Question: From 1985 onwards, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the policies of "glasnost" and "perestroika" in an attempt to modernise the country. What do these two words mean?
Answer: Openness and Restructuring

Question: In the southern hemisphere, the winds associated with a cyclone, a region of low pressure, blow in which direction?
Answer: Clockwise

Question: Where was a nuclear reactor accident that resulted in a severe release of radioactivity following a massive power excursion which destroyed the reactor on 26 April 1986 at 01:23:45 a.m.?
Answer: Chernobyl

Question: What is the only Southeast Asian nation that has never been colonised, mainly because it had a long succession of able rulers in the 1800s, and was able to exploit the rivalry between the French and the British?
Answer: Thailand

Question: Which long-running British TV series which began as a one-off drama entitled "Woodentop" revolves around the lives of policemen stationed at Sun Hill?
Answer: The Bill

Question: What is the term for light created by means of heat?
Answer: Incandescence

Question: What is the next in the series: Chamonix, France; St. Moritz, Switzerland; Lake Placid, United States; Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany?
Answer: St. Moritz, Switzerland

Question: In 1389, Queen Margaret ruled over Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Greenland, Iceland and which other country?
Answer: Finland

Question: What name is given to a section of the Alps located mostly in the province of Belluno, and extending into the provinces of Bolzano-Bozen and Trento?
Answer: The Dolomites

Question: In which year was the longest Tour de France held?
Answer: 1926

Question: The Epcot Centre is part of which tourist attraction?
Answer: Walt Disney World

Question: The "pre-Raphaelite movement" was about what?
Answer: Painting

Question: """The World Series"" has been the annual championship series of the highest level of professional players of which sport in the USA and Canada since 1903?"
Answer: Baseball

Question: What TV programme opens with the words "In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate but equally important groups"?
Answer: Law & Order

Question: Late in July 2009, what phenomenon affected the daily lives of people in the cities of Chengdu, Chongquing, Shanghai and Hangzhou, China?
Answer: Solar eclipse

Question: Jacqueline du Pr was famous for playing what instrument?
Answer: Cello

Question: What type of visual art is often called "the art of writing"?
Answer: Calligraphy

Question: Which 1980s pop group was led by Boy George?
Answer: Culture Club

Question: Andalusia, Catalonia, Galicia, Aragon, Castilla y Len, Castile-La Mancha, and Extremadura are "autonomous communities" in which nation?
Answer: Spain

Question: Where are the Straits of Bonifacto?
Answer: Between Corsica and Sardinia

Question: George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards were well known in the British American colonies in the mid 18th century for being what?
Answer: Methodist preachers

Question: Which Commedia dell'arte character was servant to the Inamorata, and the daughter of Pantaloon and courted by Harlequin?
Answer: Columbine

Question: How many nouns are there in the following sentence: "Andrew gave his son a toy to play with"?
Answer: 3

Question: O'Hare International Airport serves which city?
Answer: Chicago

Question: From which sport do we get the expression "selling a dummy"?
Answer: Rugby Union

Question: The state of Indiana borders which Great Lake?
Answer: Michigan

Question: A merino is a type of what?
Answer: Sheep

Question: Where do the rivers Dart, Tavy, Teigh and Okement rise?
Answer: Dartmoor

Question: Which sport has been included in only one Olympic Games, in Paris in 1900, when competition was between the Devon and Somerset Wanderers (representing England) and a team from the British embassy in Paris (representing France)?
Answer: Cricket

Question: In which country does over half of the population live on reclaimed land?
Answer: The Netherlands

Question: What Greek mythological female monster has the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the rear of a dragon?
Answer: Chimaera

Question: What central London street is famous for containing the main government offices?
Answer: Whitehall

Question: What is the number of points required to win a game of Canasta?
Answer: 5,000

Question: What have George Etheridge, William Wycherley, Thomas Shadwell, Thomas Otway Colby Ciber and William Congreve in common?
Answer: They wrote Restoration Comedies

Question: Which French playwright, writing in the 20th century, produced "Les Parents Terribles", "Les Monstres Sacrs" and "Les Chevaliers de la Table Ronde"?
Answer: Jean Cocteau

Question: What is the world's second largest continent?
Answer: Africa

Question: King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the 9th king of the House of Chakri, became the longest reigning current monarch in the world during his reign of which country from 1946?
Answer: Thailand

Question: What is meant by "vox populi"?
Answer: The voice of the people

Question: Where is the Tropic of Cancer?
Answer: 23 26 22 north of the equator

Question: What is a tabular display of the chemical elements, the invention of which is generally credited to Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, who intended the table to illustrate recurring trends in the properties of the elements?
Answer: Periodic table

Question: Who was the spouse of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark when she ascended to the throne on 14 January 1972?
Answer: Prince Henrik

Question: With what work in the early 18th century is James Bradley associated?
Answer: Confirming the speed of light and its aberration

Question: What does the Roman Catholic Church collectively call Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Penance, Ordination, Eucharist and Extreme Unction?
Answer: Sacraments

Question: What is the term for playing a piece of music in a key other that in which it is written?
Answer: Transposition

Question: What word means the type of movement by normally walking on the soles of the feet?
Answer: Plantigrade

Question: Which British musical, based on a TV show and noted for its profanity, irreverent treatment of Judeo-Christian themes and surreal images such as tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan members, ran for 609 performances in London to February 2005 winning 4 Laurence Olivier Awards, and made its New York City debut in January 2008 at Carnegie Hall, starring Harvey Keitel?
Answer: Jerry Springer: The Opera

Question: Whose 4 sons were an astronomer, a botanist, an army engineer who went on scientific explorations, and the head of a scientific instrument manufacturing company?
Answer: Charles Darwin

Question: What is the name given to horse racing over hedges, ditches and other obstacles set on a regular course?
Answer: Steeplechase

Question: The MacRobertson International Shield, competed for by Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand and the United States and known affectionately as "the MacRob", is the premier event in the world for which sport?
Answer: Croquet

Question: The invention of what sport is credited to Dr. S. A. Naismith in Massachusetts, USA, in 1891?
Answer: Basketball

Question: In 1885, who was the first person to attach a petrol fuelled internal combustion engine to a bicycle at Bad Cannstadt near the River Neckar?
Answer: Gottlieb Daimler

Question: In 1828 Casparus van Houten Sr. patented a hydraulic press that revolutionised the production of what?
Answer: Chocolate

Question: Who uses a petri dish?
Answer: Scientist

Question: What sort of fish is in the Scandinavian dish called gravlax?
Answer: Salmon

Question: The standard of 435 vibrations per second for middle A that was laid down in 1859 is known as what?
Answer: French International Pitch

Question: The CN Tower which in 1975 became the world's tallest free-standing structure on land is part of the skyline of which city?
Answer: Toronto