50 Question Events and Special Occasions Quiz

Round 1: Religion - Holidays

10 questions about religious holidays.

What name is given to the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community?

Which holiday celebrates the Solar new year, based on the Hindu Vikram Samvat calendar and is additionally a spring harvest festival for many Indians?

What is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting preceded by Shrove Tuesday and falling on the first day of Lent, the six weeks of penitence before Easter?

Arguably no longer religious - With celebrations including Lion dances, dragon dances, fireworks, and giving red envelopes, the Lantern Festival concludes the celebration of what?

What annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, is a religious and cultural celebration by billions of people around the world?

What is the annual celebration of African-American culture that is held from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a communal feast called Karamu, usually held on the 6th day?

What name is given to a festival of lights and one of the major festivals celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists, notably Newar Buddhists?

Spanning nine nights (and ten days) and celebrated every year in the autumn, what festival is observed for different reasons and celebrated differently in various parts of the Indian cultural sphere?

Also known as the Day of Atonement, what is the holiest day of the year in Judaism with its central themes being atonement and repentance?

What is the latter of the two Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide each year (the other being Eid al-Fitr) - It honours the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismail as an act of obedience to God's command?

Round 2: Cultural Festivals

10 questions about various cultural festivals.

Until 2003 called the International Film Festival (Festival international du film), where is an annual film festival held in France, which previews new films of all genres, including documentaries, from all around the world?

Where is the world's largest arts festival, which in 2018 spanned 25 days and featured more than 55,000 performances of 3,548 different shows in 317 venues?

Holding the 2004 Guinness World Record, featuring roughly 3,000 artists from 30-odd countries, and welcoming over 2 million visitors, in which country is the world's largest jazz festival?

The festival that is held in the Valencian town of Buñol, in the East of Spain, in which participants have a food fight purely for entertainment purposes, involves the throwing of what fruit?

What event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance, held annually in the western United States, began as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice, June 22, in 1986?

Regarded as a major event in British culture, what five-day festival of contemporary performing arts takes place in Pilton, Somerset, in England?

With attendance across three days reaching 3.3 million in 2015, earning it the title of "largest attendance at a music festival" according to Guinness World Records, Donauinselfest is in which country?

Which festival in Chicago's Grant Park hosts an estimated 400,000 people each July that sells out annually is considered one of the largest and most iconic music festivals in the world?

What Belgian electronic dance music festival held in Boom, Flanders was first held in 2005 and now stretches over two weekends selling out in minutes?

What is the name given to an annual summer festival in Saint Petersburg celebrating its near-midnight sun phenomena due to its location near the Arctic Circle?

Round 3: Sport - Events

10 questions about sporting events.

Taken from a term originating in a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper immediately after Australia's 1882 victory at The Oval, what is the Test cricket series played between England and Australia called?

Contested every two years with the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe, what event is named after the English businessman who donated the trophy?

Also called Roland-Garros, what is the major tennis tournament held over two weeks, beginning in late May each year that is the premier clay court tennis championship tournament in the world?

The Tour de France, like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), consists of 21 day-long stages over the course of how many days?

What has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game, and since 2004 has been played on the first Sunday in February?

The Home Nations was played between teams from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. With the addition of France, this became the Five Nations, which in turn became the Six Nations with the addition of which country?

Australia's most famous annual Thoroughbred horse race, a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and over, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club on the Flemington Racecourse, is known as the what?

What is the international multi-sport event first held in 1930 involving athletes from a political association of 54 member states, almost all of which are former territories of the British Empire?

For which sport has the most important international championship at club level taken place every year since 1893 in Palermo, Buenos Aires?

The 24 Hours of Le Mans represents one leg of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, with the other events being the Monaco Grand Prix, and which other?

Round 4: Awards and Award Ceremonies

10 questions about various awards and award ceremonies.

What are given for contributions that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind in the areas of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace?

Greeted with anticipation and fanfare, what is the high-profile literary award in British culture that Literary critics have noted is a mark of distinction for authors to be selected for inclusion in the shortlist or to be nominated for the "longlist"?

Popularly known as the Oscars, what are the awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry that are regarded as one of the most significant and prestigious awards in the entertainment industry?

Considered to be one of the most prestigious awards in the film industry, what is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival?

With prizes awarded yearly in twenty-one categories, which award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism, literature and musical composition, within the United States, was established in 1917?

With a ceremony normally held every January, what awards are bestowed by the 87 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, recognizing excellence in film, both American and international, and American television?

Created by publicity consultant Anthony Edwards, what is the light-hearted British award for celebrities who are considered to have a notable posterior?

In the U.S., what is the first of the Big Three networks' major music awards held annually, with awards presented by the Recording Academy to recognize achievement in the music industry?

What is the American awards show, recognizing people in entertainment, voted online by the general public and fans? The show has been held annually since 1975, with the winners originally determined using Gallup Polls until a switch to online voting in 2005.

Having featured some of the most notable events in British popular culture, such as the final public appearance of Freddie Mercury, and the Jarvis Cocker protest against Michael Jackson, what is the highest profile music awards ceremony in the UK?

Round 5: Pivotal Inventions in History

10 questions about important inventions in human history.

What invention proved so influential in prompting revolutions, religious upheaval and scientific thought that Mark Twain would later write, "What the world is today, good and bad, it owes to Gutenberg."?

Currently made somewhat obsolete by satellites and global positioning systems, the impact of what magnetic device on early navigation and exploration was inestimable?

An essential component in nearly every modern electronic gadget, and first developed in late 1947 by Bell Laboratories, what tiny semiconductor devices allow for precise control of the amount and flow of current through circuit boards?

Alexander Fleming made the first leap in the widespread use of what, when he accidentally discovered the bacteria-inhibiting mould known as penicillin in 1928?

With the first commercially successful version created by Étienne Lenoir around 1860, and the first modern version created in 1876 by Nicolaus Otto, what rapidly became the dominant power supply for most vehicles?

What chemical explosive, invented in China in the 9th century, has been a major factor in military technology and by extension Human history?

Although he was not the only one working on the technology, Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell got the first patent for an electric what in 1876?

The culmination of work by a number of prominent 20th-century scientists, what name is given to the process of splitting atoms to release a tremendous amount of energy?

With a number of bright minds contributing over thousands of years, going all the way back to Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece, Benjamin Franklin is generally credited with significantly furthering our understanding of what?

Developed in the 1860s and 1870s by industrialist and inventor John Wesley Hyatt and most famous these days for being the film used in film, what was the first synthetic plastic?

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