Answer: mobile

Question: What type of applications have videoconferencing manufacturers begun to offer?


Answer: hand-held mobile devices

Context: Technological developments by videoconferencing developers in the 2010s have extended the capabilities of video conferencing systems beyond the boardroom for use with hand-held mobile devices that combine the use of video, audio and on-screen drawing capabilities broadcasting in real-time over secure networks, independent of location. Mobile collaboration systems now allow multiple people in previously unreachable locations, such as workers on an off-shore oil rig, the ability to view and discuss issues with colleagues thousands of miles away. Traditional videoconferencing system manufacturers have begun providing mobile applications as well, such as those that allow for live and still image streaming.

Question: What is an example of a place that videoconferencing can be used today?


Answer: participating in two-way communication forums

Context: Videoconferencing provides students with the opportunity to learn by participating in two-way communication forums. Furthermore, teachers and lecturers worldwide can be brought to remote or otherwise isolated educational facilities. Students from diverse communities and backgrounds can come together to learn about one another, although language barriers will continue to persist. Such students are able to explore, communicate, analyze and share information and ideas with one another. Through videoconferencing, students can visit other parts of the world to speak with their peers, and visit museums and educational facilities. Such virtual field trips can provide enriched learning opportunities to students, especially those in geographically isolated locations, and to the economically disadvantaged. Small schools can use these technologies to pool resources and provide courses, such as in foreign languages, which could not otherwise be offered.

Question: What can videoconferencing offer students?


Answer: students

Question: Who can benefit from two-way communication forums?


Answer: language

Question: What is a major barrier to videoconferencing between some communities?


Answer: virtual field trips

Question: What is one example of how students can benefit from videoconferencing?


Answer: visit museums

Question: What is one experience that students using videoconferencing can achieve?


Answer: AT&T

Context: One of the first demonstrations of the ability for telecommunications to help sign language users communicate with each other occurred when AT&T's videophone (trademarked as the "Picturephone") was introduced to the public at the 1964 New York World's Fair –two deaf users were able to communicate freely with each other between the fair and another city. Various universities and other organizations, including British Telecom's Martlesham facility, have also conducted extensive research on signing via videotelephony. The use of sign language via videotelephony was hampered for many years due to the difficulty of its use over slow analogue copper phone lines, coupled with the high cost of better quality ISDN (data) phone lines. Those factors largely disappeared with the introduction of more efficient video codecs and the advent of lower cost high-speed ISDN data and IP (Internet) services in the 1990s.

Question: What company introduced the first device to help deaf people communicate through telecommunications?


Answer: Picturephone

Question: What was the name of AT&T's videophone device?


Answer: 1964

Question: In what year was AT&T's "Picturephone" device introduced?


Answer: 1964 New York World's Fair

Question: Where was AT&T's "Picturephone" device unveiled?


Answer: 1990s

Question: In what decade were more efficient ways of using sign language via video-telephony developed?


Answer: film

Context: In the increasingly globalized film industry, videoconferencing has become useful as a method by which creative talent in many different locations can collaborate closely on the complex details of film production. For example, for the 2013 award-winning animated film Frozen, Burbank-based Walt Disney Animation Studios hired the New York City-based husband-and-wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez to write the songs, which required two-hour-long transcontinental videoconferences nearly every weekday for about 14 months.

Question: In what industry has videoconferencing become useful?


Answer: Frozen

Question: On what film was videoconferencing widely used?


Answer: 2013

Question: What year was the movie Frozen released?


Answer: New York City

Question: In what city were the songwriting team of Frozen located?


Answer: 14

Question: How many months did the songwriters work on the movie via videoconferencing?


Answer: videoteleconference

Context: A videoconference system is generally higher cost than a videophone and deploys greater capabilities. A videoconference (also known as a videoteleconference) allows two or more locations to communicate via live, simultaneous two-way video and audio transmissions. This is often accomplished by the use of a multipoint control unit (a centralized distribution and call management system) or by a similar non-centralized multipoint capability embedded in each videoconferencing unit. Again, technology improvements have circumvented traditional definitions by allowing multiple party videoconferencing via web-based applications.

Question: What is a video-conference also known as?


Answer: a multipoint control unit

Question: What does a video-conference use that allows communication in live situations?


Answer: call management system

Question: What is a multi-point control unit?


Answer: web-based applications

Question: How does video-conferencing allow multiple parties to communicate with each other?


Answer: two or more

Question: How many locations can one use videoconferencing for?


Answer: telemedicine

Context: This technique was very expensive, though, and could not be used for applications such as telemedicine, distance education, and business meetings. Attempts at using normal telephony networks to transmit slow-scan video, such as the first systems developed by AT&T Corporation, first researched in the 1950s, failed mostly due to the poor picture quality and the lack of efficient video compression techniques. The greater 1 MHz bandwidth and 6 Mbit/s bit rate of the Picturephone in the 1970s also did not achieve commercial success, mostly due to its high cost, but also due to a lack of network effect —with only a few hundred Picturephones in the world, users had extremely few contacts they could actually call to, and interoperability with other videophone systems would not exist for decades.

Question: What is one area where teleconferencing could not be used?


Answer: AT&T Corporation

Question: Who developed the first systems to transmit slow-scan video?


Answer: the 1950s

Question: When was the first slow-scan video systems researched?


Answer: 6 Mbit/s

Question: What was the bit rate of AT&T's Picturephone?


Answer: 1 MHz

Question: What was the bandwidth of AT&T's Picturephone?


Answer: 1992

Context: While videoconferencing technology was initially used primarily within internal corporate communication networks, one of the first community service usages of the technology started in 1992 through a unique partnership with PictureTel and IBM Corporations which at the time were promoting a jointly developed desktop based videoconferencing product known as the PCS/1. Over the next 15 years, Project DIANE (Diversified Information and Assistance Network) grew to utilize a variety of videoconferencing platforms to create a multi-state cooperative public service and distance education network consisting of several hundred schools, neighborhood centers, libraries, science museums, zoos and parks, public assistance centers, and other community oriented organizations.

Question: What year did one the first community service usages of videoconferencing take place?


Answer: IBM

Question: What company helped in the creation of community service videoconferencing?


Answer: PCS/1

Question: What is the videoconferencing product that both IBM and PictureTel worked on?


Answer: Diversified Information and Assistance Network

Question: What does DIANE in Project DIANE stand for?


Answer: 15

Question: How many years did it take for Project DIANE to grow?


Answer: Multipoint Control Unit (MCU)

Context: Simultaneous videoconferencing among three or more remote points is possible by means of a Multipoint Control Unit (MCU). This is a bridge that interconnects calls from several sources (in a similar way to the audio conference call). All parties call the MCU, or the MCU can also call the parties which are going to participate, in sequence. There are MCU bridges for IP and ISDN-based videoconferencing. There are MCUs which are pure software, and others which are a combination of hardware and software. An MCU is characterised according to the number of simultaneous calls it can handle, its ability to conduct transposing of data rates and protocols, and features such as Continuous Presence, in which multiple parties can be seen on-screen at once. MCUs can be stand-alone hardware devices, or they can be embedded into dedicated videoconferencing units.

Question: What enables videoconferencing to connect three or more remote points?


Answer: IP

Question: What is one type of MCU bridge?


Answer: the number of simultaneous calls it can handle

Question: In what way can an MCU be characterized?


Answer: Continuous Presence

Question: What feature enables an MCU to allow for multiple parties to be seen on screen at the same time?


Answer: dedicated videoconferencing units

Question: Where can an MCU be embedded?


Answer: money savings

Context: Videoconferencing can enable individuals in distant locations to participate in meetings on short notice, with time and money savings. Technology such as VoIP can be used in conjunction with desktop videoconferencing to enable low-cost face-to-face business meetings without leaving the desk, especially for businesses with widespread offices. The technology is also used for telecommuting, in which employees work from home. One research report based on a sampling of 1,800 corporate employees showed that, as of June 2010, 54% of the respondents with access to video conferencing used it “all of the time” or “frequently”.

Question: In what one way can videoconferencing help a person?


Answer: VoIP

Question: What technology can be used along with videoconferencing?


Answer: telecommuting

Question: What is another use of VoIP?


Answer: work from home

Question: What is telecommuting?


Answer: 54%

Question: What is the percentage of people who use videoconferencing a majority of the time?


Answer: 1990s

Context: Finally, in the 1990s, Internet Protocol-based videoconferencing became possible, and more efficient video compression technologies were developed, permitting desktop, or personal computer (PC)-based videoconferencing. In 1992 CU-SeeMe was developed at Cornell by Tim Dorcey et al. In 1995 the first public videoconference between North America and Africa took place, linking a technofair in San Francisco with a techno-rave and cyberdeli in Cape Town. At the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Nagano, Japan, Seiji Ozawa conducted the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony simultaneously across five continents in near-real time.

Question: In what decade was Internet video-conferencing made possible?


Answer: desktop

Question: In what device was videoconferencing finally able to be used in?


Answer: 1992

Question: In what year was CU-SeeMe, a desktop-based videoconferencing tool, developed?


Answer: 1995

Question: In what year did the first public video-conference take place?


Answer: Cape Town

Question: What South African city participated in the first public video-conference?


Answer: a codec (coder/decoder)

Context: The core technology used in a videoconferencing system is digital compression of audio and video streams in real time. The hardware or software that performs compression is called a codec (coder/decoder). Compression rates of up to 1:500 can be achieved. The resulting digital stream of 1s and 0s is subdivided into labeled packets, which are then transmitted through a digital network of some kind (usually ISDN or IP). The use of audio modems in the transmission line allow for the use of POTS, or the Plain Old Telephone System, in some low-speed applications, such as videotelephony, because they convert the digital pulses to/from analog waves in the audio spectrum range.

Question: What is the software that performs audio and/or video compression?


Answer: 1:500

Question: How high can compression rates go?


Answer: IP

Question: What is one digital network through which a digital stream can be transmitted?


