The 10 quiz questions
Question 1 : Which founding treaty was signed on 4 April 1949?
Possible answers:
- The Maastricht Treaty
- The North Atlantic Treaty (creation of NATO)
- The Treaty of Paris establishing the ECSC
- The Treaty of Rome creating the EEC
Explanation: The North Atlantic Treaty gave birth to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a defensive military alliance initially comprising 12 countries. Today, the alliance has more than 30 members, including Finland which joined on 4 April 2023, exactly 74 years after the signing of the treaty.
Question 2 : Which famous figure was assassinated on 4 April 1968?
Possible answers:
- Malcolm X
- Robert Kennedy
- Martin Luther King
- Medgar Evers
Explanation: Martin Luther King Jr. was shot by James Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. A Baptist pastor and emblematic figure of the American civil rights movement, he had delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963. His assassination triggered riots in more than 100 American cities.
Question 3 : Which IT multinational was founded on 4 April 1975?
Possible answers:
- Apple
- IBM
- Microsoft
- Intel
Explanation: Microsoft was founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, two childhood friends. The name is a contraction of "microcomputer software". The company would later move to Bellevue, then to Redmond in Washington State, where it still has its headquarters.
Question 4 : On 4 April 1969, Denton Cooley achieved a historic medical first. Which one?
Possible answers:
- He performed the first heart transplant on a human being
- He implanted the first artificial heart
- He performed the first coronary bypass
- He invented the external defibrillator
Explanation: Denton Cooley, an American cardiac surgeon at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston, implanted the first artificial heart in a human patient named Haskell Karp. The device worked for 64 hours while waiting for a natural heart transplant. Cooley was one of the world's pioneers in cardiac surgery.
Question 5 : Which country obtained its independence on 4 April 1960, two years after Guinea?
Possible answers:
- Mali
- Ivory Coast
- Senegal
- Cameroon
Explanation: Senegal proclaimed its independence from France on 4 April 1960, a date which has since been the Senegalese national holiday. Léopold Sédar Senghor, poet and statesman, became its first president. Guinea had been the first French colony of sub-Saharan Africa to vote "no" to the French Community in 1958, under the leadership of Sékou Touré.
Question 6 : In which year was NATO created and how many founding countries did it have?
Possible answers:
- In 1945, with 15 founding countries
- In 1949, with 12 founding countries
- In 1949, with 7 founding countries
- In 1951, with 10 founding countries
Explanation: NATO was founded in 1949 with 12 founding members: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Portugal and Italy. Article 5 of the treaty stipulates that any attack against one of the members is considered an attack against all.
Question 7 : Which Australian actor, born on 4 April 1979, died tragically in January 2008?
Possible answers:
- Hugh Jackman
- Heath Ledger
- Guy Pearce
- Eric Bana
Explanation: Heath Ledger died on 22 January 2008 in New York from an accidental drug intoxication, aged just 28. He is notably famous for his portrayal of the Joker in "The Dark Knight" (2008), a role for which he received the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor posthumously.
Question 8 : Which French writer, born on 4 April 1914 under the name Marguerite Donnadieu, is known for her work "The Lover"?
Possible answers:
- Simone de Beauvoir
- Marguerite Yourcenar
- Marguerite Duras
- Françoise Sagan
Explanation: Marguerite Duras published "The Lover" in 1984, an autobiographical novel evoking her affair with a Chinese man during her youth in Indochina. This book won the Prix Goncourt in 1984 and has been translated into 43 languages. She is also known for having written the screenplay for the film "Hiroshima mon amour" by Alain Resnais (1959).
Question 9 : Which world first did Francis Drake accomplish, for which he was knighted on 4 April 1581?
Possible answers:
- He had discovered the coasts of Australia for England
- He had completed the second known human circumnavigation
- He had repulsed the Spanish Invincible Armada
- He had discovered a new passage to the Indies
Explanation: Francis Drake had completed the second known human circumnavigation, the first being that of Magellan-Elcano (1519-1522). Drake made this round-the-world journey aboard the Golden Hind between 1577 and 1580. Queen Elizabeth I knighted him aboard his very ship. He was also the first Englishman to accomplish this voyage.
Question 10 : In which century did the first circumnavigation of the globe take place, before the one that earned Francis Drake his knighthood on 4 April 1581?
Possible answers:
- In the 16th century
- In the 15th century
- In the 17th century
- In the 14th century
Explanation: The first circumnavigation was made between 1519 and 1522 by the expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who died in the Philippines. It was Juan Sebastián Elcano who brought the ship Victoria back to Spain with only 18 survivors out of 237 men at the start. This expedition definitively proved the roundness of the Earth.
