1890s Decade Quiz

Do you have what it takes to answer these questions about the 1890s?

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Last updated: January 3, 2020

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First submitted	February 21, 2015
Times taken	29,385
Average score	55.0%
Rating	4.15

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Question	Answer
What character was created by Bram Stoker?	Dracula
What sporting event was held for the first time in over 1,600 years?	Olympic Games
What nickname has been given to the decade?	Gay Nineties
What style of dance was invented in Argentina and Uruguay?	Tango
What nation did the United States declare war on after the sinking of the USS Maine?	Spain
What Christmas ballet was written by Pyotr Tchaikovsky?	The Nutcracker
What writer was convicted of sodomy and sentenced to hard labor?	Oscar Wilde
What type of baskets were originally used in basketball?	Peach Baskets
What Massachusetts woman was accused of killing her parents with an axe?	Lizzie Borden
What term referred to a wealthy American industrialist?	Robber Baron
What famous hotel in Paris opened? (The only reason not to stay there was if you couldn't afford it)	Hôtel Ritz
What was the French term for an impoverished, unconventional, artistic person?	Bohémien
What future President led a group of soldiers called the Rough Riders?	Theodore Roosevelt
What style of sensationalist journalism was practiced by William Randolph Hearst?	Yellow Journalism
To what Pacific island did Paul Gauguin move?	Tahiti
What composer wrote his most famous march, "The Stars and Stripes Forever"?	John Philip Sousa
Who wrote "The Jungle Book"?	Rudyard Kipling
What type of radiation was discovered by Wilhelm Röntgen?	X-Rays
What crime was Alfred Dreyfus accused of committing?	Espionage
What gold rush happened in Canada?	Klondike Gold Rush

Level 85

Feb 24, 2015

Wikipedia says that another name for the Klondike Gold Rush is the "Yukon Gold Rush".

Level 69

Mar 30, 2015

I guessed Yukon as well.

Level ∞

Mar 30, 2015

Yukon will work now.

Level 69

Mar 30, 2015

For the hotel one, I Googled every way of typing Les Invalides (including with all the hopital business) before giving up.

Level ∞

Jan 3, 2020

Strange considering that Les Invalides was founded in 1670 as a home/hospital for old soldiers.

Level 70

Aug 13, 2020

The term "hôtel" in French can sometimes be confusing, especially for tourists visiting the French capital.

Most of the time, it refers to an establishment that rents out rooms by the night --- exactly like it does in English.

Where it becomes a false cognate is when it's being used to designate an important official building --- e.g.: hôtel de ville = city hall, hôtel de police = police headquarters, etc. L'Hôtel des Invalides was constructed as a hospital and home for old soldiers, but the project blossomed into a complex campus of tangentially related buildings and functions.

Level 55

Jul 17, 2015

I spelled it Souza (the Brazilian way I guess). Anyone else see the French hotel question and type in "Paris Hilton"?

Level 74

Jan 25, 2018

I spelled it Souza too. Bummer.

Level 74

Aug 26, 2020

That wasn't very smart of you.

Level 69

Jun 28, 2021

I also tried Souza over and over. It never clicked for me, even though I know how to spell "sousaphone". D'oh!

Level ∞

Jan 31, 2022

Souza will work now.

Level 75

Jul 17, 2015

I tried bushel baskets, half-bushel baskets, peck baskets, woven baskets, fruit baskets, wooden baskets...everything but peach.

Level 82

Jul 18, 2015

Is there something about peach baskets that renders them unsuitable for holding other types of fruit?

Level 77

Jun 21, 2016

fruit baskets seems like it should work.

Level 84

Mar 21, 2017

Or just baskets. I'm sure that kids on the street weren't that picky on what was in the basket before they knocked the bottom out of it. "Sorry guys, we can't play a game. All we have are these stupid apple baskets."

Level 72

Jan 24, 2018

@fuanacdc: So the answer to "What type of baskets..." would be "baskets"? Convenient! :) That being said, I feel like fruit baskets should be acceptable. Or even wicker baskets.

Level ∞

Jan 24, 2018

Fruit will work now

Level 67

Oct 12, 2019

wicker baskets seems to make the most sense.

Level 69

Jun 28, 2021

I tried wicker and cane. But when I did go for a purpose (rather than materials) I was still barking up the wrong tree - laundry, fishing, etc, not fruit picking.

Level 71

Nov 14, 2017

For crying out loud - do you know how many different types of baskets there are?! And I think I tried them all - even laundry baskets. So there may have been a couple of dirty socks ....

Level 75

Jan 24, 2018

For some reason, the peach part of it is always mentioned when telling the history of basketball. If you're a basketball fan, you've probably heard the story. If not, good luck.

Level 56

Jan 24, 2018

The peach basket (specifically) is part of the legend of the story, of YMCA Physical Education Director, (Canadian) James Naismith, inventing basketball, using peach baskets that he nailed to the beam.

