1. The daughter of the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, she was born April 21, 1729 as Sophia Frederika Augusta. She entered the Orthodox Church in 1745, becoming Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alexeyevna, and that same year married Duke Peter Fedorovich of Holstein in the Cathedral of Kazan. For ten points name this woman who after her husband ascended to the Russian throne as Peter III, led a palace coup and became Empress.

Answer: Catherine II or Catherine the Great_

2. Helen Bell said of the author of this work, first published under the pen name Webster Ford, "I did not know anyone could make death so vulgar." Inspired by William Reedy; Constance Hately, Blind Jack, Hiram Scoats, Shack Dye, Margaret Fuller Slack, Alexander Throckmorton and Ann Rutledge are among the people who appear in this work, which is set in a fictional place modeled on Lewistown and Petersburg, Illinois. For ten points name this 1915 work written by Edgar Lee Masters.

Answer: Spoon River Anthology

3. Snow packed along one wall of the laboratory produced a one-degree temperature variation, which is believed to have caused the tiny fringe shift seen by the experimenters when none should have been observed. The experimental apparatus was mounted on a slab of marble floating in mercury to reduce vibrations and increase accuracy. For ten points name this 1887 experiment which demonstrated that the speed of light is independent of the orientation of the earth.

Answer: Michelson-Morley Experiment

4. In 1779, at the age of 13, he composed and performed his first violin concerto. He subsequently toured Europe, teaching, conducting and writing operas under the patronage of Marie Antoinette, but his career was ended in 1810 when he broke his arm. For ten points name this virtuoso violinist, whose book of etudes is still practiced by violin students, and to whom Beethoven dedicated his Violin Sonata in A Major, Opus 47.

Answer: Rodolphe Kreutzer

5. Possibly inspired by the Madagascaran Aepyornis, the largest bird to ever live, they lived in India and appeared in The Arabian Nights' tale Sinbad the Sailor. For ten points name this mythological bird which laid an egg as big as a house, and which could carry an elephant in one talon and a rhinoceros in the other, as it brought them to its mountain nest to eat.

Answer: Roc

6. Appointed Viceroy of India in 1898, he served in that post until 1905 when he quarreled with Kitchener over the military representative on the Viceroy’s Council, and was shocked when his resignation was accepted. For ten points name this British statesman who while serving as Foreign Secretary in 1919, proposed a boundary line to separate Poland and the Soviet Union which is still in effect.

Answer: Marquis George Curzon of Kedleston

7. It was written in response to the Stationers’ Company’s condemnation of the author’s publication Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,; which was unlicensed by the Church of England. Published in pamphlet form in 1644, the author of this work wanted the "liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties." For ten points name this "speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England.", written by John Milton.

Answer: Areopagitica_

8. The three for punctuation are sometimes called amber, ochre and opal. In 1961, Marshall Nirenberg and Heinrich Matthaei deciphered the first one, which happened to be for proline. Serine, arginine and leucine each have six, while methionine and tryptophan have only one each. For ten points name these series of three ribonucleotides in mRNA which specify the different amino acids.

Answer: Codons Do not accept: Anticodons

9. Few men gain a place in history only for being total jerks, but this patrician managed to pull it off. He became a plebeian so that he could prosecute Cicero over the Cataline incident, and disgraced himself by sneaking into the secret ceremony of Magna Mater, a rite no man was allowed to attend. For ten points name this Roman nobleman whose sister was the object of both Catullus’ desires and poems.

Answer: Publius Clodius

10. One of this architect’s creations is a flat, circular stone sculpture with water rushing down upon it from a wall with a quote from the book of Amos carved into it, located in Montgomery, Alabama. Another, more famous black granite creation, designed while she was a student at Yale, was chosen from among 1441 contest entries to grace the National Mall in Washington, DC, where it was unveiled in 1982. For ten points name the designer of the Civil Rights Memorial and the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial.

Answer: Maya Lin

11. His works On the First Principle, Questions of Metaphysics, and Commentaries on the Sentences present his view on the importance of the Immaculate Conception and his famous description of man’s free will as a horse capable of throwing of its rider. For ten points name this 13^th century Scottish Scholastic theologian known as the Doctor Subtilis.

