Inventions & Discoveries

24 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.Which discovery was found in 1974 by farmers digging a well near Xi'an?
- A. the Antikythera mechanism
- B. the Terracotta Army
- C. the Smithsonian
- D. The Epic of Gilgamesh
Show answer
the Terracotta Army
Did you know? The Terracotta Army guards the tomb of China's first emperor.
2.Which aviator made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic, in 1927?
- A. the tooth fairy
- B. the birthmark
- C. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- D. Charles Lindbergh
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Charles Lindbergh
Did you know? Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis.
3.Which cosmonaut became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6 in 1963?
- A. Mandarin Chinese
- B. Quasimodo
- C. duct tape
- D. Valentina Tereshkova
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Valentina Tereshkova
Did you know? Tereshkova was a Soviet textile worker before her cosmonaut training.
4.Which early human was identified in 1856 from fossils found in Germany's Neander Valley?
- A. Count Dracula
- B. the Neanderthal
- C. etching
- D. the sticky note
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the Neanderthal
Did you know? The Neanderthal takes its name from that German valley.
5.Which breakfast cereal came out of a health resort run by John Harvey Kellogg?
- A. corn flakes
- B. porridge
- C. muesli
- D. granola
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corn flakes
Did you know? Corn flakes were born by accident at Kellogg's sanitarium.
6.Which invention was first scanned on a pack of Wrigley's chewing gum in 1974?
- A. the barcode
- B. the parachute
- C. the shopping cart
- D. the ice cream cone
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the barcode
Did you know? That first scanned pack of gum is now displayed in a museum.
7.Which mathematician calculated flight paths by hand for NASA's early crewed space missions?
- A. removing shoes indoors
- B. the kiss on the cheek
- C. Katherine Johnson
- D. The Tale of Genji
Show answer
Katherine Johnson
Did you know? Katherine Johnson's calculations helped send John Glenn into orbit.
8.Which team sport was invented indoors in 1891 to keep athletes active in winter?
- A. handball
- B. volleyball
- C. basketball
- D. netball
Show answer
basketball
Did you know? James Naismith nailed peach baskets up for the first game.
9.Which invention was patented in 1849 by Walter Hunt, who quickly sold the rights?
- A. the slinky
- B. the tea bag
- C. the ice cream cone
- D. the safety pin
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the safety pin
Did you know? Walter Hunt reportedly invented the safety pin in a few hours to pay a debt.
10.Which breakfast food is traditionally flipped in the pan on Shrove Tuesday?
- A. oatmeal
- B. waffles
- C. pancakes
- D. French toast
Show answer
pancakes
Did you know? Pancake races are run in Britain before Lent.
11.Which invention spread after merchant Thomas Sullivan sent tea samples in small silk pouches around 1908?
- A. the tea bag
- B. the ice cream cone
- C. the jigsaw puzzle
- D. the barcode
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the tea bag
Did you know? Customers began boiling the samples in their pouches instead of emptying them.
12.Which invention grew out of a 3M adhesive so weak it seemed like a failure?
- A. the jigsaw puzzle
- B. the Walkman
- C. the shopping cart
- D. the sticky note
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the sticky note
Did you know? The weak adhesive found its purpose as a bookmark that could be moved.
13.Which invention was born in 1945 when Percy Spencer noticed radar waves melting the chocolate in his pocket?
- A. the Walkman
- B. the trampoline
- C. the QR code
- D. the microwave oven
Show answer
the microwave oven
Did you know? The first microwave ovens were as tall as refrigerators.
14.Which invention was patented in 1886 by Josephine Cochrane after servants chipped her china?
- A. the microwave oven
- B. the photocopier
- C. the paperclip
- D. the dishwasher
Show answer
the dishwasher
Did you know? Josephine Cochrane founded a company that later became part of KitchenAid.
15.Which invention was created in Japan in 1994 to track automobile parts?
- A. the pop-up toaster
- B. the escalator
- C. the QR code
- D. the drinking straw
Show answer
the QR code
Did you know? The QR code was developed by the company Denso Wave.
16.Which Dutch scientist first saw bacteria through handcrafted microscopes in the 1670s?
- A. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
- B. Gabriel García Márquez
- C. the drinking straw
- D. the Harbin Ice Festival
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Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
Did you know? Leeuwenhoek called the tiny living things he saw "animalcules".
17.Which English naturalist coined the name "dinosaur", meaning "terrible lizard", in 1842?
- A. the ice cream cone
- B. Richard Owen
- C. German
- D. the Qinghai–Tibet Railway
Show answer
Richard Owen
Did you know? Owen also founded the natural history collections that became London's Natural History Museum.
18.Which English scientist coined the word "cell" in his 1665 book Micrographia?
- A. the Obon festival
- B. Robert Hooke
- C. Impression, Sunrise
- D. the Achilles tendon
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Robert Hooke
Did you know? Hooke named cells after the small rooms of monasteries.
19.Which frozen treat did Frank Epperson patent in 1923 after leaving soda mix outside?
- A. the popsicle
- B. the sundae
- C. the snow cone
- D. the ice cream sandwich
Show answer
the popsicle
Did you know? Epperson first called his treat the Epsicle.
20.Which invention was created around 1767 by John Spilsbury, who glued a map to wood and cut along borders?
- A. the ice cream cone
- B. the microwave oven
- C. the jigsaw puzzle
- D. the tea bag
Show answer
the jigsaw puzzle
Did you know? Early jigsaw puzzles were sold as geography teaching aids.
21.Which keyboard layout was designed by Christopher Sholes in the 1870s for his typewriter?
- A. the Cyrillic alphabet
- B. sneezing
- C. the Statue of Unity
- D. the QWERTY layout
Show answer
the QWERTY layout
Did you know? The QWERTY layout outlived the typewriter and rules computer keyboards today.
22.Which polar explorer led the first expedition to reach the South Pole, in December 1911?
- A. the Cyrillic alphabet
- B. Hiragana
- C. Guernica
- D. Roald Amundsen
Show answer
Roald Amundsen
Did you know? Amundsen's rival Robert Falcon Scott arrived a month later.
23.Which synthetic dye was discovered by accident in 1856 by the 18-year-old William Perkin?
- A. mauveine
- B. the Ferris wheel
- C. Mammoth Cave
- D. accent marks
Show answer
mauveine
Did you know? Perkin was trying to make quinine when he produced a purple dye.
24.Which test pilot became the first person confirmed to fly faster than sound, in 1947?
- A. The Night Watch
- B. Impressionism
- C. Gustav Klimt
- D. Chuck Yeager
Show answer
Chuck Yeager
Did you know? Yeager broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1.

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