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Games: QI Quiz No 007 Man of many talents
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Today marks the 405th anniversary of the death of one of the great
QI heroes: Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit priest and true
Renaissance man. Kircher was an astronomer, archaeologist,
adventurer, composer, mathematician, geographer and naturalist. He
spoke 12 ancient languages, deciphered Coptic script, discovered
natural bioluminescence, evolved the germ theory for the spread of
disease, identified the sun as a seething ball of gases, wrote 44
books and still made time to have himself l...
Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles from HighBeam Research
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Games: QI Quiz No 028 Waiting to exhale
The Independent on Sunday
; It is 50 years ago today that the then Health Minister RH Turton announced there would be no government campaign to warn against the dangers of smoking. His words now seem dangerously complacent: "Two cancer-causing agents have been identified in tobacco smoke but whether they have a direct role in
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Letter: Clouds covered
The Independent on Sunday
; You stated in the answer to the QI Quiz in The Sunday Review that the lowest cloud formation is "cumulonimbus". Not strictly so, as this is the well-known thundercloud whose anvil top often reaches the tropopause at about eight miles. The lowest clouds are stratus, cumulus and strato-cumulus which
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Games: QI Quiz No 009 Beavering away
The Independent on Sunday
; The release last week of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe and recent activities on Lower Mill Estate, in Gloucestershire, have made this autumn something of a high-water mark for beaver lovers. And although it's unlikely that the six Bavarian adult beavers released at Lower Mill in October will
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QI Quiz No 010 Culture club
The Independent on Sunday
; Among the many reasons to celebrate the first day of the year, the birthday of Sir James George Frazer (1854-1941) ought to be one. His book, The Golden Bough remains one of the great tomes of the 20th century, a vast compendium of folklore and myth that simultaneously communicates the strangeness
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GAMES: QI Quiz No 008 Island in the sun
The Independent on Sunday
; Christopher Colombus landed on the island of Hispaniola (below, literally 'Little Spain' and now divided between Haiti and the Dominican Republic) on 5 December 1492. This was on his first voyage of 'discovery'. It is often pointed out that the for the Taino people who had lived there for hundreds
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QI Quiz No 006 Twinkle, twinkle little star
The Independent on Sunday
; If we do manage some cold, clear late November nights, spend time looking up at the stars. The winter months are the best for observing 'stellar scintillation' " that's twinkling to me and you. Stars don't really twinkle, of course. It's an optical effect caused by the different densities of air in
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Games: QI Quiz No 035 Regarding Henry
The Independent on Sunday
; On Wednesday it is 515 years since King Henry VIII was born at Greenwich. Henry's reputation as a monarch has suffered badly from his famous ruthlessness as a husband. This, arguably, is a little unfair. His court was cultured and disciplined in comparison to the rest of Europe. He had a personal
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Games: QI Quiz No 031 Up for the chop
The Independent on Sunday
; Today is the 268th anniversary of the birth of Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a man remembered for only one thing: the killing machine that bears his name. This is a harsh fate for a humanitarian reformer. Guillotin was a deputy of the National Assembly and his now famous proposal in 178 9 for a
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QI Quiz No 037 Winging it Games Details Competition
The Independent on Sunday
; Alazy Sunday in July is the perfect time for a spot of butterfly watching. Although Britain's climate means it isn't really butterfly country - we have 59 resident species and three migrants in comparison to the 400 species of mainland Europe - British butterflies do have some excellent names. We
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Games: QI Quiz No 002 In the beginning...
The Independent on Sunday
; Today is National Mole Day " not, sadly, a day dedicated to the small insectivores but an unofficial holiday for chemists (a mole is a unit of mass, see www.moleday.org for details). In fact, real scientists should prize today as the universe's birthday. In 1650 James Ussher, Archbishop of Ireland
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