NATIONAL HISTORY BOWL 2010-2011
PRACTICE ROUND
1st Quarter – All questions are worth ten points each
Note: For answers, teams must repond with at least the portion that is underlined. Additional information may
be given provided it does not make the answer incorrect and does not provide two separate answers. For
example, for question two, saying “Rome, Italy; Berlin, Germany” is fine. Standard creator-creation rules apply:
i.e. it’s okay to say “Don Quixote by Cervantes” on a question asking for “Don Quixote” and it is also correct to
say “Don Quixote by Cervantes” if the question is asking for “Cervantes.” Saying “Madame Bovary by Cervantes”
however, makes this an incorrect answer whether the answer is “Don Quixote” or “Cervantes.”
(Question Distribution: Of the 14 first round questions, at least 2 will be from the each of the following 5 eras:
American History pre 1900, American History post 1900, World History to 1500, European History post 1500,
and Non-Western History since 1500. There will also be at least 1 question on history of science and 1 on
history of the arts & letters- these can be taken from any period in history and the same question can fulfill
this requirement and one of the 2 x 5 requirements. Finally, note that a question may reference more than
one period, if this is so, it counts for both. This is true for all rounds (1, 2, & 4) with distribution requirements.
Questions
Answers
1. Which man was the only Democratic president in the 19th century
after the end of the Civil War and the only U.S. president to serve
two non-consecutive terms?
Stephen Grover
Cleveland
2. Which two European capital cities were said to be connected by an
axis in the 1930’s, an axis which later expanded to include Tokyo ?
Rome and Berlin
3. Which civilization worshipped the god Tlaloc, spoke the Nahuatl language,
and had their capital at Tenochtitlan until they were conquered by
Hernán Cortes in 1521?
Aztecs
4. Which woman had a child with both a member of the first Roman
triumvirate and a member of the second Roman triumvirate? If you
need a hand, those men were Julius Caesar and Marc Antony.
Cleopatra VII
5. Within 5 years, when did the Wright Brothers make their first flight?
1903 (1898-1908)
6. Which man, who is the namesake of the trophy awarded to the top
college basketball player in the country, invented basketball at a YMCA
in Massachusetts in 1891?
James Naismith
7. In 1776, which member of the Scottish Enlightenment published the
Adam Smith
seminal work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations?
8. This man was one of the main attorneys who argued on behalf of the
plaintiff in Brown v.Board of Education before later joining the Supreme
Court himself, becoming the first African-American justice. Who was he?
Thurgood Marshall
9. What civilization would you have been in if you were traveling the Royal Road
from Sardis to Susa on behalf of King Xerxes and then stopped off at a temple
to worship Ahura Mazda?
Persian Empire
10. Whose “little red book” of quotations had one of the largest publication
runs of the 20th century, particularly in the nation that he led from 1949 to his
death in 1976 as the head of the communist party?
Mao Zedong
11. Which two mathematicians- a German who was also a philosopher and an
Gottfried Leibniz &
Englishman who was also a scientist- share credit for the invention of calculus? Isaac Newton
12. Which country’s ruling house is known as the Chakri Dynasty and includes
such monarchs as Mongkut, Chulalongkorn, and the present-day King
Bhumibol who has ruled since 1946 over the country formerly known as Siam
from the city of Bangkok?
Thailand
13. Which Germanic tribe, whose infamous name can be found in
the lyrics of the Bob Dylan song “Subterranean Homesick Blues,”
founded a powerful kingdom based in North Africa in the fifth century A.D.?
Vandals
14. Name the painter whose important work includes portraits of Daniel-Henry
Pablo Picasso
Kahnweiler, his mistress Dora Maar, and the author Gertrude Stein, as well as
the masterpieces Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Guernica, a painting depicting
a scene from the Spanish Civil War
2nd Quarter – Tossups and bonuses worth ten points each
Note: This round is the only round to feature ordering questions (e.g. # 3) and matching questions (e.g. #6). Up
to two of each of these sorts of questions can be found among the eight tossups in this round in each game. For
answering ordering and matching questions, saying “same order” or “reverse order” is acceptable, if this is in
fact correct.
Question Distribution: Four of the eight questions will be on American history; the other four can come from
any era and geographic region.
The team that answers the tossup has the first shot at the bonus; if they miss then the other team
will have a chance to answer it. As you can tell, there is one bonus per tossup, and it is related to it.
1. Born in 1931 at Klerksdorp in the Transvaal, he was ordained in 1960
but first rose to prominence in the 1970’s before later winning the
1984 Nobel Peace Prize. For ten points name this former head
of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Anglican archbishop in
South Africa.
Bonus: Tutu has been a critic of which ruler of Zimbabwe since 1980,
once calling him “a cartoon figure of an archetypical African dictator.”?
