Q 01/05

Which invasion of England is told in the Bayeux Tapestry, a medieval strip of wool embroidery on linen?

A) The Great Heathen Army

B) The Norman Conquest

C) The Roman invasion

D) The Spanish Armada

Answer · why

B) The Norman Conquest

The Norman Conquest fills the Bayeux Tapestry, which despite its name is an embroidery: its scenes are stitched onto the cloth, not woven into it.

Q 02/05

Rosey Grier, a fearsome NFL defensive tackle, published a 1973 how-to book for men on which craft?

A) Knitting

B) Macramé

C) Needlepoint

D) Leatherworking

Answer · why

C) Needlepoint

Needlepoint for Men was the book's title, and its author was one of the Los Angeles Rams' original Fearsome Foursome, among the best defensive lines i...

Q 03/05

Which celestial visitor is stitched into the upper border of the Bayeux Tapestry as a star with a streaming tail?

A) The Crab supernova

B) A total solar eclipse

C) Halley's Comet

D) The planet Venus

Answer · why

C) Halley's Comet

Halley's Comet, as the star is now known to be, has no earlier surviving portrait: the stitched version is the first known picture of it.

Q 04/05

Which tennis champion, nicknamed after a reptile, wore it embroidered on his blazer and later on his polo shirts?

A) Fred Perry

B) Bill Tilden

C) Jean Borotra

D) René Lacoste

Answer · why

D) René Lacoste

René Lacoste was nicknamed 'the Crocodile', and the crocodile his friend Robert George designed for his match blazer became the signature logo of his ...

Q 05/05

Which heroine of American literature earns a living by fine sewing and wears a beautifully embroidered scarlet 'A'?

A) Jo March

B) Hester Prynne

C) Daisy Buchanan

D) Scarlett O'Hara

Answer · why

B) Hester Prynne

Hester Prynne, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, is sentenced to wear the letter for life, yet her stitching is of such extraordinary...