War strategy toward the Soviet Union.
What is containment
This small mammal can survive at higher altitudes than any other, has blood adapted to extract oxygen efficiently in thin air and lives in burrows on the Tibetan Plateau alongside pikas.
What is the Himalayan marmot