Latest questions: 10 March 2020

This week's questions are from those used in Week 16 of the 2019–20 season in Macclesfield Quiz League, set by the Harrington Academicals and the King's Gambit.

Which city was the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy or Empire (except for the years from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague)?		Vienna
What was the largest contiguous land empire in history? Founded in 1206, it became fragmented in the mid–to–late 13th century, and all four fragments had collapsed by 1368		The Mongol Empire
What name is given to the branch of biology that's concerned with the development of the fertilised egg?		Embryology
Name one of the three former Soviet republics, other than Russia, that have shores on the Caspian Sea.		Azerbaijan
		Kazakhstan
		Turkmenistan
Excluding the Isle of Wight, seven counties have shorelines on England's south coast. Which one is fourth, going in either direction?		Hampshire
What was the name of the fictional island nation created by The Guardian for April Fools' Day 1977?		San Serriffe
Which New Zealand athlete is the only male since 1920 to have won the 800 and 1500 metres at the same Olympics – which he did at Tokyo in 1964? He previously won the 800m at Rome, 1960; he died in December 2019, aged 80.		Peter Snell
Born in Auckland in 1996, by what name is the singer–songwriter Ella Marija Lani Yelich–O'Connor known professionally?		Lorde
Who is the only manager with a 100% record in charge of the England football team?		Sam Allardyce
Which Welsh RAF aircraft technician set a world record in the Chicago Marathon, in 1984 – his first completed marathon? (The record was broken less than a year later)		Steve Jones
What type of creature is a bandy–bandy?		A snake
In which country is the Brahma brewery – said (by Wikipedia) to be the world's fifth biggest?		Brazil
Which French term is used in the USA for a dessert served with ice cream (or, in some regions, with cheese)?		À la mode
A turophile is a lover or connoisseur of what?		Cheese
Who might have been a surprise winner of the 2001 Open Championship (after a dip in form in the later 1990s), but for a two–stroke penalty for taking out too many clubs in the final round?		Ian Woosnam
The Sabin vaccine is used to guard against which disease?		Poliomyelitis (polio)
Who was the youngest of the five Marx Brothers? He only appeared in five films (the last being Duck Soup, 1933), but went on to own an engineering company, which produced the clamps that held the atomic bomb inside the plane on its way to Hiroshima		Zeppo
Which Irish golfer sank a 10–foot putt on the 18th hole in his match against Jim Furyk at The Belfry, in 2002, that won the Ryder Cup for Europe?		Paul McGinley
What was the name of the Greek merchant ship (originally built in Japan) that ran aground on Brighton beach in 1980?		Athina B
Faisal II, who was executed (murdered) in 1958 along with his family and servants, was the last king of which country?		Iraq
In which European capital city is the Prater Amusement Park, whose Big Wheel (Ferris Wheel) features in one of the most memorable scenes from a classic 1949 film?		Vienna
What is the Japanese word for the pufferfish, when served as food? It must be carefully prepared, by suitably qualified chefs, to remove the toxic parts		Fugu

© Haydn Thompson 2020