Q 01/05

Which pigment loved by Pre-Raphaelite painters was made from the ground-up flesh of ancient corpses?

A) Bone black

B) Mummy brown

C) Dragon's blood

D) Caput mortuum

Answer · why

B) Mummy brown

Mummy brown was ground from real mummies, human and feline, mixed with pitch and myrrh. Edward Burne-Jones is said to have buried his tube in the gard...

Q 02/05

Which Ford car was sold only in black from 1914 to 1925, yet was not offered in black at first?

A) Model T

B) Model A

C) Model N

D) Model K

Answer · why

A) Model T

The Model T came only in gray, green, blue and red from 1908 to 1913. Ford then went all-black, and carbon black was one of the cheapest pigments avai...

Q 03/05

Which vehicles got a standard yellow in 1939 because black lettering on it reads well in dim light?

A) Taxi cabs

B) Garbage trucks

C) School buses

D) Mail trucks

Answer · why

C) School buses

School buses got their yellow at a 1939 conference organized by professor Frank Cyr, who became known as the Father of the Yellow School Bus. The shad...

Q 04/05

Which element in glowing dial paint poisoned 1920s workers who licked their brushes to a point?

A) Uranium

B) Polonium

C) Thorium

D) Radium

Answer · why

D) Radium

Radium was the glow in a paint sold as Undark, and the dial painters were told it was harmless. Managers had them use their lips because rags and rins...

Q 05/05

Which Mark Twain character tricks other children into paying to whitewash his aunt's fence for him?

A) Huckleberry Finn

B) Tom Sawyer

C) Becky Thatcher

D) Joe Harper

Answer · why

B) Tom Sawyer

Tom Sawyer is handed the chore by Aunt Polly as punishment for sneaking home late after a fight. He makes the job look so enjoyable that the others ha...