2. Although he lived a long life, he was obese and once famously got stuck
in the bathtub. His “dollar diplomacy” proved to be a largely ineffective
foreign policy, and he was not a happy camper in the White House. Being
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was more up his alley. For ten points,
name the only sitting president ever to come in third in the electoral college
in a presidential election, in the election of 1912.
Bonus: Name the two men, both of whom were also at one point president,
who finished ahead of Taft in the electoral college that year.
3. For ten points, arrange these Revolutionary War battles in chronological
order: Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord, Yorktown, Trenton.
Bonus: In which state did the battles of Camden and Cowpens take place?
4. The first time this tournament was held for men was in 1881.
It is currently played at a complex that is named for a well-known
feminist who was also a four-time women’s champion, the last coming
in 1974. The most famous stadium within the complex where it is played,
though, is named for a pioneering African-American who tragically died of
AIDS. For ten points, name this tournament, played near the site of the 1964
World’s Fair and the only grand slam in its sport played in North America.
Bonus: Which American men’s tennis player of Armenian and Assyrian
descent won all four grand slams as well as an Olympic gold medal?
5. Admirers of this city are known as Laconophiles. If you yourself are one,
then you surely would recognize the significance of the year 404 B.C. Most
of the people that lived there were known as helots, but even the citizens
didn’t exactly have an easy time of it. For ten points, name this home
of Menelaus, rival of Athens, and source of the nickname for Michigan State.
Bonus: Leonidas I of Sparta died fighting Persians at which battle whose
name means “The Gates of Heat?”
Desmond Tutu
Robert Mugabe
William Howard Taft
Teddy Roosevelt and
Woodrow Wilson
(prompt on Roosevelt)
1. Lexington & Concord
2. Bunker Hill
3. Trenton
4. Yorktown
South Carolina
U.S. Open (tennis)
(if they say just
U.S. Open, ask
which sport this is for)
Andre Agassi
Sparta
Thermopylae
6. For ten points, match these UN Secretaries General with their
home countries: Secretaries General are Kurt Waldheim, Trygve Lie,
U Thant, and Javier Perez de Cuellar. Countries are Burma, Austria,
Peru, and Norway.
Bonus: Boutros-Boutros Ghali, a Coptic Christian, was a UN Secretary
General from what country?
7. This country made effective use of ski troops in the Winter War with
the Soviet Union. Neither a member of NATO nor the Warsaw Pact during
the Cold War, it prospered economically despite its precarious location
close to Leningrad. For ten points, name this home of Nobel laureate
Martti Ahtisaari and home of the 1975 Helsinki Accords.
Bonus: People of Finnish ancestry form a plurality of the population in
some of the counties in the Upper Peninsula of which state?
8. After coming out as a socialist and supportive of the Russian Revolution,
many newspapers which had previously been quite laudatory of her
changed their tone. She was also an active suffragette and donor to the
NAACP- especially surprising as she was from Alabama. For ten points
name this Radcliffe graduate and famous pupil of Annie Sullivan who
was both blind and deaf.
Bonus: Helen Keller helped to found which organization whose profile
was heightened by Clarence Darrow at a trial in Tennessee and
which defends first amendment rights?
Waldheim - Austria
Lie - Norway
Thant - Burma
Perez de Cuellar - Peru
Egypt
Finland
Michigan
Helen Keller
A.C.L.U.
3rd Quarter: 60-second Rounds, Questions worth ten points a piece
with a 20 point bonus for sweeping the category
The clock starts with the first word read by the moderator. Missed questions will be offered to the opposing
team on an untimed basis. The trailing team selects first which of the three categories they would like to hear. If
teams are tied, then the team that answered the last tossup question in the bonus round correctly goes first.
Note: there are only 8 questions in this round to ensure that all can be answered in time, provided teams aren’t
dallying. Also, as teams should have no trouble completing the rounds from a time perspective, it is not allowed
to go back to questions that a team has passed, although teams can ask the moderator to repeat the question
that has just been read. Finally, if a team does not finish the questions in time, then only the questions that have
been read are turned over to the other team. If part of a question has been read when the time is up, then the
team does not get to hear the end of it; i.e. the moderator must stop reading when time is up. Then, only the
portion of the question that has been read is offered to the other team.
Category A: A Capital Idea
Category B: Who was in the White House?
Category C: Spanish History
Note: There are no distribution requirements in this round.
Category A: A Capital Idea (Explanation to be read before the clock is set, but after the team has
selected). Give the modern-day country in which these historic capitals are located.
