Academic Team Questions

Antarctica

Antarctica

Name this continent with highest mountain at Vinson Massif, in the Ellsworth Mountains. Norwegian Roald Amundsen was the first to reach the South Pole (1911), while Englishman Robert Scott died trying to reach it. Ernest Shackleton had to abandon his ship, the Endurance, during an attempt to cross it on foot

Sahara Desert (North Africa)

Players should know the Atlas Mountains (which bound the western Sahara on the north) and the Sahel, a savannah-like strip that bounds it on the south. It is dominated by rocky regions (hamada), sand seas (ergs), and salt flats (shatt) and dry river valleys (wadi) that are subject to flash floods. Its most asked-about inhabitants are the Berbers and Tuaregs. It is the world's second largest desert, but its largest hot desert.

Atacama Desert

Its chief claim to fame is the rain shadow of the Andes which makes it the driest (hot) desert in the world. The desert was the primary bone of contention in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883, Chile defeats Peru and Bolivia) that sought to control its nitrate resources (which were necessary for the production of explosives).

Kalahari Desert (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa)

A large region, not all of which is arid enough to qualify as a desert. It is known for its red sand, large game reserves (meerkats, gemsbok, springbok, steenbok), and mineral deposits (notably uranium). Most famous are its San Bushmen and their click language

(Isaac) Newton

includes generalizing the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, doing the first rigorous manipulation with power series. He is best known, however, for a lengthy feud between British and Continental mathematicians over whether he or Gottfried Leibniz invented calculus (whose differential aspect Newton called "the method of fluxions"). It is now generally accepted that they both did, independently

Euclid

He is principally known for the Elements, a textbook on geometry and number theory, that was used for over 2,000 years and which grounds essentially all of what is taught in modern high school geometry classes. He is known for his five postulates that define "normal" space, especially the fifth (the "parallel postulate") which can be broken to create spherical and hyperbolic geometries. He also proved the infinitude of prime numbers

(Carl Friedrich) Gauss

is considered the "Prince of Mathematicians" for his extraordinary contributions to every major branch of mathematics. His Disquisitiones Arithmeticae systematized number theory and stated the fundamental theorem of arithmetic. He also proved the fundamental theorem of algebra, the law of quadratic reciprocity, and the prime number theorem. He may be most famous for the (possibly apocryphal) story of intuiting the formula for the summation of an arithmetic series when given the busywork task of adding the first 100 positive integers by his primary school teacher

Archimedes

He is best known for his "Eureka moment" of using density considerations to determine the purity of a gold crown; nonetheless, he was the preeminent mathematician of ancient Greece. He found the ratios between the surface areas and volumes of a sphere and a circumscribed cylinder, accurately estimated pi, and presaged the summation of infinite series with his "method of exhaustion."

(Gottfried) Leibniz

He is known for his independent invention of calculus and the ensuing priority dispute with Isaac Newton. Most modern calculus notation, including the integral sign and the use of d to indicate a differential, originated with Leibniz. He also invented binary numbers and did fundamental work in establishing boolean algebra and symbolic logic

(Pierre de) Fermat

He is remembered for his contributions to number theory including his "little theorem" that ap will be divisible by p if p is prime. He also studied Fermat primes (those of the form 22n+1) and stated his "Last Theorem" that xn + yn = zn has no solutions if x, y, and z are positive integers and n is a positive integer greater than 2. He and Blaise Pascal founded probability theory. In addition, he discovered methods for finding the maxima and minima of functions and the areas under polynomials that anticipated calculus and inspired Isaac Newton

Michelangelo (1475 - 1564)

A Florentine "Renaissance man" also known for architecture (the dome of St. Peter's Basilica), painting (The Last Judgment and the Sistine Chapel ceiling), poetry, and military engineering. His sculpted masterpieces include David, a Pietà, Bacchus, and a number of pieces for the tomb of Pope Julius II (including Dying Slave and Moses). He preferred to work in Carraran marble.

(Auguste) Rodin (1840 - 1917)

A French sculptor known for stormy relationships with "the establishment" of the École des Beaux-Arts [ay-kohl day boh-zar] and his mistress, fellow artist Camille Claudel. His works include The Age of Bronze, Honoré de Balzac, The Burghers of Calais, and a massive pair of doors for the Museum of Decorative Arts (the Gates of Hell) inspired by Dante's Inferno. That latter work included his most famous piece, The Thinker.

(Gian Lorenzo) Bernini (1598 - 1680)

A Roman who, with the rarely asked-about Francesco Borromini, defined the Baroque movement in sculpture. He is principally known for his freestanding works including David and The Ecstasy of St. Theresa. His David differs from that of Michelangelo in that the hero is shown "in motion," having twisted his body to sling the rock. He is also known for his massive fountains in Rome including the Triton and the Fountain of the Four Rivers.

