Bunkagame — July 28, 2026

Question 1

In a 1995 alternate-history novel co-written by Harry Turtledove and actor Richard Dreyfuss, North America remains a British dominion, Alaska stays under Russian rule, and Hawaii is a British protectorate. What is the title of this book?

Accepted Answer

In the alternate world of The Two Georges, the American Revolution never happened. The continental United States and Canada form a self-governing North American Union inside the British Empire, while Alaska stays under Russian rule and Hawaii sits as a British protectorate.

Question 2

In the early 1940s, Black musicians from Mississippi migrated north and settled around the Maxwell Street Market on Chicago's West Side, electrifying the Delta sound and giving birth to a hard-driving urban blues style. What is that style called?

Accepted Answer

Chicago blues was shaped by Mississippi bluesmen who moved north to Chicago in the early 1940s. As Chicago's Black population grew on the West Side by 1940, the Maxwell Street Market became an important gathering place for those same Chicago blues musicians from the South.

Question 3

Colab's 1980 'Times Square Show' helped announce a raw late-1970s downtown Manhattan scene of underground low-budget cinema and clubs like the Mudd Club, Tier 3 and the Pyramid Club. Which Lower Manhattan neighborhood, home to that no-wave film scene, anchored the movement alongside Times Square and the East Village?

Accepted Answer

A key no wave visual art event was Colab's Times Square Show, exhibited in and around Times Square in June 1980. No Wave Cinema also grew as a low-budget film scene in Tribeca and the East Village in the late 1970s and early 1980s, tied to Tribeca clubs like the Mudd Club and Tier 3.

Question 4

This youngest sister of Tsar Nicholas II lived in a 200-room former Baryatinsky mansion in Saint Petersburg and later evaluated the claims of Anna Anderson, who insisted she had escaped revolutionary Russia via Bucharest. Which member of the Romanov family is this?

Accepted Answer

Anna Anderson claimed to have escaped from revolutionary Russia via Bucharest, where she said she gave birth to a child by a man named Tchaikovsky. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, who had lived at the Baryatinsky mansion in Saint Petersburg before the Revolution, later called Anderson's 1920 Berlin suicide attempt the only indisputable fact.

Question 5

This concert tour by a former Beatle, running from 2013 to 2015, played the United Center in Chicago (following earlier Wrigley Field shows), stopped in Boston, and marked debut appearances at venues like Fargodome and Pinnacle Bank Arena. What was the tour called?

Accepted Answer

Paul McCartney's Out There tour reached Chicago at the United Center after earlier 2011 shows at Wrigley Field. The same tour also stopped in Boston before heading south to Austin, Washington, D.C., and Tulsa on the U.S. leg.

Question 6

In a March 2022 European play-off in Palermo, a small Balkan side stunned the reigning European champions 1 to 0 to knock them out of World Cup qualifying, weeks after also beating Germany in Duisburg. Which national team pulled off both upsets?

Accepted Answer

The North Macedonia national football team reached its first major tournament at Euro 2020. The team also made the European play-off final for the 2022 World Cup after beating Germany in Duisburg and Italy in Palermo, ending Italy's World Cup hopes.

Question 7

The mile run world-record book has a long history at Oxford, where several sub-4:45 amateur marks fell in the late 1850s. Fast-forward to 17 February 2016 and Genzebe Dibaba lowered the women's indoor mile record to 4:13.31 in which European capital?

Accepted Answer

In November 1858, Thomas Finch ran 4:45 in Oxford, one of the earliest marks in the mile run world record progression. More than 150 years later, on 17 February 2016 in Stockholm, Genzebe Dibaba lowered the women's indoor mile record to 4:13.31, breaking Doina Melinte's 1990 mark.

Question 8

Finland and the Czech Republic have been continuous Winter Olympic presences for decades, but this Central European neighbour didn't compete under its own flag until the 1994 Lillehammer Games, after its predecessor Czechoslovakia dissolved a year earlier. Which nation made its Winter Olympic debut then?

Accepted Answer

Finland is one of only six countries to have won medals at every Winter Olympic Games, alongside Austria, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. Slovakia has taken part in every Winter Olympic Games since Czechoslovakia's dissolution in 1993.

Question 9

Which 19th-century Boston-raised writer had his play 'Tortesa, the Usurer' premiere at Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre in 1839 (a work Edgar Allan Poe called 'by far the best play from the pen of an American author')? His sister wrote under the pen name Fanny Fern.

Accepted Answer

On 20 June 1839, Nathaniel Parker Willis's play Tortesa, the Usurer opened at the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. Willis's family had earlier moved to Boston in 1816, where his father founded the Boston Recorder and later Youth's Companion, the world's first newspaper for children.

Question 10

Founded in Dublin in 1989 by Rocket Restaurants Ltd, which Irish 1950s-diner-style chain modelled on Johnny Rockets once had 42 sites across Ireland, the UK and Spain, until a 2013 franchisee dispute saw its Galway, Cork, Limerick and Waterford outlets rebrand as Rockin' Joe's?

Accepted Answer

Eddie Rocket's opened its first American-style diner at 7 South Anne Street in Dublin in 1989. After a 2013 dispute, several Eddie Rocket's restaurants in Galway, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and other Irish cities split off and rebranded as Rockin' Joe's.