Answer: John Duns Scotus

12. The main character’s late boyfriend owned just about everything in San Narciso, most importantly the title objects, which may be connected to Maxwell’s Demon, a seventeenth-century revenge play, and the law of the excluded middle. Genghis Cohen, Manny DiPresso and Oedipa Maas become embroiled in the bizarre mystery of Tristero and underground postal services, in, for ten points, what 1966 Thomas Pynchon work?

Answer: The Crying of Lot 49

13. Although it is always combined with other elements in nature, the pure form of this silvery-white metal can be used in electron tubes and the copper refining process. Its carbonate, known as witherite, is used in rat poisons, its sulfate is used in the X-ray examination of the gastrointestinal tract, and its nitrate and chlorate are used to produce green fireworks. For ten points name this alkaline earth metal first isolated with electrolysis in 1808 by Davy, which has atomic number 56.

Answer: Barium

14. The Freney and Brouillard [broo-YAR] Pillars are separated by the Inominata Ridge on the south face. The east face, also called the Brenva face, is bordered by the Peutery Ridge and Mont Maudit. The north face, which faces Chamonix, is the easiest to climb and in fact was the route taken when Balmat and Paccard first reached its summit more than 200 years ago. For ten points name this inspiration of Cezanne and Shelley, the highest peak in Western Europe.

Answer: Mont Blanc

15. A student of Jean Agassiz at Harvard where he took the University’s first advanced degree in chemistry, he joined the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, where he became the first American representative to the International Geodetic Congress. His most famous work appears in the essay ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear’, in which he says that no object has inherent validity, validity only results from successful use. For ten points name this American whom William James credits as the founder of Pragmatism.

Answer: Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce

16. Arousing the jealousy the Ofonius Tigellinus who brought false charges against him, in 66 AD he considered it prudent to commit suicide. Called "arbiter of elegance" by Tacitus and Nero, the central portion of his most famous work, "Trimalchio’s Dream," describes a lavish banquet at which every conceivable offense against good taste is committed. For ten points name this Roman author of the Satyricon.

Answer: Gaius (Titus) Petronius Niger or Petronius Arbiter

17. Voters from its 49 provinces popularly elect the 100 members of the Senat, which has veto power over all legislation put forward by the Sejm [Saym]. The government is currently dominated by the former Communist Peasants’ Party and the Democratic Left Alliance, with which the current president, Alexander Kwasniewsky, is associated. For ten points name this European nation whose national anthem insists "has not yet perished", despite being carved up by various other nations at several points in its history.

Answer: Poland

18. An ardent Caravaggist, this artist was born the son of a shoemaker in 1591 near Valencia. He left Spain for Italy, and in 1616 settled in Naples where he acquired the nickname "Lo Spagnoletto" or "The Little Spaniard". His style is characterized by brutal realism and a gloomy, violent manner. For ten points name this artist, the dean of the Neapolitan School, who is responsible for the work The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew.

Answer: Jose de Rivera

19. When asked "what is the way" of this school of thought, the great master Yao-shan replied "A cloud in the sky and water in the jug!" Consisting of two main branches, Rinzai and Soto, its students prepare themselves to be receptive to such answers by meditating and passively observing the world without mental comment. For ten points identify this system of belief which answers all philosophic questions with non-symbolic words or actions, and therefore might not be able to tell you much about the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Answer: Zen or Ch’an Buddhism

20. In a dynamic environment, it can be used as a direct readout device in which the output voltage is an indicator of a change in strain in a resistive transducer due to the change in one of the other resistances. More generally, the variable resistor can be adjusted until the galvanometer reads zero, thus allowing a measurement of an unknown resistance. For ten points name this circuit, composed of a variable resistor, two known resistors and an unknown resistor, usually arranged in a diamond pattern with an applied voltage source.

Answer: Wheatstone Bridge

21. Created by Georg Buchner, this character's supervisors constantly ridicule him, and to make life even worse, his woman has been cheating on him. He stabs Marie out of jealousy and later drowns in the lake into which he throws the murder weapon. For ten points name this Austrian army private, the title character of an opera by Alban Berg.

Answer: Wozzeck

22. Its extraordinary shape led to an Arabian legend that the devil picked it up, thrust its branches in to the earth, and left its roots in the air. The trunk may reach a diameter of 30 feet and a height of up to 60 feet, and is often used as a temporary shelter by wanderers in its native Africa, who eat its fruit which is known as monkey bread. For ten points name this tree which, as the little prince learns, is definitely not edible by sheep when full-grown.

