Expedition IQ Quiz
Olly has been trekking around the globe hunting down history's big ones and digging up all kinds of fascinating facts that are often important clues. Test your knowledge of just a few of the historical gems that Olly has used to solve some epic mysteries.
Which king built the temple in Jerusalem that was the last known resting place of the Ark of the Covenant?
David
Solomon
Herod
King Solomon built the First Temple to house the Ark of The Covenant on what is now known as Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE when the Ark disappeared. A second temple was built between 538 and 516 BCE and was later renovated by King Herod in the 1st Century BC. This temple that was destroyed by the Roman Army in 70 CE.
Which of the following Christian denominations claims to hold the Ark of the Covenant?
Egyptian Coptic Orthodox
Syriac Orthodox
Greek Orthodox
Ethiopian Orthodox
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant. The object is purportedly kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum, Ethiopia.
Which ancient South American people bound their skulls to elongate them?
Moche
Nazca
Chimu
Inca
Skulls recovered from some Nazca sites in Peru exhibit "cranial manipulation, " an elongation effect produced when the heads of infants were bound to boards.
What's the psychoactive component of San Pedro cactus?
Ayuhuasca
Datura
Mescaline
Ololiuqui
San Pedro cactus contain mescaline, a hallucinogenic compound found in several types of cacti.
What now sits on what was once the site of the Incan Temple of the Sun and royal palace in Cuzco, Peru?
Ruins of a Spanish fort
Cathedral of Santo Domingo
A silver mining museum
National Bank of Peru
Not long after they defeated the Inca Empire, the new Spanish overlords tore down the heart of the Incan capital and erected the Catholic Cathedral of Santo Domingo in its place.
What disease, brought in by the Spanish, is thought to have killed two-thirds of the Inca?
Syphilis
Typhus
Tetanus
Smallpox
The native peoples of the Americas had no resistance to smallpox. The Spanish brought it to the New World as early as 1507 and with a few decades it spread across Central and South America killing millions of Native Americans.
What is the name of the Inca way-stations found along their extensive stone road network?
Ortoger
Tambo
Teco-Inca
Capaq Ñan
A Tambo was an Incan structure built for administrative and military purposes along Incan roads. Tambos were used as supply depots and rest stops and may have held records of communications sent along the roads.
Who is the primary source for all stories about Atlantis, after which all stories and ‘evidence’ have come?
Plato
Aristotle
Socrates
Thales of Miletus
The great philosopher Plato recorded a detailed account of the stature and history of Atlantis as part of one of his dialogues on society and government. The doomed city was presented as the archetype of a tyrannical superpower brought down by an all-powerful nature that will always take its revenge on human arrogance.
How many bars of gold bullion from Nazi Germany's Reichsbank were found stashed away in the Merkers salt and potash mine by American soldiers on April 8, 1945 as they pushed towards Berlin near the end of World War II in Europe?
none - they were found in another mine near the Czech border
1,407
3,567
8,198
Exactly 8,198 standard gold bars (totaling over 200,000 pounds just in bars) were recovered from a vault deep in the mine. In addition to the bars, the cache also included hundreds of bags of gold and silver coins and bullion.
According to the Bergier Commission (an investigative body set up by the Swiss Government in 1996) what percent of Nazi gold transactions went through Swiss banks?
12
24
41
76
During World War II, banks in "neutral" Switzerland contributed to the German war effort by converting nearly 80 percent of the Nazi gold transferred overseas into currency that the Germans used to make military purchases.
Which location has NOT been proposed as a possible site for Atlantis?
Bahamas
Scotland
Canary Islands
Japan
China
Although proposed locations for fabled Atlantis have ranged across the globe, China has never been a candidate probably because it has had flourishing cultural continuity and it's not an island.
Ninety per cent of the world's amber comes from a city that's one of the safest and least corrupt in the former Soviet Union.
True
False
Kaliningrad, the former German Koenigsberg, is the center of the world's amber production but it's also one of the most dangerous places in Europe because of organized crime, government corruption and environmental hazards (a former Soviet nuclear submarine base located in the city's harbor has one of the highest levels of radiological contamination in the world).
Where did Hitler's SS not send expeditions to look for evidence of an Aryan mster race?
Finland
Iran
Tibet
Canary Islands
Although Nazi racial pundits wanted to send a team to the Canary Islands, war intervened before they could make the trip. But in the 1930's they conducted investigations in many European and Central Asian areas searching for what was always the fictitious source of the master race.
What percentage of inmates survived the notorious Devil's Island prison system in French Guiana?
Less than 10 percent
About 15 percent
15 to 20 percent
20 to 25 percent
Regardless of the actual sentences that the inmates received, less than 10 percent survived the hellish conditions of the penal colony. There were many ways to die in Devil's Island, like the various fevers that also took a heavy toll of guards and the families of prison administrators.
One Devil's Island inmate, Paul Rossenq, set a record for time spent in solitary confinement. How long was this confinement?
739
1,452
3,779
4,872
Rossenq spent a record 3,779 days (over 10 years) in uninterrupted solitary confinement and earned the title, "King of the Dark Cells." In his 300 verse poem called "Hell," he described the dehumanizing process with these words: “I am no longer a man, for the prison has entered into me and I am the prison."
Correct
Too bad. You need to watch more Solving History.
Correct
Way to hang in there. You could still use some more Olly time brushing up on the basics.
Correct
Great Job! Like Olly, you're an eager student of great historical mysteries.
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