Q 01/05

The world's oldest known leather shoe, about 5,500 years old, was found in 2008 in which country?

A) Armenia

B) Egypt

C) Turkey

D) Peru

Answer · why

A) Armenia

Armenia's Areni-1 cave kept the one-piece cowhide shoe almost perfect under a thick seal of sheep dung; it was stuffed with grass, either to warm the ...

Q 02/05

The earliest known footwear, 10,000-year-old sagebrush-bark sandals, was found in a cave in which US state?

A) Arizona

B) Oregon

C) Nevada

D) New Mexico

Answer · why

B) Oregon

Oregon's Fort Rock Cave gave up the sandals in 1938, sealed beneath ash from the eruption that formed Crater Lake about 7,600 years ago; radiocarbon d...

Q 03/05

Ötzi the Iceman's shoes from around 3300 BC had soles made from the skin of which animal?

A) Deer

B) Goat

C) Bear

D) Wolf

Answer · why

C) Bear

Bear hide formed the soles, worn fur side in, while a net of bark string held dry grass around the foot like a sock; modern replicas have proved comfo...

Q 04/05

UK and US shoe sizes rise in steps of a third of an inch, a unit named after which grain?

A) Wheat

B) Oats

C) Barley

D) Rye

Answer · why

C) Barley

Barley: the barleycorn goes back to medieval English law, which built the inch from three dry, round grains of it, and each full shoe size is still on...

Q 05/05

What is the sliding metal foot-measuring tool found in shoe shops called, after the man who invented it?

A) The Brannock Device

B) The Mondopoint gauge

C) The Florsheim rule

D) The Scholl scale

Answer · why

A) The Brannock Device

The Brannock Device is named after Charles Brannock, who designed it in the 1920s while working in his father's shoe shop in Syracuse, New York, to re...