Answer: Plain Old Telephone System

Question: What does POTS stand for?


Answer: convert the digital pulses to/from analog waves

Question: What do POTS do?


Answer: deaf Video Relay Service

Context: Typical use of the various technologies described above include calling or conferencing on a one-on-one, one-to-many or many-to-many basis for personal, business, educational, deaf Video Relay Service and tele-medical, diagnostic and rehabilitative use or services. New services utilizing videocalling and videoconferencing, such as teachers and psychologists conducting online sessions, personal videocalls to inmates incarcerated in penitentiaries, and videoconferencing to resolve airline engineering issues at maintenance facilities, are being created or evolving on an ongoing basis.

Question: What is a common use of conferencing technology?


Answer: teachers

Question: What profession utilizes videoconferencing technology to conduct online sessions?


Answer: personal videocalls to inmates

Question: What is one way that videocalling can be used?


Answer: tele-medical

Question: What is a common use of conferencing technology?


Answer: real-time telemedicine

Context: Videoconferencing is a highly useful technology for real-time telemedicine and telenursing applications, such as diagnosis, consulting, transmission of medical images, etc... With videoconferencing, patients may contact nurses and physicians in emergency or routine situations; physicians and other paramedical professionals can discuss cases across large distances. Rural areas can use this technology for diagnostic purposes, thus saving lives and making more efficient use of health care money. For example, a rural medical center in Ohio, United States, used videoconferencing to successfully cut the number of transfers of sick infants to a hospital 70 miles (110 km) away. This had previously cost nearly $10,000 per transfer.

Question: What is one way that videoconferencing is useful?


Answer: Rural

Question: What areas benefit especially from videoconferencing?


Answer: Ohio

Question: In what US state did a rural area use videoconferencing to help reduce the number of transfers of sick infants to hospitals?


Answer: 70 miles

Question: How far away was the hospital from this rural area?


Answer: $10,000 per transfer

Question: How much money did videoconferencing help this rural area save?


Answer: Sweden

Context: VRS services have become well developed nationally in Sweden since 1997 and also in the United States since the first decade of the 2000s. With the exception of Sweden, VRS has been provided in Europe for only a few years since the mid-2000s, and as of 2010 has not been made available in many European Union countries, with most European countries still lacking the legislation or the financing for large-scale VRS services, and to provide the necessary telecommunication equipment to deaf users. Germany and the Nordic countries are among the other leaders in Europe, while the United States is another world leader in the provisioning of VRS services.

Question: In what European country has VRS services become well developed?


Answer: financing

Question: What is one of the reasons why VRS services are not in most European countries?


Answer: Germany

Question: What European country is a leader in providing VRS services to its citizens?


Answer: United States

Question: What country is a world leader in providing VRS services?


Answer: 2005

Context: In May 2005, the first high definition video conferencing systems, produced by LifeSize Communications, were displayed at the Interop trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada, able to provide video at 30 frames per second with a 1280 by 720 display resolution. Polycom introduced its first high definition video conferencing system to the market in 2006. As of the 2010s, high definition resolution for videoconferencing became a popular feature, with most major suppliers in the videoconferencing market offering it.

Question: What year was the first HD video conferencing system displayed?


Answer: LifeSize Communications

Question: Who produced the first high definition video conferencing system?


Answer: Las Vegas, Nevada

Question: Where was the first HD video conferencing system displayed?


Answer: Polycom

Question: What company introduced the first HD video conferencing system to the general market?


Answer: 1280 by 720

Question: What was the resolution of the first HD video conferencing system?


Answer: a standards-based H.323 technique

Context: Some systems are capable of multipoint conferencing with no MCU, stand-alone, embedded or otherwise. These use a standards-based H.323 technique known as "decentralized multipoint", where each station in a multipoint call exchanges video and audio directly with the other stations with no central "manager" or other bottleneck. The advantages of this technique are that the video and audio will generally be of higher quality because they don't have to be relayed through a central point. Also, users can make ad-hoc multipoint calls without any concern for the availability or control of an MCU. This added convenience and quality comes at the expense of some increased network bandwidth, because every station must transmit to every other station directly.

Question: What do systems with no MCU use in order to perform multipoint conferencing?


Answer: higher quality

Question: What is one advantage of using an H.323 technique?


Answer: increased network bandwidth

Question: What is one disadvantage of using the H.323 technique?


Answer: decentralized multipoint

Question: What is the H.323 technique also known as?


Answer: they don't have to be relayed through a central point

Question: Why is the video and audio of the H.323 technique higher quality?


Answer: U.S.

Context: The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA), which oversees the world's largest administrative judicial system under its Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR), has made extensive use of videoconferencing to conduct hearings at remote locations. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) conducted 86,320 videoconferenced hearings, a 55% increase over FY 2008. In August 2010, the SSA opened its fifth and largest videoconferencing-only National Hearing Center (NHC), in St. Louis, Missouri. This continues the SSA's effort to use video hearings as a means to clear its substantial hearing backlog. Since 2007, the SSA has also established NHCs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Baltimore, Maryland, Falls Church, Virginia, and Chicago, Illinois.

Question: Who has the world's largest administrative judicial system?


Answer: Social Security Administration (SSA)

Question: What US Department oversees the World's largest administrative judicial system?


Answer: 2009

Question: In what year did the SSA see a 55% increase in videoconferenced hearings?


Answer: August 2010

Question: When did the SSA open its largest videoconferencing-only center?


Answer: St. Louis, Missouri

Question: Where is the SSA's fifth videoconferencing only center located?


Answer: two consecutive years

Context: To unambiguously specify the date, dual dating or Old Style (O.S.) and New Style (N.S.) are sometimes used with dates. Dual dating uses two consecutive years because of differences in the starting date of the year, or includes both the Julian and Gregorian dates. Old Style and New Style (N.S.) indicate either whether the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January (N.S.) even though documents written at the time use a different start of year (O.S.), or whether a date conforms to the Julian calendar (O.S.) rather than the Gregorian (N.S.).

Question: What does duel dating use to show the date?


Answer: Julian calendar

Question: What is the Old Style date mean?


Answer: New Style

Question: What is N.S. stand for?


Answer: Gregorian

Question: What are New Style dates?


Answer: starting date of the year

Question: Why use two consecutive year dates?


Answer: Pope Gregory XIII

Context: The Gregorian calendar was a reform of the Julian calendar instituted in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by papal bull Inter gravissimas dated 24 February 1582. The motivation for the adjustment was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of year in which it was celebrated when it was introduced by the early Church. Although a recommendation of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 specified that all Christians should celebrate Easter on the same day, it took almost five centuries before virtually all Christians achieved that objective by adopting the rules of the Church of Alexandria (see Easter for the issues which arose).

Question: Who revised the Julian calendar?


Answer: 1582

Question: When was the Gregorian Calendar introduced?


Answer: Julian calendar

Question: What calendar was used in the reform to create the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: Easter

Question: What holiday was the inducement to revise the Julian calendar?


Answer: on the same day

Question: When did the First Council of Nicaea rule that Easter be celebrated by all Christians?


Answer: Philip II of Spain

Context: Philip II of Spain decreed the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which affected much of Roman Catholic Europe, as Philip was at the time ruler over Spain and Portugal as well as much of Italy. In these territories, as well as in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (ruled by Anna Jagiellon) and in the Papal States, the new calendar was implemented on the date specified by the bull, with Julian Thursday, 4 October 1582, being followed by Gregorian Friday, 15 October 1582. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies followed somewhat later de facto because of delay in communication.

Question: What ruler decreed the change to the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: Spain and Portugal

Question: Besides part of Italy, over what areas did Phillip rule?


Answer: Friday, 15 October 1582

Question: What was the first day selected to be the first day using the new calendar?


Answer: Thursday, 4 October 1582

Question: What was the last day the Julian calendar was used?


Answer: delay in communication

Question: Why did the Spanish colonies lag behind in adopting the calendar?


Answer: 1923

Context: During the period between 1582, when the first countries adopted the Gregorian calendar, and 1923, when the last European country adopted it, it was often necessary to indicate the date of some event in both the Julian calendar and in the Gregorian calendar, for example, "10/21 February 1750/51", where the dual year accounts for some countries already beginning their numbered year on 1 January while others were still using some other date. Even before 1582, the year sometimes had to be double dated because of the different beginnings of the year in various countries. Woolley, writing in his biography of John Dee (1527–1608/9), notes that immediately after 1582 English letter writers "customarily" used "two dates" on their letters, one OS and one NS.

Question: When did the last country to adopt the Gregorian calendar start using it?


Answer: 1582

Question: At what date did the first country start using the new calendar?


Answer: in both

Question: How which calendar did some countries notate the date?


Answer: Woolley

Question: Who said that English writers usually used both dates on writings?


Answer: different beginnings of the year

Question: What difference in dating caused the use of double-dating documents?


Answer: 0.002%

Context: The calendar was a refinement to the Julian calendar amounting to a 0.002% correction in the length of the year. The motivation for the reform was to bring the date for the celebration of Easter to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when it was introduced by the early Church. Because the celebration of Easter was tied to the spring equinox, the Roman Catholic Church considered the steady drift in the date of Easter caused by the year being slightly too long to be undesirable. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox countries continued to use the traditional Julian calendar and adopted the Gregorian reform after a time, for the sake of convenience in international trade. The last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923.

Question: What was the percentsge of correction from the Julian calendar to the new Gregorian calendar?


Answer: length of the year

Question: What was the correction due to?


Answer: celebration of Easter

Question: What change in date motivated the change in calendars?


Answer: spring equinox

Question: To what astrological date was Easter tied?


Answer: slightly too long

Question: What was wrong in the Julian calendar?


