Born Here on This Date #2

I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't get Buddha, Alexander the Great or even Paul McCartney, but I did get Justin Bieber and Shakira.

Haha, "some of these things are not like the others..." Really scraping the bottom of the barrel to put Bieber on there, but I admit getting it right.

Same, though the pool of people born in the 90s who are famous and also from Canada is pretty small.

marco polo was born in Dalmatia not Venice

You must be fun at parties.

Actually, his birthplace is actually unknown, but Venice is the considered the most likely.

I think I did better on the first one, but again, I found the ones from ancient history to be much easier than the ones from the past century.

Yeah ancient history is easier than the the 19th century-20th century ones.

I think it's easier because if you dig back to 200 or 2000 years ago there is probably only one or two people born in any given geographic area that anyone knows about. In recent history, there are thousands of people born in places like North America that are well-known, the dates are closer together and the places less relevant. In another 2000 years of course everyone will have long forgotten Justin Beiber, and whichever narrow selection of people history has remembered will be easier to pick out of such a quiz.

On the other hand if you know pop culture well and just don't give a crap about history and ancient geography, then these things wouldn't matter and the ancient ones are going to be difficult for you.

Maybe but there is no Gori in the US state of Georgia.

There's no way of knowing all the cities in a state, it's either specifying that or changing all the states for "US" and just leave the city

But you could know that Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia. I visited the house he was born in before, so that was quite easy for me.

I'm so glad you had the opportunity to do so! For the less fortunate, I still think there's a lack of consistence in this quiz

it's not due to good fortune that I know things. And it's definitely not impossible to know that Stalin, one of the most famous people in history, was born in Gori, Georgia. Before visiting this place I already knew this actually because I read a book on the subject. Maybe you should try that sometime.

Seconded. I thought it referred to the state as well.

well at least for once you aren't complaining about something being impossible to know because it's from America- just something being impossible to know because you assumed it was from America.

Gori doesn't even sound like a US placename. It is, meanwhile, is the 7th largest city in the country of Georgia, after Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Batumi, Rustavi, Sukhumi, and Zugdidi. Birthplace of Joseph Djugashvili. Noticing any trends herei?

Sure there is. And it's not Gori. There is no city named Gori anywhere in the United States. Anyway, you not knowing the answer is not the quizz's fault.

I'd never heard of Gori, but as soon as I saw it I immediately thought of Georgia the country - it just didn't sound like a city that would be in the US state of Georgia. Not at all logical but it got me where I needed to go.

It is. There are a very wide variety of US place names, but most of them fall in to a few different categories. There are placenames that sound very English, German, Dutch, French, or Spanish (-burgs, -villes, San ___s, etc.) There are place names that sound distinctly Native American. There are place names that come from English, Spanish, or French words. There are place names that draw upon historical or mythical cities in histories or mythologies relevant to early US immigrants.. Ithaca, Athens, Alexandria, Salem, etc. There are place names that are New something. There are place names named for prominent Americans. There are some that draw from familiar places where large numbers of immigrants came from- Italy, Portugal, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, etc. Gori sounds very Georgian and very foreign to an American ear, even if it's hard to place exactly why if you aren't so familiar. There aren't a lot of Georgians in the USA.

I have a quiz for you Georgia or ... Georgia?

All part of the fun - had me for a while before I thought "Gori sounds like it could be from the country". Besides, how would you make it clear it's the country? If anything, it should be the other way round: e.g. for the state, use GA, or Georgia, USA.

This may be the only quiz where you can find both Justin Bieber and Alexander the Great as viable answers.

Who is Lebron James?

Kevin James' younger brother.

Ask a sporty Brit.

I'm American and I missed Cobain, James, and Edison. I also missed three Europeans and one South American, but why complain? Maybe I'll know them next time.

Nothing against Rosa Luxemburg, but you can't compare her level of influence and fame with Bill Clinton's, who is more well-known than her even in Germany.

LeBron will be rubbish-bin-of-history dross in 100 years, like at least 99% of sports stars. Rosa Luxemburg is still considered an important political thinker by many and enjoys celebrity status in Germany (and maybe Poland as well). The reason why the basketballer is on this quiz is that he is much more likely to be known by the average Jetpunk user. Hard to believe that this also applies to a comparison with Napoleon, but perhaps I underestimate LeBron's status in America.

Luxemburg dross?? Agree she is not important as Clinton but she is an influential and globally important anti-Stalinist socialist writer. In Germany, there is a major research foundation named after her, and many plazas and streets in too (I used to live in Berlin). She was murdered during the German revolution by the social democrats' Freikorps.