Donatello (1386 - 1466)

A Florentine sculptor who helped define Renaissance sculpture as distinct from that of the Gothic period. He is known for St. Mark and St. George in the Or San Michele [OR SAHN mee-KAY-lay] (a Florentine church), the bald Zuccone (which means "pumpkin-head," though it depicts the prophet Habbakuk), and the first equestrian statue to be cast since Roman times, the Gattamelata in Padua. He is also known for mastering the low relief form of schiacciato.

(Lorenzo) Ghiberti (1378 - 1455)

A Florentine sculptor and goldsmith who taught both Donatello and Filippo Brunelleschi. He is best known for two pairs of bronze doors on the Florence Baptistery (associated with the Duomo, or Florentine Cathedral). He produced a single, low-relief panel to win a 1401 competition (defeating Brunelleschi) for the commission to design the 28 panels for the north doors. After that, he was given another commission to design ten panels for the east doors. This latter work, by far his most famous, was dubbed the "Gates of Paradise" by Michelangelo

(Gutzon) Borglum (1867 - 1941)

An American known for crafting Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He is also known for The Mares of Diomedes and an unfinished (and later replaced) tribute to Confederate heroes on Stone Mountain in Georgia.

Phidias (c. 480 BC - c. 430 BC)

An Athenian considered the greatest of all Classical sculptors. He created the chryselephantine (gold and ivory) Statue of Zeus at Olympia (one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, now lost) and the statue of Athena in the Parthenon (now lost). He was supported by money from the Delian League (that is, the Athenian Empire) run by his friend Pericles; he was later ruined by charges of corruption generally considered to be part of a political campaign against Pericles

(Constantin) Brancusi (1876 - 1957)

A Romanian sculptor who was a major figure in Modernism. He is best known for The Kiss (not to be confused with the Rodin work or the Klimt painting), Sleeping Muse, and Bird in Space. He's also the center of anecdote in which U.S. customs taxed his works as "industrial products" since they refused to recognize them as art.

Shakespeare

Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew

Sophocles

Oedipus Rex, Antigone

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick

Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby

Cervantes

Don Quixote

C Bronte

Jane Eyre

Austen

Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility

Orwell

1984, Animal Farm

Joyce

Ulysses

Milton

Paradise Lost

Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales

Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter

Williams

A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie

Wilder

Our Town

Dante

The Divine Comedy, Inferno

Crane

The Red Badge of Courage

Voltaire

Candide

Melville

Billy Budd

Hugo

Les Misérables

Tolstoy

Anna Karenina, War and Peace

(George Bernard) Shaw

Pygmalion

Dumas

The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo

Hemingway

A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Sun Also Rises

Thackeray

Vanity Fair

Nobokov

Lolita

Alcott

Little Women

Virgil

Aeneid

Conrad

Heart of Darkness

Bunyan

Pilgrim's Progress

Dickens

David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist

Garcia Marquez

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Goethe

Faust

Isben

A Doll's House

Defoe

Robinson Crusoe

London

The Call of the Wild

Miller

The Crucible, Death of a Salesman

Huxley

Brave New World

Sinclair

The Jungle

Coleridge

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Stowe

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Irving

Rip van Winkle

Salinger

The Catcher in the Rye

Beckett

Waiting for Godot

O'Neill

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Warren

All the King's Men

Tennyson

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Mann

The Magic Mountain

Ellison

Invisible Man

Heller

Catch-22

Hansberry

A Raisin in the Sun

E Bronte

Wuthering Heights

Bizet

The opera Carmen

Verdi

The opera Aida

Handel

Messiah

Beethoven

Symphony No. 9, "Choral"; Symphony No. 6, "Pastoral"

Berlioz

Symphonie fantastique

Tchaikovsky

The Nutcracker

Stravinsky

The Rite of Spring

Puccini

Madama Butterfly

Plessy v. Ferguson

A black man bought a first-class ticket on the East Louisiana Railway. He sat in the whites-only car in violation of an 1890 Louisiana law mandating separate accommodations. He was convicted, but appealed to the Supreme Court against a Louisiana judge. The court upheld the law provided that "separate but equal" facilities were provided. John Marshall Harlan issued a famous dissent claiming "Our constitution is color-blind."

Marbury v. Madison

On his final day in office in 1801, John Adams signed commissions for 42 federal judges (the so-called "midnight judges"). His successor, Thomas Jefferson, opted to not deliver most of the commissions. One appointee sued the new secretary of state, to force the delivery of his commission. The Judiciary Act of 1789 had granted the court original jurisdiction in such cases, but the Constitution did not. The court ruled that the Judiciary Act conflicted with the Constitution and was therefore void.This case established the principle of judicial review, the power of the court to nullify unconstitutional laws.