Answer: Baobab

23. This director once observed, "The great Holocaust by the Nazis is probably the great outrage of the Twentieth Century. There is nothing to compare with it. So what can I do about it? If I get on the soapbox and wax eloquently, it’ll be blown away in the wind, but if I do Springtime for Hitler, it’ll never be forgotten. I think you can bring down totalitarian governments faster by using ridicule than you can with invective." For ten points name this director of The Producers.

Answer: Mel Brooks

[repeat questions]

24. One of the drafters of the constitution of the Weimar Republic, in his work The Religions of the East, he postulated that they had not developed capitalism because of prevailing religious and philosophical attitudes. In his more famous work, he opposed Marxism and stated that religious and ethical ideas had strongly influenced the development of capitalism. For ten points name this German historian and sociologist who wrote The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism.

Answer: Max Weber

25. The destruction of her dressmaking shop in the Great Chicago Fire left her sympathetic toward the labor movement. She was arrested for leading a coal miners’ strike, but the jailing of this seventy-year-old woman led to such outrage and sympathy for the plight of workers, that she was soon set free. For ten points name this Irish-born labor leader, the namesake of a liberal publication.

Answer: Mary ‘Mother’ Jones

Boni by The Noodle Incident

1. Identify the following warships from a brief description.

1. 5: Originally known as the USS Merrimac, it was raised from the bottom and plated with iron by the Confederacy.

Answer: CSS Virginia

2. 5: During the War of 1812, this frigate captured the HMS Guerriere while under command of Isaac Hull, and the HMS Java while under command of William Bainbridge.

Answer: USS Constitution or Old Ironsides

3. 10: Launched in 1981, this ship lent its name to the dominant class of US missile subs during the 1980s which carried the Trident system.

Answer: USS Ohio

4. 10: The only US ship to have a plural name, this destroyer is named after five brothers who were killed when their ship was torpedoed in WWII, leading to the Navy’s policy of only one family member per ship.

Answer: USS The Sullivans

2. Answer the following questions about Hindu mythology.

1. Derived from the Vedic god Prajapati, this creator of the universe represents the balance between the opposing forces of the other two main gods of Hinduism.

Answer: Brahma

2. From the Sanskrit for ‘having three forms’, this is the name given to the Hindu triad which is represented by Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu.

Answer: Trimurti

3. Sharing its name with a real mountain in Tanzania, this mountain which was the central axis of the universe, supposedly had a square city of gold at its summit where Brahma and Vishnu dwelt and beneath it lay seven underworlds.

Answer: Mount Meru

3. Identify the following Irish political parties from a description for ten points apiece.

1. Formed in 1926 by Eamon de Valera and other opponents of the 1921 treaty with Great Britain that brought the Irish Free state into existence, its minimal ideology consisted of a united, frugal and self-supporting Ireland.

Answer: Fianna Fail

2. Formed in 1921 after the creation of the Irish Free State, this party refused to acknowledge the authority of the Dail Eirann. This led to the resignation of De Valera from its leadership, and his new party, the Fianna Fail, absorbed most of its membership.

Answer: Sinn Fein

3. This party accepted the terms of the 1921 treaty and was formed in 1933 under William Cosgrave as an opposition to the Fianna Fail. Its name literally means "Gaelic Nation".

Answer: Fine Gael or Cumann nan Gaedheal or Society of Gaels or United Irish Party

4. For ten points apiece, answer the following questions about a particle in the stationary state: Psi of X and t equals the quantity e to the negative X times the quantity e to the negative i times t over h-bar.

1. What is the expectation value of X?

Answer: Zero

2. What is the expectation value of p, the momentum operator?

Answer: Zero

3. What is the expectation value of the Hamiltonian operator?

Answer: One

5. Identify the following Nobel Prize winning economists from a description for fifteen points each.

1. This American shared the 1972 Prize with John Hicks for ‘contributions to general economic equilibrium and welfare theory’, but is better known for his work on societal preferences.

Answer: Kenneth Arrow

2. This Ukrainian born US economist was awarded the 1971 Prize in part for his development of the concept of Gross National Product, which he explained in the work National Income and Its Composition.

Answer: Simon Kuznets

6. Identify the following modern operas from a description for ten points apiece.

1. Just as Kaspar, Melchior and Balthasar are about to leave to visit the Christ child, the title character in the Gian Carlo Menotti opera is suddenly able to walk without a crutch for the first time in his life.

