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Which of these was invented in America?

• Paper currency
• Hot air balloon
• Printing press
• Airplane

The invention of the airplane by Wilbur and Orville Wright is one of the great stories in American history. The Wright brothers’ invention not only solved a long-studied technical problem but helped create an entirely new world. The success of the 1903 Wright Flyer is perhaps one of the most iconic stories from American history. The Wright brothers made their first public flights in Europe and America in 1908, bringing their invention to the masses. More than a century after they invented the airplane, Wilbur and Orville Wright are still a part of our national cultural identity and the Wright Flyer remains an icon of ingenuity and technical creativity.

Source: Smithsonian

What critical invention made it possible to mass-produce books?

• Abacus
• Printing press
• Spinning jenny
• Steam engine

Few single inventions have had such far-reaching consequences as the printing press, a machine by which images are transferred to paper by means of ink. It was invented in Europe in the mid-15th century, during the period known as the Renaissance. The printing press made possible the mass production of printed books and other texts. Before its invention, most books were copied out individually by hand, a time-consuming process. Books were rare and so expensive that only the very wealthy could afford them. There were no newspapers. The printing press allowed books and other texts to be produced quickly, accurately, less expensively, and in large numbers. It thus led to a revolution in communications.

Source: Britannica

Which of these inventions led to the Industrial Revolution?

• Gunpowder
• Steam engine
• Wheel
• Printing press

The steam engine turned the wheels of mechanized factory production. Its emergence freed manufacturers from the need to locate their factories on or near sources of water power. Large enterprises began to concentrate in rapidly growing industrial cities. The use of steam-powered machines in cotton production pushed Britain’s economic development from 1750 to 1850.

Source: National Geographic

What code was invented alongside the telegraph?

• Enigma
• Binary
• Morse
• ASCII

Developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Samuel Morse and other inventors, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication. It worked by transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. In addition to helping invent the telegraph, the Morse code assigned a set of dots and dashes to each letter of the English alphabet and allowed for the simple transmission of complex messages across telegraph lines. In 1844, Morse sent his first telegraph message, from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland; by 1866, a telegraph line had been laid across the Atlantic Ocean from the United States to Europe. The telegraph had fallen out of widespread use by the 20th century, replaced by the telephone, fax machine, and Internet.

Source: History.com

Which country was the first to declare independence from Britain?

• Jamaica
• Grenada
• United States
• Guyana

The phrase "The empire on which the sun never sets" has not been applicable to the United Kingdom for a long time now. However, it was once a fairly accurate statement to make. Over the years, 65 countries have claimed independence so far. The first of which was the United States back on July 4, 1776 (although the Declaration wasn't officially recognized by the British government until 1783). The most recent was in 1984 when Brunei became an Islamic sultanate. More recently, an attempt at independence in Scotland failed, after a closely fought referendum in 2014 ended with 55% voting to remain a part of the UK. The independence movement is still strong, however, with the Scottish National Party the largest political force in the country.

Source: Statista

Which French scientist came up with the idea of vaccination?

• Pasteur
• Cuvier
• Curie
• Calmette

Louis Pasteur (27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which was named after him. His research in chemistry led to remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the causes and prevention of diseases, which laid down the foundations of hygiene, public health, and much of modern medicine.

Source: Wikipedia

What ancient civilization first used papyrus as a writing surface?

• Egyptian
• Inca
• Aztec
• China

The word papyrus refers both to the writing support invented by the ancient Egyptians, and the plant from which they made this material. Excavators of a tomb at Saqqara discovered the earliest known roll of papyrus, dated to around 2900 B.C., and papyrus continued to be used until the eleventh century A.D. even as paper, invented in China, became the most popular writing material for the Arab world around the eighth century A.D. In ancient Egypt, texts could be written on papyrus in hieroglyphs, hieratic script, or Demotic script, and later papyrus was used in Greek, Coptic, Latin, Aramaic, and Arabic documents. With minor variations, the papyrus roll was produced essentially the same way throughout its approximately 4,000-year history. In addition to its function as a material for writing, papyrus was used in rope, basketry, sandals, and other everyday items.

Source: MET museum

Who was the astronaut that first stepped on the moon in 1969?

• Charles Duke
• Neil Armstrong
• Buzz Aldrin
• Alan L. Bean

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. He and Aldrin walked around for three hours. They did experiments. They picked up bits of moon dirt and rocks. They put a U.S. flag on the moon. They also left a sign on the moon. The two astronauts returned to orbit, joining Collins. On July 24, 1969, all three astronauts came back to Earth safely.