Answer: solar

Context: The Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. A regular Gregorian year consists of 365 days, but as in the Julian calendar, in a leap year, a leap day is added to February. In the Julian calendar a leap year occurs every 4 years, but the Gregorian calendar omits 3 leap days every 400 years. In the Julian calendar, this leap day was inserted by doubling 24 February, and the Gregorian reform did not change the date of the leap day. In the modern period, it has become customary to number the days from the beginning of the month, and February 29th is often considered as the leap day. Some churches, notably the Roman Catholic Church, delay February festivals after the 23rd by one day in leap years.

Question: What kind of calendar is the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: 365

Question: How many days are in the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: every 4 years

Question: How often is a leap day added to the Julian calendar year?


Answer: every 400 years

Question: When does the Gregorian calendar omit 3 leap days?


Answer: 24 February

Question: On what day did both the Julian and Gregorian calendars add leap day?


Answer: 15th day

Context: Easter was the Sunday after the 15th day of this moon, whose 14th day was allowed to precede the equinox. Where the two systems produced different dates there was generally a compromise so that both churches were able to celebrate on the same day. By the 10th century all churches (except some on the eastern border of the Byzantine Empire) had adopted the Alexandrian Easter, which still placed the vernal equinox on 21 March, although Bede had already noted its drift in 725—it had drifted even further by the 16th century.

Question: When was Easter Sunday celebrated after the equinox?


Answer: compromise

Question: What did churches do to settle the date if there was a difference?


Answer: 10th century

Question: By what century had almost all churches begun celebrating Easter according to the Alexandrian Easter?


Answer: eastern border

Question: On what border of the Byzantine Empire were the last holdouts for celebrating according the Alexandrian Easter?


Answer: vernal equinox

Question: What date placement drifted increasingly off the true date on the calendar?


Answer: length of the year

Context: Lilius's proposals had two components. Firstly, he proposed a correction to the length of the year. The mean tropical year is 365.24219 days long. As the average length of a Julian year is 365.25 days, the Julian year is almost 11 minutes longer than the mean tropical year. The discrepancy results in a drift of about three days every 400 years. Lilius's proposal resulted in an average year of 365.2425 days (see Accuracy). At the time of Gregory's reform there had already been a drift of 10 days since the Council of Nicaea, resulting in the vernal equinox falling on 10 or 11 March instead of the ecclesiastically fixed date of 21 March, and if unreformed it would drift further. Lilius proposed that the 10-day drift should be corrected by deleting the Julian leap day on each of its ten occurrences over a period of forty years, thereby providing for a gradual return of the equinox to 21 March.

Question: What did Lilius first propose to correct in the calendar?


Answer: 11 minutes

Question: By how much is the Julian calendar too long?


Answer: three days

Question: How much difference does the extra 11 minutes make over 400 years time?


Answer: 21 March

Question: On what date was the original vernal equinox set?


Answer: 10 or 11 March

Question: By the time of Lilius where was the equinox falling?


Answer: 1 January

Context: Most Western European countries changed the start of the year to 1 January before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. For example, Scotland changed the start of the Scottish New Year to 1 January in 1600 (this means that 1599 was a short year). England, Ireland and the British colonies changed the start of the year to 1 January in 1752 (so 1751 was a short year with only 282 days) though in England the start of the tax year remained at 25 March (O.S.), 5 April (N.S.) till 1800, when it moved to 6 April. Later in 1752 in September the Gregorian calendar was introduced throughout Britain and the British colonies (see the section Adoption). These two reforms were implemented by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.

Question: On what date did most European countries set the start of the new year?


Answer: 1600

Question: When did Scotland begin to use January 1 as the start of the new year?


Answer: 1752

Question: When did the other British states and colonies set the year start date to January 1?


Answer: Calendar (New Style) Act 1750

Question: What act did Britain use to implement the use of the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: 1800

Question: When did England finally change the tax year to 6 April?


Answer: caution

Context: Extending the Gregorian calendar backwards to dates preceding its official introduction produces a proleptic calendar, which should be used with some caution. For ordinary purposes, the dates of events occurring prior to 15 October 1582 are generally shown as they appeared in the Julian calendar, with the year starting on 1 January, and no conversion to their Gregorian equivalents. For example, the Battle of Agincourt is universally considered to have been fought on 25 October 1415 which is Saint Crispin's Day.

Question: Attempting to use Gregorian dates for earlier events on the Julian calendar should be used with what action?


Answer: 25 October 1415

Question: When was the Battle of Agincourt?


Answer: prior to 15 October 1582

Question: When are events usually shown as they appeared on the Julian calendar?


Answer: Saint Crispin's Day

Question: What other date is 25 October known for, that keeps the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October,1415?


Answer: 1 January

Question: In the Julian calendar when is the start of the new year?


Answer: language-independent

Context: A language-independent alternative used in many countries is to hold up one's two fists with the index knuckle of the left hand against the index knuckle of the right hand. Then, starting with January from the little knuckle of the left hand, count knuckle, space, knuckle, space through the months. A knuckle represents a month of 31 days, and a space represents a short month (a 28- or 29-day February or any 30-day month). The junction between the hands is not counted, so the two index knuckles represent July and August.

Question: Why would a knuckle -space count be used to determine months?


Answer: 31

Question: A knuckle count is a month of how many days?


Answer: short month

Question: The space between knuckles is what kind of month?


Answer: one's two fists

Question: What are held together for a knuckle-space month count?


Answer: two parts

Context: The Gregorian reform contained two parts: a reform of the Julian calendar as used prior to Pope Gregory XIII's time and a reform of the lunar cycle used by the Church, with the Julian calendar, to calculate the date of Easter. The reform was a modification of a proposal made by Aloysius Lilius. His proposal included reducing the number of leap years in four centuries from 100 to 97, by making 3 out of 4 centurial years common instead of leap years. Lilius also produced an original and practical scheme for adjusting the epacts of the moon when calculating the annual date of Easter, solving a long-standing obstacle to calendar reform.

Question: How many parts did the Gregorian calendar reform have?


Answer: Julian calendar

Question: What was the first reform concerning the calendar?


Answer: lunar cycle

Question: What was the second reform of the calendar?


Answer: date of Easter

Question: What was calculated using the lunar calendar?


Answer: number of leap years

Question: What did Lilius's calendar plan to reduce in every 400 years?


Answer: lunar Islamic

Context: Prior to 1917, Turkey used the lunar Islamic calendar with the Hegira era for general purposes and the Julian calendar for fiscal purposes. The start of the fiscal year was eventually fixed at 1 March and the year number was roughly equivalent to the Hegira year (see Rumi calendar). As the solar year is longer than the lunar year this originally entailed the use of "escape years" every so often when the number of the fiscal year would jump. From 1 March 1917 the fiscal year became Gregorian, rather than Julian. On 1 January 1926 the use of the Gregorian calendar was extended to include use for general purposes and the number of the year became the same as in other countries.

Question: What calendar did Turkey use before 1917 for general purposes?


Answer: Julian

Question: What calendar did Turkey utilize for fiscal purposes?


Answer: 1 March

Question: Where did Turkey start the fiscal year?


Answer: 1 March 1917

Question: When did Turkey begin to use the Gregorian calendar for fiscal means?


Answer: 1 January 1926

Question: When did Turkey start using the Gregorian calendar for all purposes?


Answer: subtract one day

Context: Up to February 28 in the calendar you are converting from add one day less or subtract one day more than the calculated value. Remember to give February the appropriate number of days for the calendar you are converting into. When you are subtracting days to move from Julian to Gregorian be careful, when calculating the Gregorian equivalent of February 29 (Julian), to remember that February 29 is discounted. Thus if the calculated value is -4 the Gregorian equivalent of this date is February 24.

Question: How many days do you subtract to convert days from a calendar?


Answer: February 29 is discounted

Question: What does one need to remember about the date of February 29 in the Julian calendar?


Answer: -4

Question: If you need a date of four days less, what do you subtract from the Julian calendar?


Answer: 10 minutes 48 seconds

Context: In addition to the change in the mean length of the calendar year from 365.25 days (365 days 6 hours) to 365.2425 days (365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 12 seconds), a reduction of 10 minutes 48 seconds per year, the Gregorian calendar reform also dealt with the accumulated difference between these lengths. The canonical Easter tables were devised at the end of the third century, when the vernal equinox fell either on 20 March or 21 March depending on the year's position in the leap year cycle. As the rule was that the full moon preceding Easter was not to precede the equinox the equinox was fixed at 21 March for computational purposes and the earliest date for Easter was fixed at 22 March. The Gregorian calendar reproduced these conditions by removing ten days.

Question: What is the difference in time between the calendars?


Answer: accumulated difference

Question: With what other difference did the Gregorian calendar concern itself?


Answer: 20 March or 21 March

Question: When was the vernal equinox at the end of the third century?


Answer: 22 March

Question: In order to account for the full moon coming after the equinox, when was the equinox set?


Answer: removing ten days

Question: How did the Gregorian calendar set these same of the full moon not preceding Easterconditions?


Answer: 1563

Context: The Council of Trent approved a plan in 1563 for correcting the calendrical errors, requiring that the date of the vernal equinox be restored to that which it held at the time of the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and that an alteration to the calendar be designed to prevent future drift. This would allow for a more consistent and accurate scheduling of the feast of Easter. In 1577, a Compendium was sent to expert mathematicians outside the reform commission for comments. Some of these experts, including Giambattista Benedetti and Giuseppe Moleto, believed Easter should be computed from the true motions of the sun and moon, rather than using a tabular method, but these recommendations were not adopted. The reform adopted was a modification of a proposal made by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius (or Lilio).

Question: When did the Council of Trent agree to the corrected calendar?


Answer: 325

Question: To what time did the Council require the date of the vernal equinox to be set?


Answer: motions of the sun and moon

Question: What did mathematicians of the time want to use to set the date of Easter?


Answer: tabular method

Question: What method was used instead of computations of the sun and moon?


Answer: Aloysius Lilius

Question: Whose modified proposal was adopted?