He soon figured out that cutting out the bottom of the basket saved a lot of time.

Level 57

Jan 30, 2018

Dr. Naismith specifically used peach baskets, because that's what he had on hand, and for whatever reason, it's pretty much always mentioned in any telling of the origin story of basketball.

It's called trivia: if you don't know, then you unfortunately get one wrong. Don't get all up in arms over getting one wrong, ok? It really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Level 75

Aug 13, 2020

I understand it's part of the story, but we're just saying there's really no such thing as a "peach basket". I worked at a peach orchard during the summers when I was in high school. There were stacks of bushel, peck, and half-bushel baskets which held peaches in the summer, apples in the fall, and sometimes tomatoes or hot peppers (which I learned the hard way can cause blisters if you don't wear gloves when picking). If the owner needed new ones he didn't order peach baskets. He ordered produce baskets by size - not the same thing as woven baskets. Naismith grabbed a basket lying around which had happened to be used for peaches and it makes a good story, but the sport isn't called peach basketball. No, missing an answer doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but trivial things are important on this site and some of us just like to nitpick.

Level 68

Aug 28, 2022

That's a super long way of saying you didn't know the answer.

Level 83

Jan 8, 2016

I at first read this as "1980s general knowledge", which confused me for the first few questions at least.

Level 84

Oct 2, 2016

Ah yes, the 19th Century. I remember it well. Good times.

Level 57

Jan 18, 2017

Boheme sould be anough

Level 86

Mar 5, 2017

Maybe, but Bohème is the lifestyle, not the person who practices it.

Level 67

Jan 25, 2018

I think jajaco's point is that the opera "La Bohème" is associated with the 90s, since that's when it premiered, but that the term "bohemian" had been part of the English language, and before that French, for 50 years or more before that. You might call this nit-picking--and I plead guilty.

Level 55

Mar 27, 2017

I tried typing in Olympics and Olympic games and it didn't take.

Level 72

Aug 20, 2020

Sure it did. Try again.

Level 75

Jan 24, 2018

I didn't know Gaugin made it into the 20th century. I said Hiva Oa (where he's buried), but he didn't even get there until 1901. (Anyway, Tahiti is obviously his more famous home.)

Level 75

Jan 24, 2018

Surely Bram Stoker created many characters - sure, Dracula is likely to be the most well-known by far but some people might know of his other works but not know he wrote that

Level 64

Feb 6, 2018

I doubt it:

The Snake's Pass (1890)

Seven Golden Buttons (1891)

The Watter's Mou' (1895)

The Shoulder of Shasta (1895)

Dracula (1897)

Miss Betty (1898)

The Mystery of the Sea (1902)

The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903)

The Man (a.k.a. The Gates of Life) (1905)

Lady Athlyne (1908)

The Lady of the Shroud (1909)

The Lair of the White Worm (a.k.a. The Garden of Evil) (1911)

The last one is literally the only other Stoker novel I've ever heard of.

Level 75

Jul 5, 2018

And also what about the heroes of the book such as Van Helsing?

Level ∞

Jan 3, 2020

Common sense is assumed on all quizzes.

Level 81

Aug 13, 2020

If common sense is what is most common in the environment, then maybe common sense on jetpunk = pedantry (coming from someone who loves the site).

Level 66

Jan 24, 2018

It seems to me that most quizzes that feature Oscar Wilde as an answer usually accept just Wild, but this one doesn't. I'm usually a proponent of people needing the proper spelling to get the answer, but if it's accepted on other quizzes, should it be accepted on this one as well?

+10

Level ∞

Jan 24, 2018

I changed the recommended type-in to "Wilde" since I think that most users don't like the answer to complete before typing in the final letter.

Level 37

Jan 25, 2018

Excellent decision!

Level 65

Aug 13, 2020

Ha. Also read this as 1980s and was utterly confused.

Level 75

Feb 17, 2022

There is a spelling mistake at the end of the Paris hotel question, just so you know :)

Level 83

Jun 16, 2022

I'd call it a punctuation mistake for the sake of pedantry

Level 77

Aug 23, 2022

Ahh, the ironic misnomer known as "robber baron." They created a product that people wanted and willingly gave money for (so, not a robber), and--with the exception of a few--they originally came from penury before doing so (so, not a baron). Their jealous competitors applied that term, and it stuck around ever since.

Level 67

Aug 27, 2022

Why is there a 0 in the Hotel Ritz question?

Level 66

Aug 27, 2022

Typo, I guess.

Level 61

Aug 27, 2022

Typo in the Hotel Ritz question

Level 80

Aug 27, 2022

Can we fix the 0 in the hotel question. I think it should be a parentheses.

Level 67

Aug 28, 2022

Back when they made real music.

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