Source: NASA

What company patented the first modern portable electric drill?

• Black & Decker
• Klein Tools
• Snap-on
• Diamond Products

The next great advancement in drilling technology, the electric motor, led to the invention of the electric drill. It is credited to Arthur James Arnot and William Blanch Brain of Melbourne, Australia who patented the electric drill in 1889. In 1895, the first portable handheld drill was created by brothers Wilhelm & Carl Fein of Stuttgart, Germany. In 1917 the first trigger-switch, pistol-grip portable drill was patented by Black & Decker. This was the start of the modern drill era. Over the last century, the electric drill has been created in a variety of types and multiple sizes for an assortment of specific uses.

Source: Wikipedia

What was the first artificial satellite placed in orbit called?

• Biosatellite
• Sputnik 1
• Cosmos
• ECHO

On Oct. 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 successfully launched and entered Earth's orbit. Thus, began the space age. The successful launch shocked the world, giving the former Soviet Union the distinction of putting the first human-made object into space. The word 'Sputnik' originally meant 'fellow traveler,' but has become synonymous with 'satellite' in modern Russian.

Source: NASA

Dr. Jonas Salk developed a vaccine for which disease?

• Leprosy
• Measles
• Polio
• Malaria

On March 26, 1953, American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk announces on a national radio show that he has successfully tested a vaccine against poliomyelitis, the virus that causes the crippling disease of polio. In 1952—an epidemic year for polio—there were 58,000 new cases reported in the United States, and more than 3,000 died from the disease. For his work in helping to eradicate the disease, which is known as “infant paralysis” because it mainly affects children, Dr. Salk was celebrated as the great doctor-benefactor of his time.

Source: HISTORY

Thomas Edison is credited with inventing which of these?

• Printing press
• Television
• Radio
• Phonograph

In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph using a combination of the phonautograph, the telegraph, and the telephone. His goal was to transcribe messages from the telegraph to a piece of paper tape. The transcribed messages would then be in a format that allowed the individual to send out the same message repeatedly via a telegraph. After Edison realized that his device may have other applications concerning the telephone, he worked to develop a strategy to record sounds. He developed a device that would use one needle to record the sounds onto a cylinder with tin foil. A second needle was used to replay the sounds via the phonograph. After working with John Kruesi to build the device, he recorded the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and then played the rhyme over the invention. Edison filed a patent for the phonograph on December 24, 1877, and the patent was issued on February 19, 1878.

Source: Electrohome

Which of these is an English invention?

• Daguerreotype
• Modern toilets
• Anemometer
• Barbed wire

In 1596 Sir John Harington (1561–1612) published A New Discourse of a Stale Subject, called The Metamorphosis of Ajax, describing a forerunner to modern toilets installed at his house at Kelston in Somerset. The design had a flush valve to let water out of the tank, and a wash-down design to empty the bowl. He installed one for his godmother Queen Elizabeth I at Richmond Palace. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution and related advances in technology, the flush toilet began to emerge into its modern form. A crucial advance in plumbing was the S-trap, invented by the Scottish mechanic Alexander Cumming in 1775, and still in use today. This device uses standing water to seal the outlet of the bowl, preventing the escape of foul air from the sewer.

Source: Wikipedia

Which of these events first occurred in the 1950s?

• Pac-Man was released
• Humans landed on the moon
• The first email was sent
• Everest's summit was conquered

Everest's summit was conquered in the 1950s. Sir Edmund Percival Hillary (20 July 1919 – 11 January 2008) was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer, and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953, Hillary and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. They were part of the ninth British expedition to Everest, led by John Hunt.

Source: Wikipedia

In which century were the first dinosaur fossils recognized?

• 17th
• 18th
• 16th
• 19th

Early scientists were not sure about the fossils they found. For example, in 1676, Reverend Robert Plot, a curator of an English museum, discovered a large thigh bone in England. He believed it belonged to ancient species of human "giants." Megalosaurus is believed to be the first dinosaur ever described scientifically. British fossil hunter William Buckland found some fossils in 1819, and he eventually described them and named them in 1824 (19th century). Although the study of dinosaurs got its start in 1842, new evidence to study was hard to come by until the late 1800s.

Source: Wonderopolis