Answer: 3 April 1582

Context: A month after having decreed the reform, the pope with a brief of 3 April 1582 granted to Antonio Lilio, the brother of Luigi Lilio, the exclusive right to publish the calendar for a period of ten years. The Lunario Novo secondo la nuova riforma printed by Vincenzo Accolti, one of the first calendars printed in Rome after the reform, notes at the bottom that it was signed with papal authorization and by Lilio (Con licentia delli Superiori... et permissu Ant(onii) Lilij). The papal brief was later revoked, on 20 September 1582, because Antonio Lilio proved unable to keep up with the demand for copies.

Question: When were the rights to publish the calendar granted?


Answer: the pope

Question: Who awarded the rights to publish the calendar?


Answer: demand for copies

Question: What problem caused the papal brief granting the right to publish to be withdrawn?


Answer: 20 September 1582

Question: When were the rights to print the calendar withdrawn?


Answer: Rome

Question: Where were the first calendars printed?


Answer: consular year

Context: The year used in dates during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire was the consular year, which began on the day when consuls first entered office—probably 1 May before 222 BC, 15 March from 222 BC and 1 January from 153 BC. The Julian calendar, which began in 45 BC, continued to use 1 January as the first day of the new year. Even though the year used for dates changed, the civil year always displayed its months in the order January to December from the Roman Republican period until the present.

Question: What year did the Roman Republic use for dates?


Answer: consuls first entered office

Question: What event started the consular year?


Answer: 1 May

Question: What was the date of the consular year before 222 BC?


Answer: 15 March

Question: What was the date of the start of the consular year from 222 BC?


Answer: 45 BC

Question: When did Rome begin to use the Julian calendar?


Answer: system of weeks

Context: In conjunction with the system of months there is a system of weeks. A physical or electronic calendar provides conversion from a given date to the weekday, and shows multiple dates for a given weekday and month. Calculating the day of the week is not very simple, because of the irregularities in the Gregorian system. When the Gregorian calendar was adopted by each country, the weekly cycle continued uninterrupted. For example, in the case of the few countries that adopted the reformed calendar on the date proposed by Gregory XIII for the calendar's adoption, Friday, 15 October 1582, the preceding date was Thursday, 4 October 1582 (Julian calendar).

Question: What other system of calculations are inherent in the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: irregularities

Question: Why is calculating the days of the Gregorian calendar not simple?


Answer: uninterrupted

Question: After each country adopted the calendar how did the weekly cycle continue?


Answer: Thursday, 4 October 1582

Question: What was the previous day's date by the Julian calendar?


Answer: Friday, 15 October 1582

Question: What was the date of adoption for the calendar?


Answer: Roman Catholic Church

Context: Because the spring equinox was tied to the date of Easter, the Roman Catholic Church considered the seasonal drift in the date of Easter undesirable. The Church of Alexandria celebrated Easter on the Sunday after the 14th day of the moon (computed using the Metonic cycle) that falls on or after the vernal equinox, which they placed on 21 March. However, the Church of Rome still regarded 25 March as the equinox (until 342) and used a different cycle to compute the day of the moon. In the Alexandrian system, since the 14th day of the Easter moon could fall at earliest on 21 March its first day could fall no earlier than 8 March and no later than 5 April. This meant that Easter varied between 22 March and 25 April. In Rome, Easter was not allowed to fall later than 21 April, that being the day of the Parilia or birthday of Rome and a pagan festival.The first day of the Easter moon could fall no earlier than 5 March and no later than 2 April.

Question: Who thought that the seasonal drift in the date of Easter unacceptable?


Answer: spring equinox

Question: What even is tired to the date for Easter?


Answer: Metonic cycle

Question: What did the Church of Alexandria use to calculate the date of Easter?


Answer: 21 March

Question: Where did the Church of Alexandria place the vernal equinox?


Answer: 25 March

Question: Until 342 when did the Church of Rome think the vernal equinox fell?


Answer: Christopher Clavius

Context: Ancient tables provided the sun's mean longitude. Christopher Clavius, the architect of the Gregorian calendar, noted that the tables agreed neither on the time when the sun passed through the vernal equinox nor on the length of the mean tropical year. Tycho Brahe also noticed discrepancies. The Gregorian leap year rule (97 leap years in 400 years) was put forward by Petrus Pitatus of Verona in 1560. He noted that it is consistent with the tropical year of the Alfonsine tables and with the mean tropical year of Copernicus (De revolutionibus) and Reinhold (Prutenic tables). The three mean tropical years in Babylonian sexagesimals as the excess over 365 days (the way they would have been extracted from the tables of mean longitude) were 14,33,9,57 (Alphonsine), 14,33,11,12 (Copernicus) and 14,33,9,24 (Reinhold). All values are the same to two places (14:33) and this is also the mean length of the Gregorian year. Thus Pitatus' solution would have commended itself to the astronomers.

Question: Who was the architect of the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: discrepancies

Question: What did the architects of the calendar notice about the astronomical tables?


Answer: Petrus Pitatus

Question: Whose solution to the discrepancies of the tables would have been agreeable to astronomers?


Answer: 1560

Question: When did Pitatus offer his solution to the leap year problem?


Answer: Gregorian leap year rule

Question: What is the theory about leap year called?


Answer: "Old Style" (OS) and "New Style"

Context: "Old Style" (OS) and "New Style" (NS) are sometimes added to dates to identify which system is used in the British Empire and other countries that did not immediately change. Because the Calendar Act of 1750 altered the start of the year, and also aligned the British calendar with the Gregorian calendar, there is some confusion as to what these terms mean. They can indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January (NS) even though contemporary documents use a different start of year (OS); or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian calendar (OS), formerly in use in many countries, rather than the Gregorian calendar (NS).

Question: What designation was added to British dates to differentiate them from countries not using the new calendar?


Answer: 1750

Question: When was the Calendar act enacted?


Answer: Gregorian calendar

Question: With what did the Calendar Act align the British calendar?


Answer: confusion

Question: What did the use of Old Style and New Style cause?


Answer: Calendar Act of 1750

Question: What law did the British make to cause the use of the Gregorian calendar?


Answer: Julian

Context: The Gregorian calendar improves the approximation made by the Julian calendar by skipping three Julian leap days in every 400 years, giving an average year of 365.2425 mean solar days long. This approximation has an error of about one day per 3,300 years with respect to the mean tropical year. However, because of the precession of the equinoxes, the error with respect to the vernal equinox (which occurs, on average, 365.24237 days apart near 2000) is 1 day every 7,700 years, assuming a constant time interval between vernal equinoxes, which is not true. By any criterion, the Gregorian calendar is substantially more accurate than the 1 day in 128 years error of the Julian calendar (average year 365.25 days).

Question: The Gregorian calendar is an improvement over what other calendar?


Answer: three Julian leap days

Question: How many days must be skipped to align the calendar with mean solar days in a year?


Answer: one day

Question: What is the approximate error for every 3,300 years?


Answer: 1 day

Question: What is the error rate of the vernal equinox per every 7,700 years?


Answer: 1 day in 128 years

Question: What was the error rate in the Julian calendar?


Answer: J Allard

Context: Known during development as Xbox Next, Xenon, Xbox 2, Xbox FS or NextBox, the Xbox 360 was conceived in early 2003. In February 2003, planning for the Xenon software platform began, and was headed by Microsoft's Vice President J Allard. That month, Microsoft held an event for 400 developers in Bellevue, Washington to recruit support for the system. Also that month, Peter Moore, former president of Sega of America, joined Microsoft. On August 12, 2003, ATI signed on to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console, a deal which was publicly announced two days later. Before the launch of the Xbox 360, several Alpha development kits were spotted using Apple's Power Mac G5 hardware. This was because the system's PowerPC 970 processor running the same PowerPC architecture that the Xbox 360 would eventually run under IBM's Xenon processor. The cores of the Xenon processor were developed using a slightly modified version of the PlayStation 3's Cell Processor PPE architecture. According to David Shippy and Mickie Phipps, the IBM employees were "hiding" their work from Sony and Toshiba, IBM's partners in developing the Cell Processor. Jeff Minter created the music visualization program Neon which is included with the Xbox 360.

Question: What Microsoft executive was in charge of 360 development?


Answer: ATI

Question: What manufacturer was enlisted to design the 360's graphics processor?


Answer: Sega of America

Question: Where did Peter Moor work before being recruited to help on the 360?


Answer: Apple's Power Mac G5

Question: Original 360 Alpha dev kits used what existing system's hardware?


Answer: IBM's Xenon processor

Question: What CPU did the 360 use?


Answer: 20 GB

Context: At launch, the Xbox 360 was available in two configurations: the "Xbox 360" package (unofficially known as the 20 GB Pro or Premium), priced at US$399 or GB£279.99, and the "Xbox 360 Core", priced at US$299 and GB£209.99. The original shipment of the Xbox 360 version included a cut-down version of the Media Remote as a promotion. The Elite package was launched later at US$479. The "Xbox 360 Core" was replaced by the "Xbox 360 Arcade" in October 2007 and a 60 GB version of the Xbox 360 Pro was released on August 1, 2008. The Pro package was discontinued and marked down to US$249 on August 28, 2009 to be sold until stock ran out, while the Elite was also marked down in price to US$299.

Question: The Xbox 360 Pro included what size hard drive storage?


Answer: Xbox 360 Core

Question: What was the official name of the lower-priced 360 SKU at launch?


Answer: US$479

Question: The Xbox 360 Elite eventually launched at what price point?


Answer: 60 GB

Question: The 360 Pro's original storage was replaced by a hard drive of what size in 2008?


Answer: Xbox 360 Arcade

Question: What did Microsoft name the SKU that replaced the 360 Core?


Answer: 14 games

Context: The Xbox 360 launched with 14 games in North America and 13 in Europe. The console's best-selling game for 2005, Call of Duty 2, sold over a million copies. Five other games sold over a million copies in the console's first year on the market: Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Dead or Alive 4, Saints Row, and Gears of War. Gears of War would become the best-selling game on the console with 3 million copies in 2006, before being surpassed in 2007 by Halo 3 with over 8 million copies.