Funny how Barack Obama and Osama Bin Ladin are RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER! ILLUMINATI CONFIRMED!

Oh, THAT Georgia....

My thought exactly.

Yep, that about sums it up. *facepalm*

awesome you had Cobain in there

Just an out-of-place comment on the video game badge introduced today: I would normally think that I know video games pretty darn well.... but I've never even seen someone else play Minecraft and there's no way I'm ever going to get a score of 40 on that quiz. Not even sure what a Minecraft mob is. Why didn't you put on something less esoteric like the Top NES Games quiz... or top 100 SNES games... or the Video Game Characters Quiz... or... heck... you could feature my own Best-Selling Atari 2600 Games or Movies Based on Video Games (in need of an update- but I can make one if you'd like me to) quizzes and put those on. All of the above would be better than the Minecraft thing. That's a very niche game.

I agree with Kal, that's really specific. I have gotten enough for the checkmark on every other quiz that's included in the video games badge, but I have no chance at the Minecraft one because I've never played it. I know it's a popular game, but it seems too specific to be part of the video game badge.

Though I suppose the same argument could be made for the pokemon and the smash bros characters

Pokemon has a popular TV show, many MANY games, a popular trading card game, a popular mainstream live action movie, many animated movies, a cereal, a float in the Macy's Day Parade, and Pokemon regularly show up in other video games not directly related to Pokemon because they are so omnipresent.

Smash Bros includes a wide range of popular video game characters, none of which are unique to Smash Bros., including Mario, Solid Snake, Sonic the Hedgehog, Samus, and Pikachu among many others. It's very fair to include.

The only time I've ever seen Minecraft referenced anywhere was in the Rucka Rucka Ali song parodying it. It's much more niche.

It can't be worse than having to know 30/34 Shakespeare plays for an history badge... but this is pretty discouraging too, I will pass on the video games badge (that and the fact that I'm allergic to anything related to Pokémon ;) ).

Shakespeare, Pokemon, and Harry Potter, as arguably esoteric as quizzes on these subjects could be to non-fans, have all deeply penetrated in to popular culture and mainstream consciousness. Minecraft definitely has not. I've never played a Pokemon game and yet I can still name a large number of Pokemon. I don't know anything about Minecraft other than there are blocks and the game was made by some fat Swedish guy. It's not like I went out of my way to learn something about Pokemon, either, it's just that Pokemon is everywhere. So is Shakespeare.

and I added a similar comment to the Minecraft quiz. This was just the first quiz I opened after looking at the badge and there's no room to comment on the badge page. Apologies.

I disagree. But thanks for making your point respectfully and with actual arguments.

What I meant is that Shakespeare is not history. It would of course be appropriate for a literature badge. As for Pokémon, I don't want to argue about that, I prefer to ignore them.

Literature badge would be more obvious but I think it makes enough sense to include in history.

No, it doesn't. You say that because you're an English speaker and Shakespeare is so fundamental for your culture. But his plays, as good as they are, are not history but fiction, he made up facts with the obvious will to satirize the Elizabethan era. For example, it always annoys me how English speakers use Shakespearean quotes from Julius Caesar as if they were historical... in French, we tend to use quotes from Roman historians (they may be apocryphal, but still much closer to the facts).

Shakespeare is an important part of the shared history of the world. His works have greatly influenced Western civilization. It does make sense. Just as a quiz on The Bible, the Quran, the writings of Rousseau, or the philosophy of Confucius would make sense to include as part of the history badge. All have profoundly shaped the course of history. But it would make more sense to put Shakespeare on a literature badge. I'm not asserting that Shakespeare was a historian.

Let's put it another way. I don't see why knowing 30 out of 34 Shakespeare works would mean you're good at history. I clearly would not. The badge should be about facts, dates, people, events. You could even make a small quiz about Shakespeare with varied questions and it could qualify in the history category, but not a mere list of all his works, no.

Think different.

#2...

The Gori problem still exists.

There is no Gori problem.

Putting in an obscure English town in 1961 when many current famous people would've been born is certainly throwing a bone to all those who complain about being U.S.-centric I'm pleasantly shocked by the lack of tail feathers ruffled by her being called Princess.

Sandringham is also where one of the Royal Family's country residences is located (Sandringham House), so it got me thinking of a (possibly former) member of the royal family.

Wow so including Chris Columbus, 10/24 are USA questions...

Can you throw the rest of the 195 countries a bone?