TASK DEFINITION: In this task you will be given a text passage from a trivia quiz. You should choose the category this question belongs to from these categories: History, Science, Social Science, Fine Arts, Literature. You can only choose one category, so if in doubt, please choose the closest match.
PROBLEM: Fascinated in his youth by the sea and ships, he spent two years of his reign traveling throughout Europe learning the techniques of shipbuilding, but upon his return was forced to put down a revolt of the streltsy. Originally joint emperor with his retarded brother Ivan under the regency of his half-sister Sophia, he soon seized power, and later had his son Alexei tortured to death to maintain his rule. His seizure and eventual loss of Azov was his first notable attempt to gain greater maritime access, which was completed with his gain of a section of the Baltic coast, where he founded his new capital, modeled on the Western ideas he forced upon his country. FTP, who was this victor in the Great Northern War who from 1682-1725 ruled Russia

SOLUTION: History

PROBLEM: This composer reworked an instrumental sarabande into the aria Lascia ch'io planga. He called for improvised solo organ pieces to be placed ad libitum into the later of his organ concertos, a genre he invented to show off. The "Hailstone Chorus" appears in the first part of an oratorio by this man whose second part is "The Song of Moses"; that work is Israel in Egypt. One of this man's works includes a suite in G major that has a rigaudon, a minuet, and five shorter, unnamed pieces, as well as a suite in F major that begins with a (*) French overture. That piece was written to be played on barges floating on the River Thames for King George I. For 10 points, name this Baroque composer who wrote Water Music and the oratorio Messiah.

SOLUTION: Fine Arts

PROBLEM: One character in this work tells the story of Gyges's discovery of a ring of invisibility and his seduction of the queen and murder of the king. Another character in this work is forced to go to the house of Cephalus in Piraeus, and later discusses levels of "bedness", claiming that as each bedness shares its form with the original bed, if they are associated with each other ad infinitum, it creates an infinite regress of form. That character also describes how a man who sees the fire and the sun would at first want to turn his head or go back, but that his duty is to go back and get the other prisoners and help them to escape in a section usually called, "the Allegory of the Cave". For 10 pointsname this Platonic dialogue, in which Socrates claims that the best type of government is one ruled absolutely by a philosopher-king.

SOLUTION:
Fine Arts