QUES: The Space Race was a 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, enabled by captured German rocket technology and personnel. The technological superiority required for such supremacy was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, unmanned space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon. The competition began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites for the International Geophysical Year, by declaring they would also launch a satellite "in the near future". The Soviet Union beat the US to this, with the October 4, 1957 orbiting of Sputnik 1, and later beat the US to the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961. The Space Race peaked with the July 20, 1969 US landing of the first humans on the Moon with Apollo 11. The USSR tried but failed manned lunar missions, and eventually cancelled them and concentrated on Earth orbital space stations. A period of detente followed with the April 1972 agreement on a co-operative ApolloSoyuz Test Project, resulting in the July 1975 rendezvous in Earth orbit of a US astronaut crew with a Soviet cosmonaut crew.

On what date did the Space Race begin?
What is the answer?
ANS: August 2, 1955
QUES: Minority leaders may engage in numerous activities to publicize their party's priorities and to criticize the opposition's. For instance, to keep their party colleagues "on message," they insure that partisan colleagues are sent packets of suggested press releases or "talking points" for constituent meetings in their districts; they help to organize "town meetings" in Members' districts around the country to publicize the party's agenda or a specific priority, such as health care or education; they sponsor party "retreats" to discuss issues and assess the party's public image; they create "theme teams" to craft party messages that might be raised during the one-minute, morning hour, or special order period in the House; they conduct surveys of party colleagues to discern their policy preferences; they establish websites that highlight and distribute party images and issues to users; and they organize task forces or issue teams to formulate party programs and to develop strategies for communicating these programs to the public.

How do minority leaders gauge party preferences?
What is the answer?
ANS: conduct surveys of party colleagues
QUES: As the capital of Uruguay, Montevideo is home to a number of festivals and carnivals including a Gaucho festival when people ride through the streets on horseback in traditional gaucho gear. The major annual festival is the annual Montevideo Carnaval which is part of the national festival of Carnival Week, celebrated throughout Uruguay, with central activities in the capital, Montevideo. Officially, the public holiday lasts for two days on Carnival Monday and Shrove Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday, but due to the prominence of the festival, most shops and businesses close for the entire week. During carnival there are many open-air stage performances and competitions and the streets and houses are vibrantly decorated. "Tablados" or popular scenes, both fixed and movable, are erected in the whole city. Notable displays include "Desfile de las Llamadas" ("Parade of the Calls"), which is a grand united parade held on the south part of downtown, where it used to be a common ritual back in the early 20th century. Due to the scale of the festival, preparation begins as early as December with an election of the "zonal beauty queens" to appear in the carnival.

What is the major annual festival in Montevideo?
What is the answer?
ANS:
the annual Montevideo Carnaval