Question

In 1613 a Spanish monk named Luis Sotelo helped organize a Japanese trip to Mexico led by the samurai lord Date Masamune. He wanted to open direct trade between Japan and Mexico. Which European country, which insisted all Asian trade go through Manila, blocked the plan?

Question

The rock band U2 formed in 1976 when its members were students at Mount Temple school in Dublin. In October 2001, just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, they played their first big US show since the attacks at Madison Square Garden in which American city?

Question

In 1943 the American painter Morris Graves, famous for his dreamy paintings of birds, had his own solo art shows at the Arts Club of Chicago and at a museum in Minneapolis. In which Great Lakes city, famous for making cars, did another museum also give him a solo show that same year?

Question

British landscape painter J. M. W. Turner started at London's Royal Academy of Art when he was just 14, in 1789. In 2007-2008 a big traveling Turner art show ran at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. and then at the Met in New York, with a stop in between at the art museum in which North Texas city?

Question

Beyoncé's 2006 song 'Irreplaceable', from her album 'B'Day', hit number one in Hungary, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. It also made the top ten in Greece, Denmark, Norway and Poland. In which country did the song reach number four and stay on the singles chart for 25 weeks?

Question

A group of Nordic countries teamed up on a bid to host the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, proposing games in Denmark (Copenhagen), Sweden (Gothenburg and Stockholm), and Norway (Oslo and Trondheim), plus one Finnish city. In which Finnish city, home to the 17,000-seat Ratina Stadium, did the bid also plan to hold matches?

Question

LoanDepot Park hosted its first-ever Major League Baseball game on 4 April 2012, when the St. Louis Cardinals beat the home team. That home team, once called the Florida Marlins, had just taken on a new city-based name after making a deal with the county that owns the stadium. In which Florida city did the newly renamed team start play?

Question

The 1800s Southern poet and flute player Sidney Lanier is honored all across the American South, with a Lanier Street in Decatur, Alabama, a Lanier Avenue in Fayetteville, and a bridge over the South Brunswick River named after him. His childhood home, now a small museum, still stands in which Georgia city on the Ocmulgee River?

Question

Sonoma County in California is home to more than 425 wineries growing grapes like Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon blanc, spread across famous valleys like Alexander Valley and Dry Creek. In which north-central Spanish wine region, whose wines are known for blending Sauvignon blanc with a local grape called Verdejo, is the same grape grown?

Question

From the 700s CE, the North African city of Tunis was an important naval base for early Muslim rulers. Then it briefly became the western center of a new Muslim empire (the Fatimids) before they moved their capital to Cairo. In which small village in southern Lebanon, close to the ancient port of Tyre, did that same Fatimid empire also once rule?