Roe v. Wade

A rape victim sued Dallas County attorney for the right to an abortion. When the case reached the Supreme Court, the plaintiff depended on the growing recognition of a "right to privacy" which began with the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut. The court struck down state anti-abortion laws as "unconstitutionally vague," held that the word "person" in the Constitution "does not include the unborn," and legalized abortion in the first trimester.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas

The suit was filed on behalf of a third grader who had to walk a mile to a blacks-only school when a whites-only school was much closer. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall argued the case for the plaintiff. The court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were not constitutional. A second case in 1955 required that desegregation proceed "with all deliberate speed" but Southern schools were notoriously slow in complying; it was not until 1970 that a majority had complied with the ruling.

McCulloch v. Maryland

After the Second Bank of the United States began calling in loans owned by the states, Maryland passed a law taxing out-of-state banks. The federal bank refused to pay, so the state sued its Baltimore cashier. The court ruled that the federal government had the right to establish the bank even though it was not expressly enumerated in the Constitution and also noted that since "the power to tax was the power to destroy," Maryland could not tax the bank without destroying federal sovereignty

Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861)

). Built on an island in 1829, the fort was one of three that the United States maintained in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. In order to claim true independence from the Union, Jefferson Davis decided that the forts needed to be taken; a Confederate force under P.G.T. Beauregard ordered the small Union garrison, controlled by Major Robert Anderson, to surrender. Anderson refused, shots were fired, and the Union commander surrendered two days later, with only one soldier killed. The Union made two unsuccessful attempts to recapture the fort with ironclad ships in 1863, but Confederate forces finally abandoned it when they left Charleston in February 1865

First Bull Run (First Manassas) (July 21, 1861)

Fought at a creek near Manassas, Virginia (30 miles west of Washington D.C.), this was the first major showdown of the war. Beauregard led an army against Union commander Irwin McDowell and received reinforcements from Joseph Johnston's troops (whom Union General Robert Patterson failed to detain). The Confederacy routed the Union when Thomas Jackson's brigade held the left line at Henry House Hill; this effort earned him the nickname "Stonewall." Congressmen and reporters, who had expected to watch a Union victory, fled in panic back to D.C.

Hampton Roads (March 9, 1862)

A channel in southeastern Virginia was the site of the first major fight between two ironclad ships. The Confederates raised an old wooden boat, the Merrimack, and fit it with ten guns and iron armor plates. Renaming the Virginia, it was captained by Franklin Buchanan. The Union countered by constructing a large oval with a rotating gun, called the Monitor and piloted by John Worden. The Virginia tore through Union wooden ships (Cumberland, Congress, Minnesota) but when the Monitor arrived, the two ironclads fought to a stalemate - thus the Union maintained its blockade. The South deliberately destroyed the Virginia two months later, while the Monitor sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras in December 1862.

Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing) (April 6-7, 1862).

This was named after a church in Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee (100 miles southwest of Nashville). Confederate commander Albert Sidney Johnston led a force north from Corinth, Mississippi. Ulysses S. Grant, who had just captured Fort Donelson, brought five Union divisions to face him. At first, the South led the attack, but Union troops held the "Hornets' Nest" for hours, killing Johnston in the process. Beauregard took over, but by the second day Northern Generals Don Carlos Buell and Lew Wallace (who wrote Ben-Hur) brought reinforcements, causing the Confederates to retreat. More than 13,000 Union and 10,000 Confederate soldiers lost their lives.

Peninsular Campaign (March - July 1862)

Union commander George McClellan devised this plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia by sending 110,000 men up the peninsula between the York and James rivers. Advised of Northern maneuvers, Southern commander Joseph Johnston detached a force to defend the peninsula. He also sent a small unit (led by Stonewall Jackson) that crushed Union reinforcements in the West. After Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines (June 1), Davis replaced him with Robert E. Lee. Lee concentrated his force north of the Chickahominy River; in the Seven Days' Battles (June 25-July 1), the Confederates broke through Union defenses, leading to McClellan's retreat down the James toward Harrison's Landing, and failure of the campaign.

Second Bull Run (Second Manassas) (August 29-30, 1862)

This resounding victory by Lee and Jackson pushed Union forces back to Washington, D.C. President Lincoln had replaced McClellan with John Pope, who would supposedly be united with the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Henry Halleck. Lee maneuvered Jackson's troops behind those of Pope; Jackson detained Pope's men at Manassas while Lee sent James Longstreet to crush Pope's left flank. Halleck's army was supposed to land at Aquia, but instead retreated to defend Washington, ceding all of Virginia to the Confederacy and marking a low point in the Union effort.

