Q 01/05

What did a low-flying Cessna drop on the Eden Park pitch during the 1981 Springbok tour's final test?

A) Water balloons

B) Stink bombs

C) Flour bombs

D) Paint balloons

Answer · why

C) Flour bombs

Flour bombs. One felled All Black prop Gary Knight, yet the rugby went on and New Zealand won 25–22 in what is still called the flour-bomb test.

Q 02/05

Which organisation's flagship Rainbow Warrior was sunk by French agents in Auckland harbour in July 1985?

A) Greenpeace

B) Sea Shepherd

C) Friends of the Earth

D) World Wildlife Fund

Answer · why

A) Greenpeace

Greenpeace was about to sail the ship to Mururoa to protest French nuclear testing when French secret service agents bombed it, killing photographer F...

Q 03/05

News that Hillary and Tenzing had climbed Everest reached Britain on the day of which 1953 event?

A) The Festival of Britain

B) Churchill's Nobel Prize

C) The first Commonwealth Games

D) The Queen's coronation

Answer · why

D) The Queen's coronation

The Queen's coronation, on 2 June 1953. The timing doubled the headlines, and before the climbers had even walked out of the mountains the new Queen h...

Q 04/05

In which architectural style was Napier rebuilt after the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake devastated the town?

A) Gothic Revival

B) Art Deco

C) Brutalist

D) Bauhaus

Answer · why

B) Art Deco

Art Deco was at its fashionable peak when Napier rebuilt in the 1930s, and the quake also lifted the Ahuriri Lagoon, draining land that is now Hawke's...

Q 05/05

What swept away a rail bridge over the Whangaehu River at Tangiwai on Christmas Eve 1953, killing 151 people?

A) A flash flood from storms

B) A logging dam failure

C) A landslide

D) A volcanic lahar

Answer · why

D) A volcanic lahar

A volcanic lahar, released when the rim of Mount Ruapehu's crater lake gave way, knocked out a bridge pier minutes before the express arrived. Motoris...