Question 1: How many plays are attributed to William Shakespeare?
Question 2: What percentage of felony convictions in the U.S. result from plea bargains rather than jury trials?
The vast majority of criminal cases in the U.S. are resolved through plea bargains, where the defendant agrees to plead guilty, usually in exchange for a reduced charge or more lenient sentence, rather than going to trial. This is largely due to the overburdened court system.
Question 3: In meteorology, what is the name of the boundary between two air masses of different densities?
A front is the transition zone between two air masses of different densities, and is the principal cause of meteorological phenomena outside the tropics. In surface weather analyses, fronts are depicted using various colored lines and symbols.
Question 4: Who invented the cotton gin in 1793?
The cotton gin automated the cleaning of cotton, greatly reducing the time and labor required to separate cotton fibers from their seeds. This invention revolutionized the cotton industry and the economy of the southern United States in the antebellum period.
Question 5: In which musical would you hear the song "Defying Gravity"?
"Defying Gravity" is the show-stopping Act I finale in the hit Broadway musical Wicked, which tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. The song is a powerful duet between Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) and Glinda the Good Witch.
Question 6: When did NASA send the first human into space?
In April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, orbiting the Earth once in his Vostok 1 spacecraft. A month later, NASA launched Alan Shepard on a suborbital flight, making him the first American in space.
Question 7: What is Canada's national tree?
The maple tree was officially proclaimed as Canada's national tree in 1996. The maple leaf is prominently featured on the Canadian flag.
Question 8: Who said "I think, therefore I am"?
This famous philosophical statement, originally written in Latin as "Cogito, ergo sum", is the foundation of Descartes' theory of knowledge. It reflects his belief that doubting one's own existence serves as proof of the reality of one's own mind.
Question 9: Why does thunder usually accompany lightning during a thunderstorm?
A lightning bolt can heat the air around it to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit (27,760 degrees Celsius), causing the air to rapidly expand and create a shock wave heard as a crack of thunder. Light travels much faster than sound, which is why we see lightning before hearing the thunder.
Question 10: When did the philosophy of stoicism originate?
Stoicism was founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. The Stoics taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge and that wise people live in harmony with the divine Reason that governs nature.
While the exact number of plays written by Shakespeare is not known for certain due to questions of authorship and collaborations, 37 plays are traditionally attributed to him. These include famous works like Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shakespeare also wrote over 150 sonnets and several longer poems during his prolific career in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.