Question: How many titles did the 360 have at launch in North America?


Answer: Call of Duty 2

Question: What title was the console's best seller in 2005?


Answer: 8 million copies

Question: How many copies did Halo 3 sell?


Answer: 2007

Question: Halo 3 was released in what year?


Answer: Five

Question: Other than Call of Duty 2, how many games sold at least 1 million copies the first year of the 360?


Answer: Windows Media Video (WMV) format (including high-definition and PlaysForSure videos), as well as H.264 and MPEG-4

Context: The Xbox 360 supports videos in Windows Media Video (WMV) format (including high-definition and PlaysForSure videos), as well as H.264 and MPEG-4 media. The December 2007 dashboard update added support for the playback of MPEG-4 ASP format videos. The console can also display pictures and perform slideshows of photo collections with various transition effects, and supports audio playback, with music player controls accessible through the Xbox 360 Guide button. Users may play back their own music while playing games or using the dashboard, and can play music with an interactive visual synthesizer.

Question: What 3 video formats did the 360 support natively at launch?


Answer: MPEG-4 ASP

Question: Support for what video format was added in 2007?


Answer: the Xbox 360 Guide button

Question: How are music player controls accessed by 360 users?


Answer: transition effects

Question: What is one feature of 360 photo slide shows?


Answer: Xbox Live Silver

Context: When the Xbox 360 was released, Microsoft's online gaming service Xbox Live was shut down for 24 hours and underwent a major upgrade, adding a basic non-subscription service called Xbox Live Silver (later renamed Xbox Live Free) to its already established premium subscription-based service (which was renamed Gold). Xbox Live Free is included with all SKUs of the console. It allows users to create a user profile, join on message boards, and access Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade and Marketplace and talk to other members. A Live Free account does not generally support multiplayer gaming; however, some games that have rather limited online functions already, (such as Viva Piñata) or games that feature their own subscription service (e.g. EA Sports games) can be played with a Free account. Xbox Live also supports voice the latter a feature possible with the Xbox Live Vision.

Question: What was the name of the non-subscription Xbox online gaming service?


Answer: Gold

Question: What was the "color" name given to the premium version of Xbox Live?


Answer: multiplayer gaming

Question: What key feature is not supported by the free version of Live?


Answer: EA Sports games

Question: Which popular gaming titles have their own online service outside Xbox Live?


Answer: Xbox Live Vision

Question: Voice support came online with what feature addition?


Answer: Xbox Live

Context: The Xbox 360 features an online service, Xbox Live, which was expanded from its previous iteration on the original Xbox and received regular updates during the console's lifetime. Available in free and subscription-based varieties, Xbox Live allows users to: play games online; download games (through Xbox Live Arcade) and game demos; purchase and stream music, television programs, and films through the Xbox Music and Xbox Video portals; and access third-party content services through media streaming applications. In addition to online multimedia features, the Xbox 360 allows users to stream media from local PCs. Several peripherals have been released, including wireless controllers, expanded hard drive storage, and the Kinect motion sensing camera. The release of these additional services and peripherals helped the Xbox brand grow from gaming-only to encompassing all multimedia, turning it into a hub for living-room computing entertainment.

Question: What is the name of the 360's online service?


Answer: Xbox Live Arcade

Question: What is the name of the feature that allows users to download games from Live?


Answer: stream media

Question: What can people owning both a PC and 360 do?


Answer: the Kinect

Question: What is the name of the 360's motion sensing camera peripheral?


Answer: a hub for living-room computing entertainment

Question: The 360's multimedia capabilities transformed it from a game console to what?


Answer: 7.5 games per console in the US

Context: The Xbox 360's advantage over its competitors was due to the release of high profile titles from both first party and third party developers. The 2007 Game Critics Awards honored the platform with 38 nominations and 12 wins – more than any other platform. By March 2008, the Xbox 360 had reached a software attach rate of 7.5 games per console in the US; the rate was 7.0 in Europe, while its competitors were 3.8 (PS3) and 3.5 (Wii), according to Microsoft. At the 2008 Game Developers Conference, Microsoft announced that it expected over 1,000 games available for Xbox 360 by the end of the year. As well as enjoying exclusives such as additions to the Halo franchise and Gears of War, the Xbox 360 has managed to gain a simultaneous release of titles that were initially planned to be PS3 exclusives, including Devil May Cry, Ace Combat, Virtua Fighter, Grand Theft Auto IV, Final Fantasy XIII, Tekken 6, Metal Gear Solid : Rising, and L.A. Noire. In addition, Xbox 360 versions of cross-platform games were generally considered superior to their PS3 counterparts in 2006 and 2007, due in part to the difficulties of programming for the PS3.

Question: What was the software attach rate in the US for the 360 by March of 2008?


Answer: the Halo franchise and Gears of War

Question: What are two prominent 360 exclusive franchises?


Answer: the difficulties of programming for the PS3

Question: Why were early multi-platform games considered superior on the 360?


Answer: Game Critics Awards

Question: The 360 earned 38 nominations and 12 wins from what organization in 2007?


Answer: over 1,000

Question: Microsoft hoped to have how many titles available for the 360 by the end of 2008?


Answer: "General Hardware Failure" error

Context: To aid customers with defective consoles, Microsoft extended the Xbox 360's manufacturer's warranty to three years for hardware failure problems that generate a "General Hardware Failure" error report. A "General Hardware Failure" is recognized on all models released before the Xbox 360 S by three quadrants of the ring around the power button flashing red. This error is often known as the "Red Ring of Death". In April 2009 the warranty was extended to also cover failures related to the E74 error code. The warranty extension is not granted for any other types of failures that do not generate these specific error codes.

Question: What hardware defect code plagued the 360?


Answer: Red Ring of Death

Question: What is the flashing indicator of a general hardware error known as?


Answer: Microsoft extended the Xbox 360's manufacturer's warranty to three years

Question: How did Microsoft react to general hardware error problems?


Answer: E74 error code

Question: What other error code was eventually covered by this warranty extension?


Answer: the ring around the power button

Question: Where did users see the flashing light error codes display on their 360s?


Answer: IGN

Context: In 2009, IGN named the Xbox 360 the sixth-greatest video game console of all time, out of a field of 25. Although not the best-selling console of the seventh-generation, the Xbox 360 was deemed by TechRadar to be the most influential, by emphasizing digital media distribution and online gaming through Xbox Live, and by popularizing game achievement awards. PC Magazine considered the Xbox 360 the prototype for online gaming as it "proved that online gaming communities could thrive in the console space". Five years after the Xbox 360's original debut, the well-received Kinect motion capture camera was released, which set the record of being the fastest selling consumer electronic device in history, and extended the life of the console. Edge ranked Xbox 360 the second-best console of the 1993–2013 period, stating "It had its own social network, cross-game chat, new indie games every week, and the best version of just about every multiformat game...Killzone is no Halo and nowadays Gran Turismo is no Forza, but it's not about the exclusives—there's nothing to trump Naughty Dog's PS3 output, after all. Rather, it's about the choices Microsoft made back in the original Xbox's lifetime. The PC-like architecture meant those early EA Sports titles ran at 60fps compared to only 30 on PS3, Xbox Live meant every dedicated player had an existing friends list, and Halo meant Microsoft had the killer next-generation exclusive. And when developers demo games on PC now they do it with a 360 pad—another industry benchmark, and a critical one."

Question: What online source called the 360 the 6th greatest console of all time in 2009?


Answer: most influential

Question: TechRadar honored the 360 by calling it what?


Answer: Kinect

Question: What 360 peripheral was the fastest selling consumer electronic device in history?


Answer: online gaming

Question: According to PC Magazine, the 360 created the prototype for what?


Answer: Edge

Question: What magazine ranked the 360 as the second best console of the 1993-2013 period?


Answer: collapse of third-party software support in its later years

Context: The Xbox 360 sold much better than its predecessor, and although not the best-selling console of the seventh-generation, it is regarded as a success since it strengthened Microsoft as a major force in the console market at the expense of well-established rivals. The inexpensive Nintendo Wii did sell the most console units but eventually saw a collapse of third-party software support in its later years, and it has been viewed by some as a fad since the succeeding Wii U had a poor debut in 2012. The PlayStation 3 struggled for a time due to being too expensive and initially lacking quality titles, making it far less dominant than its predecessor, the PlayStation 2, and it took until late in the PlayStation 3's lifespan for its sales and game titles to reach parity with the Xbox 360. TechRadar proclaimed that "Xbox 360 passes the baton as the king of the hill – a position that puts all the more pressure on its successor, Xbox One".

Question: What problem hurt Nintendo's Wii console?


Answer: due to being too expensive and initially lacking quality titles

Question: The Playstation 3 originally struggled for market share for what reasons?


Answer: it strengthened Microsoft as a major force in the console market

Question: Why was the 360 considered a market success for Microsoft?


Answer: Xbox One

Question: What is the successor to the 360 called?


Answer: Nintendo Wii

Question: Which console sold the most units in the seventh generation era?


Answer: Xbox 360 Dashboard

Context: The Xbox 360's original graphical user interface was the Xbox 360 Dashboard; a tabbed interface that featured five "Blades" (formerly four blades), and was designed by AKQA and Audiobrain. It could be launched automatically when the console booted without a disc in it, or when the disc tray was ejected, but the user had the option to select what the console does if a game is in the tray on start up, or if inserted when already on. A simplified version of it was also accessible at any time via the Xbox Guide button on the gamepad. This simplified version showed the user's gamercard, Xbox Live messages and friends list. It also allowed for personal and music settings, in addition to voice or video chats, or returning to the Xbox Dashboard from the game.

Question: What was the original user interface for the 360 called?


Answer: AKQA and Audiobrain

Question: Who designed this user interface?


Answer: the Xbox Guide button on the gamepad

Question: The simple dashboard could be accessed by pressing what controller button?


