The footwear quiz

This week’s quiz is inspired by a lady born on July 2,1929, often referred to as the ‘Steel Butterfly’. Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines was known for many extravagances. But her most famous obsession was with her shoes, more than a thousand pairs of which now grace a museum. This quiz is all about footwear.

1 What was special about the Nike Air Mag shoes worn by Marty McFly in the film Back To The Future II in 1989?

2 Which word is believed to originate from workers in the Netherlands throwing their wooden shoes into machinery to stop it from working?

3 Which variety of shoe gets its name from a 15th-century Italian weapon?

4 Otis Davis, who went on to win two gold medals at the 1960 Rome Olympics, was the first athlete to wear Nike shoes. With which kitchen implement were the soles of the first shoes made?

5 Which iconic song was written and first performed by Carl Perkins, but really became a monster hit after Elvis Presley released his version?

6 In 1917, US Rubber introduced the first mass-produced shoes with rubber soles, often referred to as sneakers. The name of the brand has also become a generic name for a variety of shoe. What did US Rubber name its shoe?

7 Which variety of footwear gets its name from the Greek for ‘wooden shoes’?

8 ‘Shoeing’, or throwing a shoe at a celebrity, has become quite common over the last decade, with even Indian politicians like Chidambaram and Kejriwal coming under attack. But which politician did Iraqi Muntadhar al-Zaidi target in December 2008 that really started the trend?

9 In which of his films does Amitabh Bachchan delight in beating the baddies up with his Kolhapuri chappals, probably the first example of brand placement in his films?

10 Which is the most famous brand to originate from the city of Zlin in the Moravia region of the Czech Republic?

Answers

1. He had come to the future and got himself self-lacing shoes. On October 21, 2015, which is the same date Marty McFly reached the future in the film, Nike revealed a self-lacing version of the Nike Mag

2. Sabotage, from the Dutch clogs called ‘sabots’. There are other explanations as well

3. The stiletto or the stiletto heel. The stiletto was usually the second weapon carried by a knight for close combat. The shoe gets its name because of its long, slender dagger-like heels

4. A waffle iron. Phil Knight’s co-founder, coach Bill Bowerman used his wife’s waffle iron to make the cast

5. ‘Blue Suede Shoes’

6. Keds. They originally wanted to call them Peds — which made far more sense, but that name was already copyrighted

7. Sandals

8. George W Bush

9. Suhaag . It was a moderate hit in the late ’70s

10. Bata. This is a footwear quiz, after all! Tomas Bata and his siblings started there in 1897

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

_{Follow Joy on Twitter @joybhattacharj}

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