Daily Trivia Quiz - Day 116 (2026-02-03)

Question 1

In the 1840s, a major medical breakthrough allowed doctors to perform surgeries without patients screaming in agony. What was this discovery?

Accepted Answer

Anesthesia

Question 2

Before the safer cowpox vaccine was developed, how did doctors originally try to protect people from smallpox?

Accepted Answer

Infecting them with smallpox scabs

Question 3

While cryptography scrambles a message so it can't be read, "steganography" protects a secret by doing what to it?

Accepted Answer

Hiding its existence entirely

Question 4

Henry Ford's Model T revolutionized the car industry. To speed up the assembly line in the early years, Ford famously stated that customers could have the car in "any color so long as it is black." Why black?

Accepted Answer

It dried the fastest

Question 5

The Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed much of the city. The fire was eventually stopped not by water, but by using gunpowder to do what?

Accepted Answer

Blow up buildings to create gaps

Question 6

Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition to Antarctica is considered one of the greatest survival stories ever. After their ship, the *Endurance*, was crushed by ice, how many of the 28 crew members survived the ordeal?

Accepted Answer

All of them

Question 7

Before the 1950s, loading ships was slow and expensive. The invention of the "intermodal shipping container" changed the global economy by standardizing what?

Accepted Answer

The box size

Question 8

Hovercrafts were once seen as the future of high-speed travel because they could move over land and water. Why did they largely disappear from mass public transport?

Accepted Answer

High fuel and maintenance costs

Question 9

One of history's greatest losses of knowledge occurred when a massive ancient library in Egypt was destroyed. Which library was it?

Accepted Answer

The Library of Alexandria

Question 10

Which plant is the fastest growing on Earth, capable of shooting up nearly 3 feet in a single day?

Accepted Answer

Bamboo