Six more questions; these should be marginally easier than the first set:
- Who was the second Jewish United States Supreme Court justice?
- What did GIs call the Gooney Bird?
- Where did Samuel Clemens get his pen name?
- What popular English actor is most famous for a seven-year run playing a Frenchman on a television show?
- What do the initials HSBC stand for?
- What was the original name of the New York Yankees?
And now, the answers to the first set:
What was the first song the Beatles recorded that used backwards masking?
* “Rain”, which was released as the B-Side to “Paperback Writer”.
What two Wagner operas feature a singing contest as a significant part of the plot?
* Tannhauser and Der Meistersinger.
The character of Bill Haydon in the novel Tinker Tailor Solider Spy is loosely based on what historical figure?
* Kim Philby.
What semi-autobiographical poem made Goethe famous?
* I screwed up here; The Sorrows of Young Werther is a novel, not a poem.
What two famous SF novels did Eric Blair write?
* Eric Blair was better known by his pen name, George Orwell.
During World War II, the American Volunteer Group was more commonly known as what?
* The Flying Tigers.
1. Who was the second Jewish United States Supreme Court justice?
Frankfurter?
2. What did GIs call the Gooney Bird?
The C-47/Douglas Dakota/DC-3. Probably so named for its ponderous takeoff performance, like unto that of the albatross. The avian is commonly called the gooney bird as well.
3. Where did Samuel Clemens get his pen name?
Mark Twain refers to the second mark on some river depth sounding gear.
4. What popular English actor is most famous for a seven-year run playing a Frenchman on a television show?
Patrick Stewart in his role as Jean-Luc Picard.
5. What do the initials HSBC stand for?
Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Company.
6. What was the original name of the New York Yankees?
I have no farking idea. Do people still care about baseball?
It's embarrassing, knowing some of these. . . and probably more embarrassing not knowing the rest.
1. No Idea
2. Dumbo?
3. Some sea reference, that's all I remember from high school AP english
4. Patrick Stewart, AKA Jean Luc Picard. (another trivial, somewhat embarrassing fact from high schol)
5. No idea
6. As the biggest baseball fan ever, I'd have to say the HIghlanders. Although, my first answer would have been "the team, that in the future, will draw the ire of all those who love baseball, and the team i will detest"... but, that, of course, wouldn't have been the RIGHT answer... for you.
sorry, i actually did number that before i sent it. now's its just a mess
Fixed. It was a server-side configuration problem that was eating line numbers in comments.