Show how smart you are! Apolyton History and Science quiz!

[SnowFire]

Urg... define wet?! I do know that mercury's cohesion is such that it naturally wants to stick to itself, not the ground, so it beads naturally, but not sure if that's what you're looking for...

PH: Talk about a softball. William Henry Harrison, held office for a month with a bad case of pnemounia. Now McKinley comes close, except for the fact that he had a whole previous term, so it probably doesn't count.

[SnowFire]

I'm 99.9% sure I'm right, so here's another question. While on the topic of presidents, what president was known for wearing these bizarre silver reflective pants? No, the answer is not Bill Clinton.

[Paul Hanson]

Well, Harrison was the one I was thinking of. So well done. And I'm deeply sorry that my question was too easy for you.

[SnowFire]

Nah, it's just that after questions like "There's a very specific region that did something very nebulous in Europe involving ruling themselves but being native before Rome, start guessing centuries!" that question was a bit more straight-forward. ;-)

[CyberGnu]

Snowie, almost. Mercury doesn't want to stick to anything, not even itself. (although, pouring mercury over gold is interesting. It is somewhat like pouring water over a sugarcube.). In essence, it behaves like a noble gas. At room temperature it doesn't have enough energy to go into gasphase, however, so it has to stick to something and it prefers other mercury atoms to other (non-oxidazable) materials, much like liquid nitrogen.

[Paul Hanson]

I see. I should have guessed that Americans would probably have known the answer (I'm British, and very few people in Britain have even heard of Harrison).

Anyway, I'm going to guess that Roosevelt (Franklin) wore silver pants at some point, for reasons unknown.

[Roland]

"As the Roman empire in the west fell, its control over several provinces passed back into the hands of those who held them before the Romans came in; however, later barbarians would overwhelm all of these. What was the leader or last region to be controlled by the original pre-Roman peoples who lived there and in what century was it lost to barbarians or the descendents thereof?"

Have you agreed on Wales ? Because depending on the exact meaning of "controlled" I'd rather go for the basques in the kingdom of Navarra, or the Kabyles....

[Victor Galis]

Maybe, but Wales is the answer that my Medieval England professor gave me earlier.

[Roland]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
Maybe, but Wales is the answer that my Medieval England professor gave me earlier.

Then you should have asked "which part of England..."

Seriously, the Kabyles in today's Algeria were never really subjected by the Romans, and were essentially independent until the French conquered them in the 19th century.

The Basques developped the Navarra kingdom with some germanic influence, but they were never subjected by the Visigoths. So in a way their continuity reaches into the 16th century, with the fueros into the 19th.

[Victor Galis]

Hmm... I suppose I should look at that.

Seriously, the Kabyles in today's Algeria were never really subjected by the Romans, and were essentially independent until the French conquered them in the 19th century.

-Well, then they don't really count if they were never really Roman in the first place.

I admit the answer may have been biased towards the Welsh, but it may be that the Basques nominally surrendered earlier, while certain Welsh regions never did.

[Ramo]

But for a lot of Navarra's history, the King of Navarra was often a vassal to Castile or (later) France.

[Roland]

Roman "Control" over Wales was far from certain. They had two legions stationed on today's english/welch border for a long time. Imagining roman "control" in the way of a modern state is erronous, so depending how much you twist it you can have varying results.

The basques didn't surrender until the 16th century; I think Navarra was conquered by the spanish in one of their wars with France. Navarra had kings that were related to the counts of Champagne (sounds funny) and to the french kings and was in a personal union with Aragon for a while.

Of course one could ask the question of Basque/Navarra continuity....

[Roland]

"But for a lot of Navarra's history, the King of Navarra was often a vassal to Castile or (later) France."

Well John Lackland was a vassal of the Pope. Doesn't necessarily say much. Castile and France occupied Navarra in the 14th century though when they drove out Charles the evil.... not 100 % sure about that though.

[Victor Galis]

Yeah. I think that might be where that came in. In any case, it would probably take a detailed study of history to make any such statements.

[Zoid]

OK! Another science question:

Black holes are called just that because they don´t emit any light. Still they aren´t exactly black, why is that?