Q 01/05

What did Frau Troffea begin doing uncontrollably in Strasbourg in July 1518, starting an outbreak?

A) Laughing

B) Weeping

C) Screaming

D) Dancing

Answer · why

D) Dancing

Between 50 and 400 people joined in over the following weeks; the leading theory today is stress-induced mass hysteria, though ergot poisoning has als...

Q 02/05

The Catacombs of Paris hold the remains of roughly how many people?

A) 600,000

B) 2 million

C) 6 million

D) 20 million

Answer · why

C) 6 million

The bones were moved by night from overflowing cemeteries into old limestone mines from 1788; Robespierre and Danton are somewhere down there.

Q 03/05

The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic is famous for a chandelier made of what?

A) Melted church bells

B) Wrought iron nails

C) Wax death masks

D) Human bones

Answer · why

D) Human bones

Woodcarver František Rint arranged the bones of 40,000 to 70,000 people in 1870 and signed his name on the wall, in bone.

Q 04/05

What message greets visitors to Rome's Capuchin Crypt, decorated with friars' bones?

A) Abandon all hope, you who enter here

B) Remember that you too will die, brother, and be judged

C) The dead keep their secrets, and so shall you

D) What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you will be

Answer · why

D) What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you will be

New friars were dug up after about 30 years so their bones could join the decor; Mark Twain wrote about the place.

Q 05/05

Tollund Man, a 2,400-year-old Danish bog body found in 1950, was so well preserved that his finders assumed what?

A) He was a sleeping farmer

B) He was a shipwrecked sailor

C) He was a wax figure

D) He was a recent murder victim

Answer · why

D) He was a recent murder victim

He still had a plaited noose around his neck; his last meal was barley porridge eaten 12 to 24 hours before he was hanged.