Latest questions: 13 October 2020

This week's questions have been gleaned from those set for use in the Plate Final of the 2018–19 season in Stockport Quiz League, by the Railway and the Tiviot (Questions 1 to 13), and those set for Week 1 of the 2017–18 season by the Hatters Arms (Questions 14 to 30).

The EHT is a global array of radio telescopes, working together, which was launched in 2009 and took the first image of a black hole (at the centre of galaxy Messier 87) – published in April 2019. What does EHT stand for in this context?		Event Horizon Telescope
Which natural phenomenon can be named after the wolf in January, snow in February, the worm in March, and the colour pink in April?		The (full) moon
Which town in Massachusetts, midway between Boston and Providence (Rhode Island), is best known today as the location of Gillette Stadium, home of New England Patriots (NFL) and New England Revolution (MLS)? It was named after a Whig member of Parliament who was a staunch supporter of the American Colonies in the years leading up to the War of Independence.		Foxborough
Which US President refused to be sworn in on a Sunday, leading to an urban myth that David Atchison, pro tempore President of the Senate, was President for a day?		Zachary Taylor (1849)
Which city in the US state of Michigan is served by Gerald R. Ford International Airport – having been represented by Ford in the House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973?		Grand Rapids
Which American engineer and entrepreneur founded a company in 1960 to manufacture what is probably the world's most famous private, luxury aircraft? The company, to which he gave his name, has been based in Wichita, Kansas since 1962, and was bought in 1990 by the Canadian aerospace company Bombardier.		William Powell (Bill) Lear
Which English music hall artiste is best known for the comic song The Laughing Policeman, which he first recorded in 1922?		Charles Penrose
Which major German city was sacked and destroyed in 1631 by the armies of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic League, resulting in around 20,000 deaths?		Magdeburg
In music theory, what name is given to the fifth note in a scale – 'soh' or 'sol' in the sol–fa notation – the most important note after the first?		The dominant
Who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 "for his crucial role in establishing the League of Nations"?		Woodrow Wilson
In which Devonshire stannary and market town was Francis Drake born around 1540?		Tavistock
What's the common name for the 'infra–order' of mammals whose forty species include Haviside's, Hector's, Risso's, Fraser's and Peale's?		Dolphins
Which English city gives its name to a dessert – a school dinner staple – with a short–crust pastry shell, spread with raspberry jam and covered with custard filling (and topped with coconut flakes and a maraschino cherry)?		Manchester (tart)
The incidental music for a 1909 production of Aristophanes's The Wasps at Trinity College, Cambridge, is among the most popular works of which composer?		Ralph Vaughan Williams
Which all–American hero's 1988 autobiography was entitled The Ragman's Son – a reference to the occupation that his father followed in Amsterdam, New York, shortly after the First World War?		Kirk Douglas
In Pigs in Space, a recurring sketch series on The Muppet Show, what was the name of the stereotypically macho captain of the USS Swine Trek?		Link Hogthrob
Which West Indies spin bowler returned match figures of 11 for 157 at Old Trafford, Manchester in 1963, and 10 for 106 on the same ground in 1966?		Lance Gibbs
Which vegetable is a cultivated variety of a type of thistle, also known as the cardoon?		The (globe) artichoke
Which Italian region gives its name to the most popular variety of broccoli?		Calabria
Who entered the film industry in the 1930s to counteract the negative influence that films were perceived to be having on family life in Great Britain, having started showing religious films as a Sunday School teacher in the Methodist Church?		J. Arthur Rank
Give the 'nom de guerre' of either of the two artists, born on the same day in 1935, in Bulgaria and Morocco respectively, who met and married in Paris in the 1950s, and one of whose best–known installations was 1995's Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin.		Christo or Jeanne–Claude
'Parison' and 'marver' are terms used in which craft?		Glassblowing
Genoveva (1850) was (not least because of its poor reception) the only opera composed by whom?		Robert Schumann
Which traditional yeast–based cake (often with raisins), popular throughout Central Europe, is baked in a distinctive doughnut–shaped mold?		Gugelhupf
Which American boxer was the subject of the 1988 bio–pic Raging Bull, in which he was played by Robert De Niro?		Jake LaMotta
What was the title of the collection of "experimental prose poetry" by Bob Dylan, first published (apparently without his consent) in 1966?		Tarantula
In Vietnam, what name for a popular type of sandwich, consisting of a small baguette with various savoury fillings, is simply the local name for bread?		Báhn mì
Liliane Bettencourt was described as "the world's richest woman" following her death in 2017. She had inherited which French cosmetics company – the biggest in the world at the time – from her father, Eugène Schueller, who'd founded it in 1909?		L'Oréal
Which English composer died in 1983, aged 80, on the Italian island of Ischia?		Sir William Walton
Give one of the full forenames of the Oscar–winning actor, Al Pacino.		Alfredo or James

© Haydn Thompson 2020