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General Knowledge Quiz

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EbbwJunction1

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My first reaction was that it's a reunion of the "Flags of Our Fathers" group, but on reflection it can't be, as there were six of them.
 
DaleCooper

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I think I read about this recently. Is it that neither of the countries want the disputed territory due to the liabilities that come with it? Unfortunately I can't remember the countries involved although I think they are in Africa.
 
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theageofthetra

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Is this the recently resolved one between India & Bangladesh where one enclave was inside another which was inside a further one?
 
Peter Mugridge

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Is it the civilised one involving Rockall where each side periodically visits and replaces the other's flag with their own just for show?
 
martinsh

martinsh

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DaleCooper said:
I think I read about this recently. Is it that neither of the countries want the disputed territory due to the liabilities that come with it? Unfortunately I can't remember the countries involved although I think they are in Africa.
Click to expand...

If this is the right one, the countries are Egypt and Sudan and the area is known as Bir Tawil.
 
TheEdge

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martinsh gets the point. Bir Tawil between Egypt and Sudan. Due to border oddities if either country claimed that empty patch of desert they would surrender their claim to a much bigger habitable bit of land
 
martinsh

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What island (off the coast of Australia) was first "sighted" in the 19th century, but it wasn't until 2012 that (despite being on Google Earth) it was discovered it didn't actually exist !
 
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Calthrop

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martinsh said:
What island (off the coast of Australia) was first "sighted" in the 19th century, but it wasn't until 2012 that (despite being on Google Earth) it was discovered it didn't actually exist !
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The so-called Sandy Island, in the Coral Sea some 400 miles off Queensland, Aus.?
 
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Calthrop

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I'll go for a fiction-writing-type anomaly -- concerning the "Flashman" novels by the late George MacDonald Fraser.

There's a momentous 19th-century historical event, in which the books' anti-hero and first-person narrator Harry Flashman was deeply, and controversially, involved. However, the reader is made aware of this only by tantalising mentions-in-passing in a number of the novels: there was never a book in the series, devoted to this episode in history and Flashman's doings therein.

Which historical happening is being referred to here?
 
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EbbwJunction1

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It was the Battle of Isandlwana.

Flashman claims to be a survivor of that (and a defender of Rorke's Drift) in "Flashman and the Tiger".
 
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Calthrop

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martinsh said:
Indian Mutiny ?
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No: the novel Flashman in the Great Game chronicles in full, his experiences in the Mutiny.

EbbwJunction1 said:
It was the Battle of Isandlwana.
Flashman claims to be a survivor of that (and a defender of Rorke's Drift) in "Flashman and the Tiger".
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I'm going to say, "no": per my understanding, the earlier part of Flashman and the Tiger has Flashman recounting in fair detail, in their own right, his doings in the Zulu War. The -- major -- conflict of which I'm thinking; only gets the odd random "aside" mention, usually just a line or two or three, in the course of Flashy's detailed narrating of other adventures.
 
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Calthrop

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DaleCooper said:
American Civil War?
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Correct -- your floor.

(Fraser is on record as having stated, a few years before his death, that he regarded the ACW as a rubbish war; and that he wasn't, and never had been, planning to write a full novel about Flashman's doings in same. This caused a certain amount of ill-feeling on the part of some folk, who considered that the author was indicating thus, a degree of contempt for his devoted fans -- many of whom, in the light of the "hints and crumbs dropped" throughout the series, were yearning for the full Civil War tome.)
 
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EbbwJunction1

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Calthrop said:
Correct -- your floor. (Fraser is on record as having stated, a few years before his death, that he regarded the ACW as a rubbish war; and that he wasn't, and never had been, planning to write a full novel about Flashman's doings in same. This caused a certain amount of ill-feeling on the part of some folk, who considered that the author was indicating thus, a degree of contempt for his devoted fans -- many of whom, in the light of the "hints and crumbs dropped" throughout the series, were yearning for the full Civil War tome.)
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Yes, on reflection, you are right.

I'm one of the ones who wished that he'd written a ACW episode, but it was not to be - unless there's a manuscript floating around somewhere!
 
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