Answer: Amahl and the Night Visitors_

2. Virgil Thomson said of this work, "You know, Miss Stein’s words make perfectly good sense-if you take them one at a time." -- which is why it is easier to tell you that some of the characters in this opera are St. Teresa II, St. Plot and Compere, rather than give a summary.

Answer: Four Saints in Three Acts_

3. This 1959 science fiction opera by Swedish composer Karl-Birger Blomdahl takes place in the title spaceship and makes use of taped and electronic sounds, motion pictures and color slides.

Answer: Aniara

7. Identify the following Supreme Court Justices from a description for ten points apiece.

1. This Chief Justice was involved in such decisions as Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, and Gibbons v. Ogden.

Answer: John Marshall

2. This justice issued a famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, fearing that the "separate but equal" decision would consign black citizens to a permanent "condition of social inferiority."

Answer: John Marshall Harlan

3. This associate justice affirmed many of the New Deal Reforms and was the lone dissenter in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, which was overruled during his tenure as the 12th Chief Justice.

Answer: Harlan Fisk Stone

8. Name the following French mathematicians from a description for ten points apiece.

1. The head of the commission which formulated the metric system, in 1764, he won a prize for his essay on the libration of the moon, in which he used the equations which bear his name.

Answer: Joseph-Louis, Count of Lagrange

2. In 1837, he reduced elliptic integrals to three standard forms which now bear his name.

Answer: Adrien-Marie Legendre

3. Using the form of integral that bears his name, any bounded, summable function is the derivative of its indefinite integral.

Answer: Henri-Leon Lebesgue [le-BEG]

9. Answer the following questions about the Roman calendar for ten points each.

1. AD is the Latin expression tacked onto modern dates to represent the birth of Christ. What expression did the Romans place after their dates?

Answer: A.U.C. or Ab Urbe Condite

2. What is the English translation of ab urbe condite, which is the phrase the Romans used after their dates?

Answer: From the founding of the city (Accept equivalents)

3. With what Roman year does 0 AD coincide?

Answer: 753 A.U.C.

10. Identify the battle on a 30-20-10 basis.

1. 30: One legend holds that the blind King John of Bohemia died during this battle in a melee wildly swinging his sword, while another says that after the Genoese crossbowmen loosed their bolts and were retreating, they did not get out of the way fast enough and the knights of their allies shouted, "Run those rascals down. They but impede progress."

2. 20: The first legend is known to be false as the French and Bohemian forces were cut down by longbowmen before they got within one hundred yards of the enemy, while the second is believed to be true.

3. 10: Fought in 1346 on a muddy field north of the Somme River, Edward III and his 20,000 English troops routed Philip IV’s 60,000 man French army, inflicting 20,000 casualties including 1,500 noblemen.

Answer: Battle of Crecy

11. Identify the architect who created the following works for ten points apiece.

1. The Finnish Pavilion, 1937.

Answer: Hugo Alvar Aalto

2. The German Pavilion, 1929, which was later dismantled.

Answer: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

3. American Pavilion, or Biosphere, 1967.

Answer: Richard Buckminster Fuller

12. Identify the Pope, 30-20-10.

1. 30: After the Children’s Crusade of which he said, "These children are awake while we are asleep", he called for the Fifth Crusade.

2. 20: Reigning from 1198-1216, his real name is Lotario de’ Conti di Segni.

3. 10. His reign is considered the high point of papal power because he had Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV deposed and laid England under interdict, which forced King John to accept him as overlord.

Answer: Innocent III (Accept on 30: Lotario de’ Conti di Segni)

13. Identify the following mammalian muscles from a description for ten points apiece.

1. Its origin is the lumbodorsal fascia and posterior ribs, and its insertion is the linea alba. It compresses the abdomen.

Answer: External oblique

2. Its origin is the zygomatic arch and its insertion is the posterolateral mandible. Its function is to raise the lower jaw.

Answer: Masseter

3. It runs from the scapula to the radius, and flexes the forearm.

Answer: Biceps brachii

14. Identify the following psychological terms coined by Carl Jung.

1. Considered by Jung to be primordial images or the conceptual equivalent of instinct, these units of the collective unconscious are expressed through dreams and art.

Answer: Archetypes

2. Name either of the personality types Jung proposed in his 1921 work Psychological Types, which dealt with how people interact with each other.

Answer: Extrovert or Introvert

3. Jung believed that the unconscious had both masculine and feminine components. Name either.

Answer: Animus or Anima

15. Identify the common surname on a 30-20-10 basis.

1. 30: William Douglas was a minor government official best known for his defense of Walt Whitman titled The Good Gray Poet.

2. 20: Edwin was a radio announcer and writer who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962 for The Edge of Sadness. He is best known for his book based on the life of James Curley titled The Last Hurrah.

3. 10: Mary Flannery is known for her gothic novels of the macabre, such as The Violent Bear It Away and A Good Man is Hard to Find.

Answer: O’Connor

16. Several bands have recorded songs about artists which include the artist’s name in the title. Given the band, name the artist for ten points apiece, or if you need a work, five points.

1. 10: 10,000 Maniacs.

5: Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914.

Answer: Giorgio De Chirico [The song is Giorgio de Chirico]

2. 10: Paul Simon.

5: The Castle of the Pyrenees, 1959.

Answer: Rene Magritte [The song is Rene and Georgette Magritte with their Dog After the War]

3. 10: They Might Be Giants.

5: The Entry of Christ into Brussels, 1888.

Answer: James Ensor [The song is Meet James Ensor]

17. Identify the writer from quotes on a 30-20-10 basis.

1. 30: "I hail the superhuman; I call it death-in-life and life-in-death."

2. 20: "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree."

3. 10: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold."

Answer: William Butler Yeats

18. Classify the following particles as a gauge bosons, leptons, mesons or baryons for five points each, with a five-point bonus for all correct.

1. Muon. Answer: Lepton

2. Z particle. Answer: Gauge Boson

3. Neutron. Answer: Baryon

4. Pion. Answer: Meson

5. Neutrino. Answer: Lepton

19. For five points each, give the state in which the following places of the National Park System are found.

1. Kings Canyon National Park.

Answer: California

2. Superior National Forest.

Answer: Minnesota

3. Denali National Park.

Answer: Alaska

4. Big Bend National Park.

Answer: Texas

5. Allegheny National Forest.

Answer: Pennsylvania

6. Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Answer: North Dakota

20. For five points each, name any six of the seven wonders of the United States as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Answer: Golden Gate Bridge, Hoover Dam, Interstate Highway System, Kennedy Space Center, Panama Canal, World Trade Center and Trans-Alaska Pipeline

21. Given the director of a recent film about a famous physicist, give the name of the physicist for five points and the title of the film for ten.

1. Matthew Broderick.

Answer: Richard Feynman in Infinity

2. Errol Morris.

Answer: Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time

22. Identify the scientist on a 30-20-10 basis.

1. 30: In his 1908 Worlds in the Making, he suggested that cool stars might collide and form nebulae from which new stars and planets would arise indefinitely, and life could thus be spread around the universe by bacteria propelled by light pressure.

2. 20: In 1889, he observed that the speed of chemical reactions increased with temperature at a rate proportional to the concentration of activated molecules.

3. 10: He is best known for a theory outlined in his doctoral thesis, which stated that electrolytes dissociate into ions even if there is no current running through the solution.

Answer: Svante August Arrhenius

23. Identify each of these Shakespeare plays from a quote for ten points, or from the speaker for five.

1. 10: "If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die."

5: Duke Orsino.

Answer: Twelfth Night or, What You Will

2. 10: "But soft, but see, or rather do not see, my fair rose wither."

5: The Queen of England.

Answer: Richard II

3. 10: "In delivering my son from me I bury a second husband."

5: The Countess of Rousillon.

Answer: All’s Well That Ends Well

24. Identify the American author from works on a 30-20-10 basis.

1. 30: The Trouble With Tigers, and The Assyrian.

2. 20: My Heart is the Highlands, and My Name is Aram.

3. 10: The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, and The Time of Your Life.

Answer: William Saroyan

25. Answer the following questions about the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude for ten points apiece.

1. Name the author.

Answer: Gabriel Garcia-Marquez

2. Name the mythical town in which the Buendia family lives.

Answer: Macondo

3. The second son of the patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia, he forms an army to fight on the side of the liberals during his country’s civil war, and fathers seventeen children across the nation.

Answer: Colonel Aureliano Buendia