Quiz: Famous birthdays

It’s the birth anniversary of my favourite Donald, the duck who has enchanted viewers since Little Red Hen in 1934. The quiz that follows is on birthdays.

Famous birthdays 1 In which country are birthdays not celebrated on July 8 and December 17? If it helps, the biggest celebrations of the year are on the Day of the Sun and the Day of the Shining Star.

2 In which hugely popular 19th-century story does one of the characters celebrate an ‘unbirthday’, that is, any day which is not his or her birthday? The term was also coined by the author in this work.

3 Who famously sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to whom in front of 15,000 guests at Madison Square Garden on May 19, 1962?

4 Fiction. Which specific species come of age on their 33rd birthday? They usually have to give presents instead of accepting them on their birthdays.

5 When Sachin Tendulkar hit a century on his 25th birthday to lead India to victory against Australia in a Sharjah tournament in 1998, he became just the second player to hit an ODI century on his birthday. Who was the first, also an Indian, who achieved the feat in 1993?

6 On which specific birthday do boys traditionally have their Bar Mitzvah, the traditional Jewish rite of passage?

7 In 2016, so far, which specific day has had the least number of people celebrating a birthday?

8 Which unlikely fact connects William Shakespeare, Raphael, actress Ingrid Bergman, and Dr BC Roy, the first Chief Minister of Bengal? The list is non-exhaustive.

9 Who recorded a famous song on his album Hotter Than July to help the campaign for making Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday in the US?

10 Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba puzzled the media and fans in October 2015 after he scribbled ‘+5’ on his No 10 jersey for a particular match. He claimed he did it because the ‘10’ on his jersey looked like ‘70.’ If we accept his explanation, to whom was he paying tribute?

Answers

1. North Korea; July 8 and December 17 are the death anniversaries of Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il respectively. Kim Il-Sung’s birthday is the Day of the Sun and Jong-Il’s birthday, the Day of the Shining Star.

2.Through the Looking Glass , by Lewis Carroll, the sequel to Alice in Wonderland

3. Marilyn Monroe sang for President John F Kennedy. Her dress on the day later sold for over a million dollars

4. Hobbits, in the works of JRR Tolkien. A 50-year-old hobbit is considered to be entering middle age

5. His schoolmate Vinod Kambli, at Nagpur on January 18, 1993

6. 13th birthday; Jewish girls normally have their Bat Mitzvah on their 12th birthdays

7. February 29. Happens every leap year

8. All of them were born and died on the same day

9. Stevie Wonder. ‘Happy Birthday’ rose to No 2 on the British charts in 1981

10. Pele. It was Pele’s 75th birthday on October 23, 2015

_{Joy Bhattacharjyais a quizmaster and Project Director, FIFA U-17 World Cup}

_{Follow Joy on Twitter @joybhattacharj}

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