Antietam (Sharpsburg) (September 17, 1862)

The bloodiest day of the Civil War: 12,000 Union men lost their lives, as did 10,000 Confederates. Lee planned a northern invasion into Maryland but a Union soldier discovered those battle plans wrapped around three cigars. Instead, Lee marched his army toward Sharpsburg Creek. Meanwhile, Jackson's forces captured Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and rushed to reunite with Lee. McClellan had a large enough force to capture the entire rebel army but did not use all of his troops nor coordinate one solid attack. Antietam thus was actually a series of five skirmishes; in one of them, dubbed "The Bloody Lane," 2000 Union soldiers fell in a few minutes. As it was, Union forces drove the Confederates back across the Potomac.

Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863)

This marked both the farthest northward advancement by the Confederacy and the turning point that led to its defeat. Lee, along with Longstreet, A.P. Hill, and Richard Ewell, led the southern Pennsylvania attack; J.E.B. Stuart was supposed to monitor Union movement with his cavalry but strayed so far east of Gettysburg that his force did not return (exhausted) until the second day. George Meade replaced Hooker as leader of the Union side; Southern forces drove Northerners through the town but could not secure key positions at Cemetery Ridge and Little and Big Round Tops. Low on supplies, on the final day Lee ordered an attack on the center; George Pickett led his famous "charge" through open fields, where the Union mowed down one-third of his 15,000 men. The Confederates lost 20,000 and Lee retreated to Virginia.

Henry VIII (1491-1547, r. 1509-1547)

The son of Tudor founder Henry VII, he brought England into both the Renaissance and the Reformation. Henry patronized the philosopher Erasmus, the painter Hans Holbein the Younger, and the writer Thomas More. Originally a supporter of the Catholic Church--the Pope had named him "Defender of the Faith"--he named himself head of the Church of England in 1533 so that he could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn. Henry executed top ministers who crossed him, including Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More. He married six times, but only his third wife, Jane Seymour, bore him a son, the sickly Edward VI.

Elizabeth I (1533-1603, r. 1558-1603)

as Henry VIII's daughter by Anne Boleyn, the Catholic Church considered her illegitimate. After the death of her Catholic sister Mary I, she tried to restore religious order by declaring England a Protestant state but naming herself only "Governor" of the Church. She foiled attempts at her throne by Spanish king Philip II and Mary, Queen of Scots; the latter Elizabeth reluctantly executed in 1587. Her reign saw great expansion of the English navy and the emergence of William Shakespeare, but when she died, the Crown went to Scottish king James VI, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Known as the "Virgin Queen" because she never married.

George III (1738-1820, r. 1760-1820)

Britain's economic empire expanded during his reign. While his ministers kept their lives, they fell from power frequently, including both William Pitts, Lord Bute, and Lord North. Popular at home, he suffered from porphyria, causing the "madness" that ultimately led to the Regency period (1811-1820) of his son George IV. Lost the American colonies.

(Alexandrina) Victoria (1819-1901, r. 1837-1901; Empress of India 1876-1901)

The longest-reigning monarch in British history, she relinquished much of the remaining royal power, both to her husband Albert and to her favored prime ministers, Lord Melbourne, Robert Peel, and Benjamin Disraeli. After Albert's death in 1861, she largely went into seclusion, though she influenced the passage of the Reform Act of 1867, which doubled the number of Britons who could vote.

William I (the Conqueror) (1028-1087, r. 1066-1087)

House of Normandy. Duke of Normandy from 1035, he was promised succession to the throne by Edward the Confessor, but when Edward gave the throne to Harold II in 1066, this monarch invaded England, killing Harold and defeating the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings. An able administrator, he authorized a survey of his kingdom in the 1086 Domesday Book. By that time this King had replaced Anglo-Saxon nobles and clergy with Normans and other continentals.

Charles I (1600-1649, r. 1625-1649)

House of Stuart. The last absolute English monarch, this king ran into trouble almost immediately. His minister, the Duke of Buckingham, asked Parliament for money to fight costly foreign wars, and when Parliament balked, this king had to sign the Petition of Right. From 1630 to 1641 he tried to rule solo, but financial troubles forced him to call the Short and Long Parliaments. His attempt to reform the Scottish Church was the last straw, as Parliament entered into the English Civil War. They defeated this king, convicting him of treason and executing him. England became a Commonwealth with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector

Louis XIV (1638-1715, r. 1643-1715)

House of Bourbon. His reign is often cited as the best historical example of an absolute monarchy. He led France against most of the rest of Europe to win the throne of Spain for his grandson (the War of the Spanish Succession). He championed classical art, religious orthodoxy, and instituted a great program of building throughout France. Known as the "Sun King," his 72-year-reign is the second longest in recorded history

Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt