Problem: Albrecht Durer (/'dU@r@r, 'djU@r@r/; German: ['albRect 'dy:Ra]; 21 May 1471 - 6 April 1528) was a painter, printmaker and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Durer established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties, due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in communication with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 he was patronized by emperor Maximilian I. His vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, watercolours and books. The woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known engravings include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours also mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. Durer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.

Question: "What was one of his revered woodcuts he made in his twenties?"

Answer: "Maximilian I"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes
Answer: no

Problem: Hundreds of thousands of years before China was to become the world's longest-running civilization, the prologue was enacted by means of the flicker of a carefully tended fire. Peking Man, a forebear of Homo sapiens, achieved a mastery of fire. We might call it the first Chinese invention. Not that he devised flint and steel, matches, or any other way of creating fire. Peking Man simply learned how to capture flame, perhaps from a forest fire, and keep it alight. He thus enjoyed two revolutionary luxuries: light and heat. Technologically and sociologically, it was a phenomenal breakthrough: with fire, communities could live year 'round in one cave, in which cooking and even smelting could be pursued. And so, by 600,000 b.c., about 50 km (31 miles) southwest of present-day Beijing, the ancestors of mankind were ready to settle down. Several hundred thousand years later, when Marco Polo reached the capital of China, he was astonished by a further development in fire technology. The Chinese, he announced, used black stones dug out of mountains as fuel. Europeans did not yet have a word for "coal," nor had they discovered a use for it. The First Dynasty The confluence of mythology and history in China took place around 4,000 years ago during what is referred to as the Xia (Hsia) Dynasty. This was still the Stone Age, but the people are thought to have made silk from thread produced by the worms they cultivated on the leaves of their mulberry trees. And written language (which evolved as early as 4,500 to 5,000 years ago) was already in use, originally by oracles and then by official scribesChina's first scholars. During the second of the quasi-legendary dynasties, the Shang (from about the 16th to 11th centuries b.c.), the Chinese developed an interest in art. Careful geometric designs as well as dragon and bird motifs adorned bowls and implements. And with the arrival of the Bronze Age, the Chinese created bronze vessels of such beauty and originality that, until modern times, archaeologists refused to believe they were cast 3,000 years ago. The Shang Dynasty gave rise to the concept of one Chinese nation under one government.

Question: "What sort of fuel source allowed settlement of which major city in China?"

Answer: "Coal allowed for people to eventually settle in what would now be Beijing"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes
Answer: yes

Problem: Bin Laden reportedly discussed the planes operation with KSM and Atef in a series of meetings in the spring of 1999 at the al Matar complex near Kandahar. KSM's original concept of using one of the hijacked planes to make a media statement was scrapped, but Bin Laden considered the basic idea feasible. Bin Laden, Atef, and KSM developed an initial list of targets. These included the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center. According to KSM, Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon, KSM wanted to strike the World Trade Center, and all of them wanted to hit the Capitol. No one else was involved in the initial selection of targets. Bin Laden also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives: Khalid al Mihdhar, Nawaf al Hazmi, Khallad, and Abu Bara al Yemeni. During the al Matar meetings, Bin Laden told KSM that Mihdhar and Hazmi were so eager to participate in an operation against the United States that they had already obtained U.S. visas. KSM states that they had done so on their own after the suicide of their friend Azzam (Nashiri's cousin) in carrying out the Nairobi bombing. KSM had not met them. His only guidance from Bin Laden was that the two should eventually go to the United States for pilot training. Hazmi and Mihdhar were Saudi nationals, born in Mecca. Like the others in this initial group of selectees, they were already experienced mujahideen. They had traveled together to fight in Bosnia in a group that journeyed to the Balkans in 1995. By the time Hazmi and Mihdhar were assigned to the planes operation in early 1999, they had visited Afghanistan on several occasions. Khallad was another veteran mujahid, like much of his family. His father had been expelled from Yemen because of his extremist views. Khallad had grown up in Saudi Arabia, where his father knew Bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and Omar Abdel Rahman (the "Blind Sheikh").

Question: "Who decided to obtain U.S. visas after their friend committed suicide carrying out the Nairobi bombing?"

Answer: "Nashiri's cousin"

OPTIONS:
- no
- yes
Answer:
no