Answer: five

Question: How many tabs were on the 360 dashboard interface?


Answer: Blades

Question: The tabs on the user interface were called what?


Answer: Ms. Pac-Man

Context: Xbox Live Arcade is an online service operated by Microsoft that is used to distribute downloadable video games to Xbox and Xbox 360 owners. In addition to classic arcade games such as Ms. Pac-Man, the service offers some new original games like Assault Heroes. The Xbox Live Arcade also features games from other consoles, such as the PlayStation game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and PC games such as Zuma. The service was first launched on November 3, 2004, using a DVD to load, and offered games for about US$5 to $15. Items are purchased using Microsoft Points, a proprietary currency used to reduce credit card transaction charges. On November 22, 2005, Xbox Live Arcade was re-launched with the release of the Xbox 360, in which it was now integrated with the Xbox 360's dashboard. The games are generally aimed toward more casual gamers; examples of the more popular titles are Geometry Wars, Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting, and Uno. On March 24, 2010, Microsoft introduced the Game Room to Xbox Live. Game Room is a gaming service for Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows that lets players compete in classic arcade and console games in a virtual arcade.

Question: What was a classic title originally offered by the Xbox Live Arcade?


Answer: Assault Heroes

Question: What was a new, original title originally available from Arcade?


Answer: November 3, 2004

Question: What date did the Xbox Live Arcade launch on?


Answer: November 22, 2005

Question: When was Arcade Live relaunched with 360 support?


Answer: Game Room

Question: What is the name of the online virtual arcade that launched in 2010?


Answer: Consumer Electronics Shows

Context: At the 2007, 2008, and 2009 Consumer Electronics Shows, Microsoft had announced that IPTV services would soon be made available to use through the Xbox 360. In 2007, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates stated that IPTV on Xbox 360 was expected to be available to consumers by the holiday season, using the Microsoft TV IPTV Edition platform. In 2008, Gates and president of Entertainment & Devices Robbie Bach announced a partnership with BT in the United Kingdom, in which the BT Vision advanced TV service, using the newer Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform, would be accessible via Xbox 360, planned for the middle of the year. BT Vision's DVR-based features would not be available on Xbox 360 due to limited hard drive capacity. In 2010, while announcing version 2.0 of Microsoft Mediaroom, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mentioned that AT&T's U-verse IPTV service would enable Xbox 360s to be used as set-top boxes later in the year. As of January 2010, IPTV on Xbox 360 has yet to be deployed beyond limited trials.

Question: At what conventions did Microsoft announce IPTV support through the 360?


Answer: Bill Gates

Question: Which Microsoft executive announced IPTV as "soon" in 2007?


Answer: Robbie Bach

Question: Who was Microsoft's president of Entertainment & Devices in 2008?


Answer: BT

Question: What UK company did Microsoft partner with to bring IPTV to the 360?


Answer: Steve Ballmer

Question: What Microsoft executive announced the launch of version 2.0 of Mediaroom?


Answer: Xbox Live Marketplace

Context: The Xbox Live Marketplace is a virtual market designed for the console that allows Xbox Live users to download purchased or promotional content. The service offers movie and game trailers, game demos, Xbox Live Arcade games and Xbox 360 Dashboard themes as well as add-on game content (items, costumes, levels etc.). These features are available to both Free and Gold members on Xbox Live. A hard drive or memory unit is required to store products purchased from Xbox Live Marketplace. In order to download priced content, users are required to purchase Microsoft Points for use as scrip; though some products (such as trailers and demos) are free to download. Microsoft Points can be obtained through prepaid cards in 1,600 and 4,000-point denominations. Microsoft Points can also be purchased through Xbox Live with a credit card in 500, 1,000, 2,000 and 5,000-point denominations. Users are able to view items available to download on the service through a PC via the Xbox Live Marketplace website. An estimated seventy percent of Xbox Live users have downloaded items from the Marketplace.

Question: What XBox Live service allows users to buy games and downloadable content?


Answer: Free and Gold members

Question: Which levels of Xbox Live membership may access the Marketplace?


Answer: A hard drive or memory unit

Question: What hardware is required to use the Marketplace?


Answer: Microsoft Points

Question: What virtual currency is used to make Marketplace purchases?


Answer: 1,600 and 4,000

Question: Prepaid cards for Microsoft Points are available in what denominations?


Answer: 2005–2006

Context: Launched worldwide across 2005–2006, the Xbox 360 was initially in short supply in many regions, including North America and Europe. The earliest versions of the console suffered from a high failure rate, indicated by the so-called "Red Ring of Death", necessitating an extension of the device's warranty period. Microsoft released two redesigned models of the console: the Xbox 360 S in 2010, and the Xbox 360 E in 2013. As of June 2014, 84 million Xbox 360 consoles have been sold worldwide, making it the sixth-highest-selling video game console in history, and the highest-selling console made by an American company. Although not the best-selling console of its generation, the Xbox 360 was deemed by TechRadar to be the most influential through its emphasis on digital media distribution and multiplayer gaming on Xbox Live. The Xbox 360's successor, the Xbox One, was released on November 22, 2013. Microsoft has stated they plan to support the Xbox 360 until 2016. The Xbox One is also backwards compatible with the Xbox 360.

Question: What was the initial launch window of the 360 console?


Answer: high failure rate

Question: What was one adverse condition that characterized early versions of the console?


Answer: Xbox 360 S in 2010, and the Xbox 360 E in 2013

Question: What were the designations of the two redesigned 360 models and when did they come out?


Answer: 84 million

Question: As of June 2014, how many 360s across all SKUs have been sold worldwide?


Answer: November 22, 2013

Question: When did the Xbox One launch?


Answer: 10 million

Context: In May 2008 Microsoft announced that 10 million Xbox 360s had been sold and that it was the "first current generation gaming console" to surpass the 10 million figure in the US. In the US, the Xbox 360 was the leader in current-generation home console sales until June 2008, when it was surpassed by the Wii. The Xbox 360 has sold a total of 870,000 units in Canada as of August 1, 2008. Between January 2011 and October 2013, the Xbox 360 was the best-selling console in the United States for these 32 consecutive months.

Question: What sales figure was the 360 the first console of its generation to surpass?


Answer: June 2008

Question: When did the 360 surrender its lead in total sales?


Answer: the Wii

Question: What console eventually passed the 360 in total sales?


Answer: January 2011 and October 2013

Question: During what 32-month later period was the 360 the best selling console?


Answer: May 2008

Question: When did the Xbox achieve 10 million units sold?


Answer: game achievement feature

Context: TechRadar deemed the Xbox 360 as the most influential game system through its emphasis of digital media distribution, Xbox Live online gaming service, and game achievement feature. During the console's lifetime, the Xbox brand has grown from gaming-only to encompassing all multimedia, turning it into a hub for "living-room computing environment". Five years after the Xbox 360's original debut, the well-received Kinect motion capture camera was released, which became the fastest selling consumer electronic device in history, and extended the life of the console.

Question: Besides online gaming and media distribution, what other feature made the 360 influential, according to TechRadar?


Answer: Five years

Question: How many years after initial launch of the console was Kinect released?


Answer: extended the life of the console

Question: Besides it's features, what did Kinect do for the 360 in terms of sales?


Answer: motion capture camera

Question: What is Kinect?


Answer: a "controller-free gaming and entertainment experience"

Context: Kinect is a "controller-free gaming and entertainment experience" for the Xbox 360. It was first announced on June 1, 2009 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, under the codename, Project Natal. The add-on peripheral enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without a game controller by using gestures, spoken commands and presented objects and images. The Kinect accessory is compatible with all Xbox 360 models, connecting to new models via a custom connector, and to older ones via a USB and mains power adapter. During their CES 2010 keynote speech, Robbie Bach and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer went on to say that Kinect will be released during the holiday period (November–January) and it will work with every 360 console. Its name and release date of 2010-11-04 were officially announced on 2010-06-13, prior to Microsoft's press conference at E3 2010.

Question: How did Microsoft describe Kinect?


Answer: June 1, 2009

Question: When was Kinect first announced?


Answer: Electronic Entertainment Expo

Question: At what event was Kinect announced?


Answer: Project Natal

Question: What was the secret code name for Kinect while in development?


Answer: by using gestures, spoken commands and presented objects and images

Question: How can users utilize the Kinect to interact with their 360 consoles?


Answer: a reduction in the number, size, and placement of components

Context: Since these problems surfaced, Microsoft has attempted to modify the console to improve its reliability. Modifications include a reduction in the number, size, and placement of components, the addition of dabs of epoxy on the corners and edges of the CPU and GPU as glue to prevent movement relative to the board during heat expansion, and a second GPU heatsink to dissipate more heat. With the release of the redesigned Xbox 360 S, the warranty for the newer models does not include the three-year extended coverage for "General Hardware Failures". The newer Xbox 360 S model indicates system overheating when the console's power button begins to flash red, unlike previous models where the first and third quadrant of the ring would light up red around the power button if overheating occurred. The system will then warn the user of imminent system shutdown until the system has cooled, whereas a flashing power button that alternates between green and red is an indication of a "General Hardware Failure" unlike older models where three of the quadrants would light up red.

Question: How did Microsoft modify the architecture of the 360 to reduce failure rates?


Answer: heat

Question: What was the root cause of hardware failures with the 360?


Answer: system overheating

Question: When the newer 360 S models have their power buttons flash red, it means?


Answer: imminent system shutdown until the system has cooled

Question: How does the 360 S then react to an overheating situation?


Answer: dabs of epoxy on the corners and edges

Question: How did Microsoft attempt to deal with potential heat-related expansion with GPU and CPU components?


