Question: Whose last words before he drank poison reportedly were "Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Pay it and do not neglect it."?
Answer: Socrates

Question: A motto of which lethal 20th century regime was 'To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss' referring to civilian Cambodians?
Answer: Khmer Rouge

Question: A 1999 survey of academic historians by C-SPAN rated which statesmen as the three greatest presidents of the US? (hint: each president was in a different century)
Answer: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and FDR

Question: What is the name of the village on the border between North and South Korea where the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War was signed?
Answer: Panmunjeom

Question: The Roman emperor Theodosius I was a bad sport. After Christianity became the official religion of the empire, what did he do as he felt that this form of entertainment was in discord with Christian ethics?
Answer: He banned the Olympic games

Question: After hearing about what event of late 1941 did Winston Churchill write "Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful"?
Answer: Attack on Pearl Harbor drawing the US into WWII

Question: What South African island was used as a gaol for political prisoners while the country was under the policy of apartheid?
Answer: Robben Island

Question: What burning-liquid weapon was used by the Byzantine Greeks to great effect as it could continue burning even on water?
Answer: Greek fire

Question: What weapon do many historians call 'the machine gun of the Middle Ages'?
Answer: Longbow

Question: What two countries formed in 1993 as a result of what is known as the 'Velvet Divorce'?
Answer: Czech Republic and Slovakia

Question: What 19th century war that saw the work of Florence Nightingale also featured innovations like the first tactical use of railways and the electric telegraph?
Answer: Crimean War (1854-56)

Question: Which symbol whose name means 'well-being' in Sanskrit ironically became associated with the Nazis?
Answer: Swastika (from svasti)

Question: If Nazi Germany was the Third Reich, what were the first two?
Answer: Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire of 1871-1918

Question: The Battle of Austerlitz, one of Napoleon's greatest victories is also known by what name that references Emperor Francis and the Russian Czar along with Napoleon himself?
Answer: Battle of the Three Emperors

Question: The following lines are the answer to what book's titular explanation? ... When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, When he beats his bars and would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee, But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core, But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings - ...
Answer: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Question: If you see the phrases "O, Draconian devil!", "Oh, Lame Saint!", and "So Dark the Con of Man", what 2000s bestseller ought to come to mind?
Answer: The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown

Question: Idries Shah who achieved prominence as an authority on Sufism is credited with popularizing the stories of which 13th folk figure of Turkey known for his wit and humor?
Answer: Nasreddin Hodja

Question: What 1945 classic satire was rejected for publication by T. S. Eliot as "We have no conviction ... that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time..."?
Answer: Animal Farm by George Orwell

Question: Sequels featuring which character who originally appeared in a 1913 novel were published as Glad Books from 1915 onward?
Answer: Pollyanna

Question: The Pulitzer-nominated 1979 book The Madwoman in the Attic which examines Victorian literature from a feminist perspective takes its title from a plot point of what 1847 novel?
Answer: Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre

Question: A writer and a photographer were on assignment from Fortune magazine in 1936 and stayed near Greesboro, Alabama for eight-weeks producing what highly regarded photo-journalistic work?
Answer: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans

Question: Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky a current-day husband and wife team are known for what type of contribution to literature?
Answer: Translations

Question: According to a legend, which German alchemist later immortalized in literature rode a wine barrel from the Auerbach's Cellar into Leipiz's streets, a feat clearly beyond ordinary human capability?
Answer: Dr. (Johann Georg) Faust

Question: What are the first two lines of the poem Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox whose next lines are shown below? ".................................................... ..................................................... For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own..."
Answer: Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone;

Question: Who is the popular contemporary author who is on an on-going mission to 'prove' that English painter Walter Sickert is the actual Jack the Ripper?
Answer: Patricia Cornwell (creator of Dr. Kay Scarpetta)

Question: For the title of his year 2000 book whose plot features a war between Russia and China, author Tom Clancy used the names of what animals?
Answer: Bear and dragon (The Bear and the Dragon)

Question: John Nettleship who himself admitted in an interview that he was “a short-tempered chemistry teacher with long hair…[and a] gloomy, malodorous laboratory” served as an inspiration for what literary character of modern times?
Answer: Severus Snape from the Harry Potter world

Question: Who was the English editor and avid compiler of military information who published All the World's Fighting Ships in 1898?
Answer: John F. T. Jane

Question: When the novel The Mad Tryst is being read at a sitting, the residence that the dwellers are in begins to collapse in what classic story?
Answer: The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) by Poe

Question: Captain George Pollard, Jr., who inspired an all-time great 1851 novel, was the captain of Essex that was attacked and sunk by what?
Answer: (Sperm) whale

Question: Who is the popular author who served as Chancellor of Moratuwa University in Sri Lanka from 1979 to 2002?
Answer: Arthur C. Clarke

Question: According to a 1864 adventure novel, Saknussemm's Corridor in an extinct volcano in Iceland is the place to start if you seek to go where?
Answer: Center of the earth

Question: Algernon Blackwood's 1907 story, called by H. P. Lovecraft as the "finest supernatural tale in English literature" is titled after what type of trees? (hint: cricket)
Answer: Willows

Question: In which Somerset Maugham's short-story does missionary Alfred Davidson try to reform a prostitute but ultimately succumbs to her charm?
Answer: Rain

Question: Polynesia the parrot teaches animal language to what literary character?
Answer: Doctor Doolittle

Question: The name of what literary swashbuckler is the answer to the final question in the Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire?
Answer: Aramis

Question: Which prolific author created a men-only dining group called The Black Widowers for a series of mystery stories?
Answer: Isaac Asimov

Question: The phrase 'motiveless malignity' was used by S. T. Coleridge to describe which diabolic villain of literature?
Answer: Iago

Question: A 1978 contemplative travel book of Peter Matthiessen concerned him tracking what elusive creature of the Himalayas?
Answer: Snow leopard

Question: The unique 'villains' of what celebrated 1963 children's book came about when the author realized he could not draw horses and was inspired by an Yiddish expression "vilde chaya" ("wild animals")?
Answer: Where the Wild Things Are by Sendak

Question: What play by Michael Frayn that takes the name of a European city has the spirits of Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr and Bohr's wife converse on myriad topics?
Answer: Copenhagen (2000)