6 questions, easy to hard, then Ivy's pick. Here is every answer, and why.
Answer: The Panama Canal. Ships climb 26 m through locks to a lake and back down. The French tried first and lost about 20,000 workers to malaria and yellow fever before giving up.
Answer: Jeopardy!. Created in 1964 after a scandal about rigged quiz shows: the idea was to give the answers openly and ask for the questions. Ken Jennings won 74 games in a row in 2004.
Answer: Furby. Over 40 million sold in three years. The US National Security Agency banned it from its offices, fearing it might record conversations. It could not. (Tickle Me Elmo was the 1996 craze.)
Answer: A sled ridden head-first, lying on your front. Luge is feet-first on your back; skeleton is face-first at 130 km/h with your chin a few centimetres above the ice. Both run on the bobsleigh track.
Answer: Lemmy. Lemmy fronted Motörhead. Iommi lost two fingertips in a sheet-metal factory at 17 and played with home-made plastic caps and loosened strings, which is where the heavy, detuned sound came from.
Answer: The smell of rain on dry ground. Coined in 1964 by two Australian scientists from Greek 'petra', stone, and 'ichor', the blood of the gods. The smell is largely geosmin, made by soil bacteria, which human noses detect at a few parts per trillion.
6 new questions. Free, no sign-up. Ivy judges every answer.
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