Answer: Xbox Video Marketplace

Context: On November 6, 2006, Microsoft announced the Xbox Video Marketplace, an exclusive video store accessible through the console. Launched in the United States on November 22, 2006, the first anniversary of the Xbox 360's launch, the service allows users in the United States to download high-definition and standard-definition television shows and movies onto an Xbox 360 console for viewing. With the exception of short clips, content is not currently available for streaming, and must be downloaded. Movies are also available for rental. They expire in 14 days after download or at the end of the first 24 hours after the movie has begun playing, whichever comes first. Television episodes can be purchased to own, and are transferable to an unlimited number of consoles. Downloaded files use 5.1 surround audio and are encoded using VC-1 for video at 720p, with a bitrate of 6.8 Mbit/s. Television content is offered from MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Turner Broadcasting, and CBS; and movie content is Warner Bros., Paramount, and Disney, along with other publishers.

Question: What was the name of the 360's video store service?


Answer: November 22, 2006

Question: When was this video service launched?


Answer: 14 days after download or at the end of the first 24 hours after the movie has begun playing

Question: When do movies rented through this marketplace expire?


Answer: 720p

Question: What resolution are videos sold through this service?


Answer: 5.1 surround audio

Question: What sound standard is supported for the marketplace videos?


Answer: sold poorly

Context: While the original Xbox sold poorly in Japan, selling just 2 million units while it was on the market (between 2002 and 2005),[citation needed] the Xbox 360 sold even more poorly, selling only 1.5 million units from 2005 to 2011. Edge magazine reported in August 2011 that initially lackluster and subsequently falling sales in Japan, where Microsoft had been unable to make serious inroads into the dominance of domestic rivals Sony and Nintendo, had led to retailers scaling down and in some cases discontinuing sales of the Xbox 360 completely.

Question: How did the original Xbox fare in Japan in general?


Answer: 2 million units

Question: How many original Xboxes were sold in Japan between 2002 and 2005?


Answer: 1.5 million units

Question: Between 2005 and 2011, how many 360 consoles were sold in Japan?


Answer: Sony and Nintendo

Question: What two console manufacturers dominate the Japanese market?


Answer: scaling down and in some cases discontinuing sales

Question: Lackluster sales caused Japanese retailers to take what action with the 360?


Answer: Two

Context: Two major hardware revisions of the Xbox 360 have succeeded the original models; the Xbox 360 S (also referred to as the "Slim") replaced the original "Elite" and "Arcade" models in 2010. The S model carries a smaller, streamlined appearance with an angular case, and utilizes a redesigned motherboard designed to alleviate the hardware and overheating issues experienced by prior models. It also includes a proprietary port for use with the Kinect sensor. The Xbox 360 E, a further streamlined variation of the 360 S with a two-tone rectangular case inspired by Xbox One, was released in 2013. In addition to its revised aesthetics, Xbox 360 E also has one fewer USB port and no longer supports S/PDIF.

Question: How many major hardware revisions has the 360 had?


Answer: "Slim"

Question: By what other name is the 360 S model known?


Answer: the original "Elite" and "Arcade" models

Question: Which SKUs did the 360 S replace?


Answer: a redesigned motherboard

Question: What component of the 360 S prevents overheating issues prevalent in prior versions?


Answer: S/PDIF

Question: What video input format is not supported by the 360 E?


Answer: Six

Context: Six games were initially available in Japan, while eagerly anticipated titles such as Dead or Alive 4 and Enchanted Arms were released in the weeks following the console's launch. Games targeted specifically for the region, such as Chromehounds, Ninety-Nine Nights, and Phantasy Star Universe, were also released in the console's first year. Microsoft also had the support of Japanese developer Mistwalker, founded by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi. Mistwalker's first game, Blue Dragon, was released in 2006 and had a limited-edition bundle which sold out quickly with over 10,000 pre-orders. Blue Dragon is one of three Xbox 360 games to surpass 200,000 units in Japan, along with Tales of Vesperia and Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Mistwalker's second game, Lost Odyssey also sold over 100,000 copies.

Question: How many launch titles did the 360 have in Japan?


Answer: Mistwalker

Question: What was the name of the Japanese developer that strongly supported the 360?


Answer: Blue Dragon

Question: What was Mistwalker's first title for the 360?


Answer: 200,000 units

Question: Blue Dragon surpassed this sales figure in Japan?


Answer: Lost Odyssey

Question: What was Mistwalker's second 360 title to be released?


Answer: Windows XP with Service pack 2 or higher

Context: Music, photos and videos can be played from standard USB mass storage devices, Xbox 360 proprietary storage devices (such as memory cards or Xbox 360 hard drives), and servers or computers with Windows Media Center or Windows XP with Service pack 2 or higher within the local-area network in streaming mode. As the Xbox 360 uses a modified version of the UPnP AV protocol, some alternative UPnP servers such as uShare (part of the GeeXboX project) and MythTV can also stream media to the Xbox 360, allowing for similar functionality from non-Windows servers. This is possible with video files up to HD-resolution and with several codecs (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV) and container formats (WMV, MOV, TS).

Question: What PC operating system is required to stream content to a 360?


Answer: UPnP

Question: What modified AV protocol does the 360 utilize?


Answer: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV

Question: What codecs are supported for 360 streaming from uShare?


Answer: WMV, MOV, TS

Question: What video formats are supported for UPnP streaming?


Answer: integrated online game playing capabilities outside of third-party subscriptions

Context: Xbox Live Gold includes the same features as Free and includes integrated online game playing capabilities outside of third-party subscriptions. Microsoft has allowed previous Xbox Live subscribers to maintain their profile information, friends list, and games history when they make the transition to Xbox Live Gold. To transfer an Xbox Live account to the new system, users need to link a Windows Live ID to their gamertag on Xbox.com. When users add an Xbox Live enabled profile to their console, they are required to provide the console with their passport account information and the last four digits of their credit card number, which is used for verification purposes and billing. An Xbox Live Gold account has an annual cost of US$59.99, C$59.99, NZ$90.00, GB£39.99, or €59.99. As of January 5, 2011, Xbox Live has over 30 million subscribers.

Question: What extra features do Xbox Live Gold members get?


Answer: profile information, friends list, and games history

Question: What information does Microsoft allow users to retain when transitioning Live subscriptions?


Answer: users need to link a Windows Live ID to their gamertag on Xbox.com

Question: What does a user need to do to transfer a Live account to the new system?


Answer: $59.99

Question: What is the annual cost of a Live Gold membership in USD?


Answer: 30 million

Question: How many users are subscribed to Xbox Live?


Answer: the Zune

Context: On May 26, 2009, Microsoft announced the future release of the Zune HD (in the fall of 2009), the next addition to the Zune product range. This is of an impact on the Xbox Live Video Store as it was also announced that the Zune Video Marketplace and the Xbox Live Video Store will be merged to form the Zune Marketplace, which will be arriving on Xbox Live in 7 countries initially, the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and Spain. Further details were released at the Microsoft press conference at E3 2009.

Question: What hardware device was merged with the video marketplace?


Answer: E3 2009

Question: Where and when was the Zune HD marketplace announced?


Answer: Xbox Live Video Store

Question: The Zune video marketplace was merged with what Live feature?


Answer: Zune Marketplace

Question: What was the new name of this Live video store?


Answer: 7

Question: How many countries were slated for the Zune Marketplace launch?


Answer: 1689

Context: Beginning in 1689, the colonies became involved in a series of wars between Great Britain and France for control of North America, the most important of which were Queen Anne's War, in which the British conquered French colony Acadia, and the final French and Indian War (1754–63) when Britain was victorious over all the French colonies in North America. This final war was to give thousands of colonists, including Virginia colonel George Washington, military experience which they put to use during the American Revolutionary War.

Question: When did wars between Britain and France in North America start?


Answer: Queen Anne's War

Question: What was the most important North American conflict between France and Britain called?


Answer: Acadia

Question: What French colony did Great Britain conquer in Queen Anne's War?


Answer: 1754–63

Question: When was the final French and Indian War fought?


Answer: George Washington

Question: What future American founding father fought in the French and Indian War?


Answer: the War of 1812

Context: By far the largest military action in which the United States engaged during this era was the War of 1812. With Britain locked in a major war with Napoleon's France, its policy was to block American shipments to France. The United States sought to remain neutral while pursuing overseas trade. Britain cut the trade and impressed seamen on American ships into the Royal Navy, despite intense protests. Britain supported an Indian insurrection in the American Midwest, with the goal of creating an Indian state there that would block American expansion. The United States finally declared war on the United Kingdom in 1812, the first time the U.S. had officially declared war. Not hopeful of defeating the Royal Navy, the U.S. attacked the British Empire by invading British Canada, hoping to use captured territory as a bargaining chip. The invasion of Canada was a debacle, though concurrent wars with Native Americans on the western front (Tecumseh's War and the Creek War) were more successful. After defeating Napoleon in 1814, Britain sent large veteran armies to invade New York, raid Washington and capture the key control of the Mississippi River at New Orleans. The New York invasion was a fiasco after the much larger British army retreated to Canada. The raiders succeeded in the burning of Washington on 25 August 1814, but were repulsed in their Chesapeake Bay Campaign at the Battle of Baltimore and the British commander killed. The major invasion in Louisiana was stopped by a one-sided military battle that killed the top three British generals and thousands of soldiers. The winners were the commanding general of the Battle of New Orleans, Major General Andrew Jackson, who became president and the Americans who basked in a victory over a much more powerful nation. The peace treaty proved successful, and the U.S. and Britain never again went to war. The losers were the Indians, who never gained the independent territory in the Midwest promised by Britain.

Question: What was the biggest war the US got involved with in the early 19th century?


Answer: a major war with Napoleon's France

Question: What conflict caused Britain to blockade trade?


Answer: Indian insurrection

Question: What uprising did Britain support in North America?


Answer: the United Kingdom

Question: What country was the first the US ever declared war upon?


Answer: invading British Canada, hoping to use captured territory as a bargaining chip

Question: What was the initial US strategy in the War of 1812?


