Question 1: What animal is the national emblem of the United States of America?
Question 2: What is the most widely produced grain in the world?
Maize, also known as corn, is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas with 1.04 billion metric tons grown annually. Though rice and wheat are also widely consumed, maize is fundamental to the diet in many regions and serves as a staple food, as well as being used in animal feed and biofuels.
Question 3: Which planet has the most moons?
As of my knowledge cutoff in 2023, Saturn holds the record for the most natural satellites, boasting over 80 moons that have been officially named. This number surpasses Jupiter, which has 79 known moons. The count for Saturn's moons may continue to change as new discoveries are made. Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is even larger than the planet Mercury.
Question 4: What was the first musical written by the famed composer and lyricist duo Rodgers and Hammerstein?
Oklahoma! premiered on Broadway in 1943 and was a pioneering work that has been credited with marking the beginning of the modern musical. It signaled a shift towards fully integrated stories where songs and dances are woven into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals.
Question 5: Who was awarded the very first Academy Award for Best Actor?
Emil Jannings won the award at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929 for his performances in "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh". The Oscars had their inception celebrating the film industry achievements and continue to be one of the most prestigious awards in the entertainment industry.
Question 6: Who is credited with inventing the first successful airplane?
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, conducted the first successful powered flights on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their aircraft, the Wright Flyer, ushered in the age of aviation.
Question 7: Which document is considered the first constitution in the world?
The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest code of laws that have been discovered, dating to about 2100-2050 BCE in Mesopotamia. The code is named after Ur-Nammu, the king of the city-state of Ur. It predates Hammurabi's code by centuries.
Question 8: What is the psychological effect called when someone overvalues their own ideas or abilities simply because they belong to them?
The Endowment Effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to assign more value to things merely because they own them. This bias can also extend to ideas and can be observed in situations like negotiations where individuals tend to place higher value on their own offer or possessions.
Question 9: What is the most widely spoken native language in the world?
Mandarin Chinese is spoken by over a billion people worldwide, primarily in China, Taiwan, and Singapore. While English is the most widely spoken language when counting both native and non-native speakers, Mandarin Chinese has the largest number of native speakers.
Question 10: What is the densest known object in the universe?
Neutron stars are incredibly dense, as a result of their mass being packed into an extremely small volume, leading to a density that's about 400 million times higher than that of Earth. Black holes, while incredibly dense, are not defined as an object in the context of density due to their singularity and event horizon characteristics.
The bald eagle was chosen as the emblem of the United States of America in 1782 because of its long life, great strength, and majestic looks, and because it was then believed to exist only on this continent. Benjamin Franklin reputedly said that the bald eagle was a bird of bad moral character and that the turkey would have been a more appropriate symbol.