City Side (world edition) - Random Trivia Questions

How well do you know your world geography? As a followup to last week's U.S. quiz, just specify whether the second city in each pair is north, south, east, or west of the first.

City Side (world edition) Questions

• Q1) Australia: Melbourne to Perth
• Q2) Brazil: Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo
• Q3) China: Beijing to Nanjing
• Q4) England: Bristol to London
• Q5) France: Bordeaux to Marseilles
• Q6) Germany: Hamburg to Munich
• Q7) India: Calcutta to Mumbai
• Q8) Italy: Rome to Venice
• Q9) Japan: Osaka to Tokyo
• Q10) Mexico: Chihuahua to Mazatlan
• Q11) New Zealand: Auckland to Wellington
• Q12) Scotland: Edinburgh to Glasgow

Largest World Lakes - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) Russia. #7 at 12,200 square miles. With its tremendous depth, the Blue Eye of Siberia holds more water than the five Great Lakes combined.
• A2) Kazakhstan. #14 at 7,115 square miles. The shallowest lake on this list has been shrinking since its source rivers were diverted for irrigation.
• A3) Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia. #1 at 143,000 square miles. The largest lake in the world holds two-thirds as much water as every other lake combined.
• A4) Canada. #8 at 12,000 square miles. The Arctic lake is covered with ice for over half of the year.
• A5) Canada. #10 at 11,170 square miles. North America's deepest lake was named for the local Indian tribe now known as the Slavey, formerly spelled Slave but always pronounced as two syllables.
• A6) Russia. #15 at 7,000 square miles. Europe's largest lake feeds into the Neva River, which leads to the Gulf of Finland.
• A7) Tanzania, Mozambique, and Malawi. #9 at 11,600 square miles. Africa's third largest and second deepest lake is also known as Lake Nyasa (with various spellings). Malawi calls it Lake Malawi, while Tanzania refers to it as Lake Nyasa (Malawi was formerly Nyasaland).
• A8) Venezuela. #17 at 5,100 square miles. Maracaibo has been known to Europeans since 1499 when Alonso de Ojeda spotted it while exploring with Amerigo Vespucci.
• A9) Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. #6 at 12,700 square miles. Africa's deepest lake, the second deepest in the world, feeds the Congo River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
• A10) Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. #5 at 26,828 square miles. Africa's largest lake was named for Queen Victoria by British explorer John Hanning Speke in 1858.
• A11) Australia. #16 at 6,060 square miles. Hidden beneath the ice, Lake Vostok wasn't discovered until 1973. Despite an average temperature a few degrees below freezing, the lake remains liquid because of pressure from the ice above.
• A12) Canada. #12 at 9,094 square miles. The shallow Manitoba lake's name means "muddy waters".

The rest of the top twenty are:

• Lake Onega (Russia, 3,819 square miles).
• Lake Titicaca (Peru and Bolivia, 3,141 square miles).
• Lake Nicaragua (Nicaragua, 3,089 square miles).

Note: lake sizes fluctuate, sometimes dramatically, depending on environmental conditions. The order given here is as listed by Wikipedia but treating Lakes Michigan and Huron as separate lakes.

Largest World Lakes - Random Trivia Questions

Following up on last week's quiz, where are the largest lakes in the world by area, not including the Great Lakes (which are numbers 2, 3, 4, 11, and 13 on the list)? Can you identify the country or countries that border each of the following lakes?

Largest World Lakes Questions

• Q1) Lake Baikal
• Q2) Lake Balkhash
• Q3) Caspian Sea (5 countries: name any two)
• Q4) Great Bear Lake
• Q5) Great Slave Lake
• Q6) Lake Ladoga
• Q7) Lake Malawi (3 countries: name any two)
• Q8) Lake Maracaibo
• Q9) Lake Tanganyika (4 countries: name any two)
• Q10) Lake Victoria (3 countries: name any two)
• Q11) Lake Vostok (in Antarctica: who claims it?)
• Q12) Lake Winnipeg

World Series - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) Bobby Richardson. The New York Yankees second baseman hit .367 with a grand slam and 12 RBIs against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960.
• A2) Reggie Jackson. The outfielder batted .310 with a homer and six RBIs for the 1973 Oakland A's and .450 with a record five homers and eight RBIs for the 1977 New York Yankees.
• A3) Fred Lindstrom. At the tender age of 18, the third baseman batted .333 for the 1924 New York Giants, going 3-for-4 in Game 4 and 4-for-5 in Game 5 against the Washington Senators.
• A4) Yogi Berra. The catcher amassed 71 hits in 75 games and was also the first player to pinch hit a home run in the World Series in 1947 against the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• A5) Mickey Mantle. The switch-hitting outfielder slugged 18 homers with 40 RBIs and 42 runs, also records, in 65 games despite a .257 batting average.
• A6) Andruw Jones. The Atlanta Braves centerfielder was only 19 years old when he went deep off of Andy Pettitte on October 20, 1996 to break Mickey Mantle's record. Jones hit a second home run off of Brian Boehringer in his next at-bat to become the second person, after Gene Tenace in 1972, to homer in his first two World Series plate appearances.
• A7) Hank Bauer. The New York Yankees outfielder hit in 17 straight World Series games from 1956 to 1958 despite batting only .287 during the streak. He averaged .245 in 53 career World Series games.
• A8) Whitey Ford. The New York Yankees hurler won 10 times in 22 starts with 94 strikeouts in 146 innings, all records. His career World Series ERA was 2.71.
• A9) Bob Gibson. The Cardinals flamethrower K'ed 17 Detroit Tigers on October 2, 1968 and totalled a record 35 in the series.
• A10) Christy Mathewson. The New York Giants starter blanked the Philadelphia Athletics for 27 consecutive frames (three complete-game shutouts) in 1905. Whitey Ford holds the multi-series record of 33 innings.
• A11) John Wetteland. The New York Yankees closer pulled off the feat in 1996 against the Atlanta Braves, saving games three through six to earn MVP honors. Rollie Fingers holds the career mark with six saves.
• A12) Darold Knowles. In 1973, the Oakland A's reliever blanked the New York Mets over 6-1/3 innings, allowing only four hits and five walks while striking out five. Dan Quisenberry was the only pitcher to appear in every game of a six-game series with the Kansas City Royals in 1980. Rollie Fingers appeared in a record 16 career games.

World Series - Random Trivia Questions

The Major League Baseball World Series is about to begin, so here are a few questions about the event, which dates back over a hundred years to 1903. I'll apologize in advance for all the answers that involve New York Yankees, but they've won so many World Series (26 in 39 appearances) that they dominate the record books.

World Series Questions

• Q1) Who was the only losing player to be named MVP of the World Series?
• Q2) Who was the only player to be named World Series MVP for two different teams?
• Q3) Who was the youngest person to play in a World Series?
• Q4) Who appeared in the most career World Series games and had the most hits?
• Q5) Who hit the most career World Series home runs?
• Q6) Who was the youngest player to hit a home run in the World Series?
• Q7) Who had the longest World Series hitting streak?
• Q8) What pitcher won the most career World Series games?
• Q9) What pitcher struck out the most batters in a World Series game?
• Q10) What pitcher threw the most consecutive shutout innings in one World Series?
• Q11) Who was the only pitcher to save four games in a World Series?
• Q12) Who was the only pitcher to appear in all seven games of a World Series?