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General Knowledge Quiz

Calthrop

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I'm not into motor vehicles or music; so here's a geographo-historical question.

Suppose that you're a 105-year-old inhabitant of Vilnius, nowadays the capital of Lithuania; and have lived in that city all your life. The question is: how many times during the period concerned, was there a change of the nation of which you were a resident, and in which your city was located?

For a spell approx. a century ago, that kind of thing in that part of the world was a total mess -- am thus decreeing; between 1913 and 1923, to be reckoned just one change of nation: from Tsarist Russia, to Poland. Given this: please give the total number of changes of nation, including that just-mentioned one, which you'll have undergone in your long lifetime to date. "Virtual bonus points" for indications of which nations were involved.
 
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A Challenge

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It's been in Tsarist Russia, then moved to Poland as you say, I'm going to guess at least one change and then it got swallowed up into the USSR (Soviet Union), which then would have split and I'm going to say it changed at least twice more, including being in Belarus at least once, before ending up in Lithuania.

Seven/Eight
 

Calthrop

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Comrades / meine Herren: it's all been pretty screwed-up, but maybe not quite so screwed-up as you're envisaging. A Challenge -- the Belarus business which you mention, is unknown to me. Otherwise, you're not far off the mark: let's say, a choice between the figures 7, and 8 ? For the winner, "play things as they go"?
 

fowler9

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Am looking forward to the answer as my sisters fella is a historian by degree and gave me a different number from all of the above.
 

Calthrop

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Am looking forward to the answer as my sisters fella is a historian by degree and gave me a different number from all of the above.

I feel I've made something of a pig's ear of responding to folks' replies: had been hoping that somebody would plump for a -- fresh? -- single figure. Answer time, I feel; future of the floor can then be discussed?

My list -- obtained largely from Wiki:

As said initially, World War I and its aftermath were such mess-and-muddle historically and militarily in this part of the world, that it didn't seem fair to ask for details re all that: so I set up a notional "change 1" -- "Tsarist Russia to Poland" (among much else, Poland took Vilnius from Lithuania by force of arms in 1920).

Thereon -- Change 2: 1939, Vilnius passed from Poland to Lithuania (courtesy of the USSR's annexing the east of Poland).

Change 3: USSR annexed Lithuania 1940.

Change 4: 1941 (possibly) -- extremely-brief attempted reinstatement of independent Lithuania, prompted by Germany's launching war on the USSR in June that year.

Change 4, or 5: 1941 -- German forces invaded, with the area becoming part of Germany's Reichskommissariat Ostland.

Change 5. or 6: 1944 -- Lithuania re-taken by, and re-incorporated in, USSR.

Change 6, or 7: 1990 -- Lithuania became an independent nation again.

I thus see, per my scheme of things as above, either six or seven changes, "depending". fowler9, I'd be interested to learn how your acquaintance's count differs from mine -- I and / or Wiki, might be "full of it" :s ...
 

Calthrop

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A Challenge -- sorry ! I made my post #11167 so very soon after yours, #11166: that I failed to see yours until revisiting the thread now, at 15.25. Oh, dear -- feel that I've managed well-and-truly to mess up this whole thing.
As set out just above: I see either six or seven, as being valid answers. Would "Open Floor", and moving on, be acceptable to all who've taken part?

(fowler9, I would still be interested in knowing your historian associate's version).
 

fowler9

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A Challenge -- sorry ! I made my post #11167 so very soon after yours, #11166: that I failed to see yours until revisiting the thread now, at 15.25. Oh, dear -- feel that I've managed well-and-truly to mess up this whole thing.
As set out just above: I see either six or seven, as being valid answers. Would "Open Floor", and moving on, be acceptable to all who've taken part?

(fowler9, I would still be interested in knowing your historian associate's version).
My sisters boyfriends answer was 5. Russia, Lithuania, Soviet Union, Ostland, Lithania.
 

Calthrop

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I feel that (not for the first time), I've mucked things up and confused them a bit, on the General Knowledge Quiz. I'd figured that -- see posts #11166 and #11168 -- we had "open floor". Can we take it -- some ten days on -- that that is so? (I haven't got a question to set -- just wishing, if necessary, to de-confuse matters,)
 

krus_aragon

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Thanks. Next up:

Identify the following sequence:
  • Calder Hall
  • Chapelcross
  • Berkeley
  • Bradwell
  • ...
(I'll extend the sequence in response to any incorrect guesses)
 

Jackoref

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Something a little different for the next one.
I saw an excellent pub quiz round by a guy called Frank Paul (Only Connect winner if you watch that) - his "Cryptic Pub Quiz" book is excellent by the way.

All of the answers took the form of the classic gag:-

"My wife's going on holiday to the Caribbean."
"Jamaica?"
"No, she went of her own free will"

So the answer for all was a City/Town/Country/Region (ie the answer above would be Jamaica).

My favourite of the bunch for you:-

Hello, dear friend who pronounces every second word with a lisp, my wife's going to Merseyside to watch pigs play badminton.
__________?
No, the activity's open to pigs of any gender.
 

Calthrop

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I very much doubt that this is the answer, but it's absolutely all that I can think of -- Southport???
 

Calthrop

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Absolutely!
Sow sport (but lisping sport)

Good heavens -- talk about lucky stabs in the dark...

My floor, I take it: so -- a thoroughly different scene once again:

What was the last country in the world to adopt decimal currency; and in which year?
 

krus_aragon

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Ooh, that is a good question. I presume it'd be later than the UK (and Ireland) in 1971... might it be an ex-UK colony that took its time in deciding what to replace the lsd with? (A very broad stab, I know.)
 

Calthrop

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k_a , you're on the right track throughout there... could more specific, be doable?
 

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