Answer: Elihu Root

Context: Secretary of War Elihu Root (1899–1904) led the modernization of the Army. His goal of a uniformed chief of staff as general manager and a European-type general staff for planning was stymied by General Nelson A. Miles but did succeed in enlarging West Point and establishing the U.S. Army War College as well as the General Staff. Root changed the procedures for promotions and organized schools for the special branches of the service. He also devised the principle of rotating officers from staff to line. Root was concerned about the Army's role in governing the new territories acquired in 1898 and worked out the procedures for turning Cuba over to the Cubans, and wrote the charter of government for the Philippines.

Question: Who was the Secretary of War who modernized the US military at the beginning of the 20th century?


Answer: West Point

Question: Which military academy did Root help grow?


Answer: General Staff

Question: What military advisement committee was established by Root?


Answer: the principle of rotating officers from staff to line

Question: What officer rotation doctrine was developed under Root's guidance?


Answer: the Philippines

Question: What then-US protectorate did Root write a government charter for?


Answer: neutral

Context: The United States originally wished to remain neutral when World War I broke out in August 1914. However, it insisted on its right as a neutral party to immunity from German submarine attack, even though its ships carried food and raw materials to Britain. In 1917 the Germans resumed submarine attacks, knowing that it would lead to American entry. When the U.S declared war, the U.S. army was still small by European standards and mobilization would take a year. Meanwhile, the U.S. continued to provide supplies and money to Britain and France, and initiated the first peacetime draft. Industrial mobilization took longer than expected, so divisions were sent to Europe without equipment, relying instead on the British and French to supply them.

Question: When World War I started, what was the official US position?


Answer: August 1914

Question: When did World War I commence?


Answer: submarine attacks

Question: What German war policy precipitated US involvement in WWI?


Answer: 1917

Question: What year did the US enter World War I?


Answer: peacetime draft

Question: The United States built its army prior to joining the war in what way?


Answer: Containment

Context: Memories and lessons from the war are still a major factor in American politics. One side views the war as a necessary part of the Containment policy, which allowed the enemy to choose the time and place of warfare. Others note the U.S. made major strategic gains as the Communists were defeated in Indonesia, and by 1972 both Moscow and Beijing were competing for American support, at the expense of their allies in Hanoi. Critics see the conflict as a "quagmire"—an endless waste of American blood and treasure in a conflict that did not concern US interests. Fears of another quagmire have been major factors in foreign policy debates ever since. The draft became extremely unpopular, and President Nixon ended it in 1973, forcing the military (the Army especially) to rely entirely upon volunteers. That raised the issue of how well the professional military reflected overall American society and values; the soldiers typically took the position that their service represented the highest and best American values.

Question: The Vietnam War was an element of what US diplomatic policy?


Answer: Indonesia

Question: Communists were defeated in what country in 1972?


Answer: a "quagmire"

Question: What term did critics of the Vietnam War use to describe it?


Answer: 1973

Question: When did the draft end?


Answer: 1973

Question: Which president ended the draft?


Answer: 34

Context: The Persian Gulf War was a conflict between Iraq and a coalition force of 34 nations led by the United States. The lead up to the war began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 which was met with immediate economic sanctions by the United Nations against Iraq. The coalition commenced hostilities in January 1991, resulting in a decisive victory for the U.S. led coalition forces, which drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait with minimal coalition deaths. Despite the low death toll, over 180,000 US veterans would later be classified as "permanently disabled" according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs (see Gulf War Syndrome). The main battles were aerial and ground combat within Iraq, Kuwait and bordering areas of Saudi Arabia. Land combat did not expand outside of the immediate Iraq/Kuwait/Saudi border region, although the coalition bombed cities and strategic targets across Iraq, and Iraq fired missiles on Israeli and Saudi cities.

Question: How many nations were against Iraq in the US-led coalition?


Answer: the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait

Question: What precipitated the Persian Gulf War?


Answer: August 1990

Question: When did this precipitating event take place?


Answer: January 1991

Question: When did hostilities in the Persian Gulf War begin?


Answer: 180,000

Question: How many US veterans of the Persian Gulf War have been classed as permanently disabled?


Answer: Somalia

Context: US troops participated in a UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia beginning in 1992. By 1993 the US troops were augmented with Rangers and special forces with the aim of capturing warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, whose forces had massacred peacekeepers from Pakistan. During a raid in downtown Mogadishu, US troops became trapped overnight by a general uprising in the Battle of Mogadishu. Eighteen American soldiers were killed, and a US television crew filmed graphic images of the body of one soldier being dragged through the streets by an angry mob. Somali guerrillas paid a staggering toll at an estimated 1,000–5,000 total casualties during the conflict. After much public disapproval, American forces were quickly withdrawn by President Bill Clinton. The incident profoundly affected US thinking about peacekeeping and intervention. The book Black Hawk Down was written about the battle, and was the basis for the later movie of the same name.

Question: In what African country did US troops participate in peacekeeping operations?


Answer: Mohamed Farrah Aidid

Question: What was the name of the Somalian warlord who directed massacres of peacekeeping troops?


Answer: Mogadishu

Question: In what Somalian city did American troops become trapped?


Answer: Eighteen

Question: How many US soldiers were killed in the battle of Mogadishu?


Answer: Black Hawk Down

Question: What is the title of the book and movie about the Mogadishu uprising?


Answer: January 2002

Context: In January 2002, the U.S. sent more than 1,200 troops (later raised to 2,000) to assist the Armed Forces of the Philippines in combating terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida, such as Abu Sayyaf, under Operation Enduring Freedom - Philippines. Operations have taken place mostly in the Sulu Archipelago, where terrorists and other groups are active. The majority of troops provide logistics. However, there are special forces troops that are training and assisting in combat operations against the terrorist groups.

Question: When did the US send troops to the Philippines to battle terrorists?


Answer: al-Qaida

Question: Terrorists in the Philippines were linked to what larger terrorist organization?


Answer: the Sulu Archipelago

Question: Where did anti-terrorist fighting take place?


Answer: 1,200

Question: How many troops did the US initially send to the Philippines?


Answer: Abu Sayyaf

Question: What was the name of the Philippine terrorist group the US was sent to help combat?


Answer: Saratoga

Context: The British, for their part, lacked both a unified command and a clear strategy for winning. With the use of the Royal Navy, the British were able to capture coastal cities, but control of the countryside eluded them. A British sortie from Canada in 1777 ended with the disastrous surrender of a British army at Saratoga. With the coming in 1777 of General von Steuben, the training and discipline along Prussian lines began, and the Continental Army began to evolve into a modern force. France and Spain then entered the war against Great Britain as Allies of the US, ending its naval advantage and escalating the conflict into a world war. The Netherlands later joined France, and the British were outnumbered on land and sea in a world war, as they had no major allies apart from Indian tribes.

Question: What battle ended a British invasion from Canada in the Revolutionary War?


Answer: 1777

Question: When was the battle of Saratoga fought?


Answer: General von Steuben

Question: What Prussian expatriate helped train the Continental army?


Answer: France and Spain

Question: What two European countries entered the Revolutionary War against Britain?


Answer: its naval advantage

Question: What advantage did Britain lose when the European countries entered the war?


Answer: to remain neutral

Context: When revolutionary France declared war on Great Britain in 1793, the United States sought to remain neutral, but the Jay Treaty, which was favorable to Great Britain, angered the French government, which viewed it as a violation of the 1778 Treaty of Alliance. French privateers began to seize U.S. vessels, which led to an undeclared "Quasi-War" between the two nations. Fought at sea from 1798 to 1800, the United States won a string of victories in the Caribbean. George Washington was called out of retirement to head a "provisional army" in case of invasion by France, but President John Adams managed to negotiate a truce, in which France agreed to terminate the prior alliance and cease its attacks.

Question: What was the US policy when France declared war on England in 1793?


Answer: the Jay Treaty

Question: What treaty with England conflicted with the United States' Treaty of Alliance with France?


Answer: the Caribbean

Question: Where did US ships and French privateers fight between 1798 and 1800?


Answer: John Adams

Question: What US President negotiated a truce with France to end the undeclared war at sea?


Answer: 1778

Question: When was the Treaty of Alliance with France signed?


Answer: Treaty of Paris

Context: In the Treaty of Paris after the Revolution, the British had ceded the lands between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the United States, without consulting the Shawnee, Cherokee, Choctaw and other smaller tribes who lived there. Because many of the tribes had fought as allies of the British, the United States compelled tribal leaders to sign away lands in postwar treaties, and began dividing these lands for settlement. This provoked a war in the Northwest Territory in which the U.S. forces performed poorly; the Battle of the Wabash in 1791 was the most severe defeat ever suffered by the United States at the hands of American Indians. President Washington dispatched a newly trained army to the region, which decisively defeated the Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794.

Question: What treaty ceded territory to the US extending west to the Mississippi River?


Answer: Shawnee, Cherokee, Choctaw

Question: What three major tribes occupied these formerly British territories?


Answer: 1791

Question: When was the Battle of Wabash fought?


Answer: the Battle of Fallen Timbers

Question: What was the decisive battle in the Northwest territories against the native population there?


Answer: 1794

Question: When was this deciding battle fought?


Answer: the Mason–Dixon line

Context: Sectional tensions had long existed between the states located north of the Mason–Dixon line and those south of it, primarily centered on the "peculiar institution" of slavery and the ability of states to overrule the decisions of the national government. During the 1840s and 1850s, conflicts between the two sides became progressively more violent. After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 (who southerners thought would work to end slavery) states in the South seceded from the United States, beginning with South Carolina in late 1860. On April 12, 1861, forces of the South (known as the Confederate States of America or simply the Confederacy) opened fire on Fort Sumter, whose garrison was loyal to the Union.

Question: What dividing line separated slave states from free states?


Answer: 1860

Question: When was Lincoln elected?


Answer: states in the South seceded from the United States

Question: How did slave states react to Lincoln's election?


Answer: April 12, 1861

Question: When did Confederate forces bombard Fort Sumter?


Answer: South Carolina

Question: What was the first state to formally secede?