Question 1, Winter League 2022

You’ve heard of Disney cartoons but have you heard of lost Disney cartoons? Walt Disney, the man himself, went through a lot of ups and downs before turning lemon into lemonade by creating Mickey Mouse. It was noticed however that Mickey, Minnie, and the others bore resemblance to some of his previous works, namely a character by the name of X. Interestingly, years later another show starring a blue protagonist by the same name began to air on Nickelodeon, a favourite among many children. However the two characters were vastly different in species. Walt’s producer at the time, Charles Mintz felt that there were too many cat characters on television and wanting something different, made a few adjustments to X’s design and ended up with their final design.

ID X and what was his/her species?

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Summer Mini-League 3, Question #5

A member of the classification Order Sirenia and now extinct, this animal and its fellow members of the order have often been mistaken by exhausted sailors to be mermaids. Sirenia, commonly sirenians, are also referred to by the common name sirens deriving from half bird, half woman creatures that tried to lure Odysseus of Greek mythology with sweet songs of love.

Later some authors confused Sirens with mermaids which eventually led to the scientific naming of Order Sirenia. These animals were imaged by the Early Europeans explorers as mermaids possibly due to their pectoral breasts, dexterous forelimbs and fish like tails. In 1493 when Columbus wrote of the mermaids he had seen in the Carribean, he commented they weren’t as lovely as he had expected.

Identify this now extinct animal.

Summer Mini-League 3, Question #3

Sam Patch, a daredevil of times long gone made his name by jumping off a cliff near Niagara Falls in 1829. Having lived as a child mill worker, he would get an adrenaline rush by leaping off mill dams, a talent he later spun into public stunt shows. After gaining national fame for the Niagara leap, he made a jump off the Genesee Falls on one fated day : outrageously his final leap.

The unfortunate incident built on to legend and the day was remembered as one to be wary of. Many incidents have occurred on this day following the Patch incident but one notable tradition is in Ontario, Canada where a group of motorcyclists gather every time this day occurs for a rally dating back to 1881. They even made an attempt in 2008 to surpass the previous Guinness world record for the largest motorcycle parade which failed due to a technicality.

Identify the parlance for this fateful day.

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Summer QoTD #15

Having broken 3 Guinness World Records including one previously held by Cher, this song, originally from the album “Hounds of Love” has been nominated for many awards in the past. Its name was changed once due to the presence of an *cough unholy *cough word in the title and the team didn’t want it to be played in only religious countries. The song is about men and women swapping places and it even featured in the 2012 Olympics.

What is the new and old name of the song?

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The third and final Summer Mini-League begins tomorrow! Keep a lookout for the first question at 12 PM.

Remember, the quicker you answer correctly, the more points!

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Summer QoTD #13

Born to the Regency equivalent of a rock star (X), this woman was also named the “Enchantress of Numbers”. She was X’s only legitimate child and also quite the nerd, similar to her mother. Her father, X, was the talk of the town in English high society, from his poignant poetry to him leading troops in the fight for Greek Independence. Her mother, teased as the “Princess of Parallelograms”, on the other hand taught her mathematics and logic and ensured a strict schooling.

This resulted in her being extremely intelligent and even wrote a book “Flyology” that determined optimal flight routes to navigate across England. She is famously known to have described in perfect detail how to use an Analytical Engine to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, i.e. the world’s first computer program ever written.

Who was this woman and who was her father X?

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Summer Mini-League 2, Question #3

Widely regarded among parents, teachers, and librarians as a series that instills the passion for reading, Mary Pope Osborne’s award-winning, best-selling series X follows a sibling duo as they travel across the world and through time from the prehistoric lands of dinosaurs to imaginary worlds out of Mary’s head. The books were labeled sequentially with book #29(Christmas in Camelot) onwards being dedicated to more advanced readers and were called “Y’s Missions”.
Identify X and Y.