Questions
Answers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Persepolis
Aachen and Dresden
Babylon and Ur
Kyoto
Cuzco
Amarna
Nanking
St. Petersburg
Iran
Germany
Iraq
Japan
Peru
Egypt
China
Russia
Category B: Who was in the White House? Give the president when these events occurred.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Questions
Roger Maris hit 61 home runs
The Space Shuttle Challenger exlodes
The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan
The United States enters World War I
Benedict XVI becomes pope
Hitler annexes the Sudetenland
J.E.B. Stuart is killed at the Battle of the Yellow Tavern
Albania and Croatia join NATO
Answers
JFK
Ronald Reagan
Jimmy Carter
Woodrow Wilson
George W. Bush
FDR
Abraham Lincoln
Barack Obama
Category C: Spanish History: Answer these questions on the history of Spain.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Questions
Name the hilltop palace built in Granada by the Moors.
Which two monarchs sponsored Columbus’s first voyage?
In what year did the Spanish Armada try to invade England?
Which author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow served as
U.S. minister to Spain?
Which Spanish city has seen 15 people killed in its running of the
bulls over the past 100 years?
Which two-word phrase, which includes an ordinal number,
refers to secret supporters of a cause, and was first used
in the Spanish Civil War?
Who became king of Spain in 1975?
Which is the only Spanish city to have hosted the Olympics?
Answers
The Alhambra
Ferdinand & Isabella
1588
Washington Irving
Pamplona
Fifth Column
Juan Carlos (I)
Barcelona
4th Quarter – All questions are worth twenty points each
Distribution Requirements: Four questions will be on American history.
The other four can be taken from any time and place. One of the 8 questions will be on the
history of the sciences and one other will be on the history of the arts and letters.
1. In 2006, this American city elected 26 year old Luke Ravenstahl as
its mayor. To be specific, its namesake was the elder of two British
statesmen with the same name. Meanwhile, its football team’s name
refers to the city’s industrial heritage. For twenty points, which city was the
center of the Whiskey Rebellion and is home to museums named for
Andy Warhol and Andrew Carnegie?
Pittsburgh
2. The term derives ultimately from Pilgrim’s Progress, but it was a speech
by Teddy Roosevelt and later William Hearst’s publications that propelled
its use. Lincoln Steffens, author of Tweed Days in St. Louis, and Ray
Stannard Baker, author of The Right to Work are examples. For twenty
points, give the term used to describe writers such as Ida Tarbell and
journalists of the early Progressive Era who helped expose corruption.
Muckrakers
3. Although a colony of Portugal not of Britain, it is still a member of the
Commonwealth of Nations. And although not home to a communist
government, its flag still features the star of Marxism and an AK-47.
Just like another Portuguese colony, Angola, it won independence in 1975.
For twenty points, name this African country whose foreign relations with
neighboring Zimbabwe and South Africa improved dramatically
in the 1980’s.
Mozambique
4. Ethnically she was mostly German, although she later became one
of the most prominent leaders of an empire with a predominantly
different ethnicity. She was undoubtedly promiscuous although a
widely-known urban legend about her death is untrue. For twenty
points, who suppressed Pugachev’s Rebellion and ruled Russia
from 1762 to 1796?
Catherine the Great
5. She was born an American citizen and rose to prominence through
such films as Mogambo and Rear Window. She won a Best
Actress Oscar for The Country Girl, and soon thereafter met a man
from a tiny country at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. Of course he wasn’t
just any man but the ruling prince of a nearby principality. For twenty
points, name this American actress who like Princess Diana died as a
princess from a car crash, except her crash was not in Paris but in Southern
France en route to the country her husband Prince Rainier ruled, Monaco.
Princess Grace of
Monaco or Grace Kelly
6. It was opened in 1859 but not completed until 1873. Sheep were
actually kept in a particular part of it until the Great Depression
when it was feared they would be eaten. It went into decline soon
after it opened though due to lack of interest from Tammany Hall
politicians. For twenty points, name this 843-acre preserve designed
by Frederick Law Olmsted in the core of the Big Apple.
Central Park
7. He was associated with the deaf community from a young age, as his
mother was deaf, as was later his wife. Nevertheless, he is a controversial
figure among the deaf community today due to his disdain for sign
language. He considered his work with the deaf and hearing more
important than the invention he is most famous for today, despite the
fact that that invention deals with sound. For twenty points, name
this Scottish Canadian who famously told his collaborator Watson to
come to him in the world’s first known telephone conversation.
Alexander Graham Bell
8. He was clearly the most competent commander for his state in
World War I, although that couldn’t prevent defeat at the hands
of Lawrence of Arabia, among others. His military prowess
also proved useful in the war against Greece which soon followed.
Following the war, he helped institutionalize secular principles in his
country and introduced the Latin alphabet in lieu of Arabic.
For twenty points, name this man whose mausoleum can be seen
in Ankara, the founder of modern Turkey.
Mustafa Kemal
Atatürk