Bunkagame — September 10, 2026

Question 1

Which everyday dairy food did Vlach shepherds send from Greek Thessaly and the Pindus mountains to feed Constantinople as early as 1022, and is now so central to Spain's Asturias, home of Cabrales, that the region calls itself 'el país de los quesos'?

Accepted Answer

Cheese has been made across the Mediterranean since antiquity. Thessaly's mountain shepherds supplied medieval Constantinople with pungent aged rounds, while Asturias in northern Spain produces the powerful blue Cabrales, aged in limestone caves in the Picos de Europa.

Question 2

Which 2008 debut studio album, released in Italy on 31 October and later going multi-platinum in New Zealand along with more than a dozen other countries, launched an American pop star's career with singles like 'Just Dance' and 'Poker Face'?

Accepted Answer

'The Fame' was Lady Gaga's debut, released on Interscope in August 2008 (October in Italy). It went diamond in France and multi-platinum across Europe, Asia and Oceania, and spawned two Billboard Hot 100 number ones in 'Just Dance' and 'Poker Face'.

Question 3

Which Chicago-based melodic hardcore punk band, formed in 1999 and known for politically charged songs, toured Japan with other Fat Wreck Chords bands, and played a November 2009 tour of the United Kingdom supported by Thursday and Poison the Well?

Accepted Answer

Rise Against, fronted by Tim McIlrath, broke through with 2004's 'Siren Song of the Counter Culture' and later reached platinum status with 'Appeal to Reason' (2008). Their politically outspoken lyrics on animal rights, war and social justice have made them a fixture of the modern American punk scene.

Question 4

Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi', which briefly sat at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2012, sold at Christie's in 2017 for $450 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting at auction. The buyer acted for which Emirati city's department of culture, planning to display it at that city's Louvre outpost?

Accepted Answer

Christie's confirmed the buyer was acting for Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism, on behalf of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman via Prince Badr. The planned unveiling at the Louvre Abu Dhabi was indefinitely postponed in September 2018, and the painting has not been publicly seen since.

Question 5

Which continent-wide film category groups together the film industries of countries as varied as Cameroon and Zimbabwe alongside those of Angola, Chad, Rwanda, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique?

Accepted Answer

'Cinema of Africa' is used as an umbrella for national film industries across the continent, from Nigeria's giant Nollywood to smaller scenes in Central and Southern Africa. Cameroon's cinema mixes Francophone and Anglophone traditions, and Zimbabwe's small industry gained global notice with the 2004 Cannes-selected film 'Kare Kare Zvako'.

Question 6

Which NBA basketball rivalry, dating to the 1950s when neutral-site playoff games were held at the Rochester Community War Memorial in New York, has produced 12 championship series matchups, most memorably a dramatic 1969 Game 7 at the Los Angeles Forum won by the visitors?

Accepted Answer

The Celtics–Lakers rivalry is the defining feud of the NBA. It began in Minneapolis-era Los Angeles and hit its 1980s peak with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Boston leads the head-to-head Finals count 9–3, with the most recent Finals meeting in 2010.

Question 7

Which stage adaptation of a 1994 Australian road-trip film about two drag queens and a transgender woman crossing the outback in a lavender bus opened its Greek run at the Badminton Theater in Athens in May 2014, and launched its post-Broadway US national tour from the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis in January 2013?

Accepted Answer

'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert The Musical' turns the cult 1994 film into a jukebox spectacle of disco and dance-pop, including Kylie Minogue and Village People numbers. It opened in Sydney in 2006, played the West End and Broadway, and has been staged in dozens of countries since.

Question 8

Which Major League Baseball team had a farm team in Dover, Delaware in the Eastern Shore Baseball League, and on 14 April 1934 signed an affiliation agreement with the New York–Penn League's Hazleton Mountaineers in Pennsylvania?

Accepted Answer

The Philadelphia Phillies, founded in 1883, are one of MLB's oldest continuously operating clubs. Their farm system reached deep into the mid-Atlantic in the 20th century, with affiliates dotting Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.

Question 9

Which American football league has the Arizona Rattlers as a Glendale-based franchise, and previously had the West Texas Roughnecks playing home games at Odessa's Ector County Coliseum before that team folded?

Accepted Answer

The Indoor Football League (IFL) is the top surviving American indoor gridiron league after the collapse of the AFL. Founded in 2008 via a merger, it plays a spring-summer season on a shortened field with eight players a side, and the Arizona Rattlers have been one of its most successful franchises.

Question 10

The Minneapolis Area Synod and the Saint Paul Area Synod are the largest and third-largest synods of this Christian body. In Elk Grove Village, Illinois, theologian Martin Marty was a founding influence for the same church. Which Lutheran denomination, formed by a 1988 merger, is being described?

Accepted Answer

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is the largest Lutheran body in the United States, formed in 1988 from a merger of three predecessor churches. Its Twin Cities synods reflect the deep Scandinavian Lutheran heritage of the Upper Midwest.