Hamilton Herald Masthead

Editorial


Front Page - Friday, February 13, 2015

Brainbuster - Make Your Brain Tingle




1. Which three countries, known as the Golden Triangle, is the center of Asian opium production?

2. How did Russian leader Boris Yeltsin lose his left thumb and forefinger?

3. What are the only two countries in the world that start with the letter Z?

4. How much did the multi-layered space suits of the Apollo astronauts weigh? 23 pounds; 100 pounds; 180 pounds; 360 pounds.

5. What letter of the alphabet is the oldest? O; S; A; T?

6.What is a pulicologist? A nanotechnology engineer; a flea specialist; a scientist who studies decomposition of the human body; a panel judge for Pulitzer Prize nominees.

7. What was the real name of Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger?

8. What was the advertising slogan of Texaco?

9. What was the name of the first horse to win all three Thoroughbred races in the Triple Crown?

10. On Jan. 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a speech on the four freedoms. Of the five listed here, which freedom was not mentioned? Freedom of speech and expression; freedom of worship; freedom of want; Freedom from fear; freedom of religion.

Answers: 

1. Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar. 2. In a hand grenade explosion when he was 11 years old. During the Great Patriotic War, several boys conceived the idea of disassembling a hand grenade to “see what was inside.” Boris volunteered to steal a grenade from an ammunition depot. At night, he crawled under the three rows of barbed wire and, when the sentry was on the other side of the building, sawed through the bar on the window. He jumped in, stole two grenades and returned, all the way expecting to be shot in the back. The next day, in the forest, Boris began the disassembling, while the other boys prudently stood about 100 yards away. After a few hammer blows, the fuse detonated. In the hospital, a surgeon removed what was left of the thumb and index finger of Boris’s left hand. 3. Zambia and Zimbabwe. 4.180. However, once on the moon, the weight was reduced to 30 pounds due to lunar gravity. 5. The oldest letter in the alphabet is O, first used by Egyptians in about 3000 B.C. The newest letters are J and V. The consonant J wasn’t distinguished from the vowel I until the 1600s, and not until the Renaissance was the consonant V distinguished from the vowel U. 6. A flea specialist. 7. Michael Phillip. 8. “Trust your car to the man who wears the star.” 9. Sir Barton in 1919. Secretariat has been the only hose since Sir Barton to break major records by winning the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths in a world record time of 2:24. Secretariat won the heart of the world as well as becoming the first Triple Crown champion in 25 years in 1973. He set a world record that has yet to be broken. 10. Freedom of religion.