The Thursday Quiz is a twelve item is-it-or-isn't-it test of your knowledge, reasoning, stamina, and moxie!
Remember always the Fundamental Rules of the Thursday Quiz:
1. The Thursday Quiz is a POP quiz. No research, Googling, Wikiing, or use of reference books. Violators will never be able to look at themselves in the mirror again.
Real and Bogus in the History of Australia and New Zealand!2. Don't get all stressed out about it! It's supposed to be fun!
What really happened down there in the mysterious South? And what only happened in michael5000's mysterious imagination?
1. Because New Zealand has more rainfall and is much more fertile than Australia, it was colonized by Europeans fully two centuries before colonization of Australia began.
2. The whole thing about Australia being a prison colony is basically a myth. There was a small prison settlement in early Australia, but at no time did the prisoners make up even one percent of the colonial population.
3. The 1839 Treaty of Waitangi was supposed to clarify the respective rights of native Maori peoples and European colonists. Since the English and Maori language versions of the treaty don't quite match, though, arguments over the implications of the treaty continue unabated today.
4. In the late 1800s, the states of Australia were self-governing entities under the British Empire. Only in 1901 did the whole continent unite as the Commonwealth of Australia.
5. On New Zealand's Roberts Island, rabbit farmers arranged a highly successful fox eradication campaign in the 1920s. To their chagrin, however, this caused the island's rat population to explode, creating a major public health hazard. This led to the large-scale abandonment of, as it is now often called, "Ratters Island."
6. In 1926, Gertrude Ederle became the first person to swim from Australia to New Zealand, a feat that took her almost 36 hours. The current record is just under 28 hours. Because of prevailing currents, no one has ever successfully made the swim in the opposite direction.
7. Because of it mainly produced necessities like food and wool and did not have complex financial markets, Australia was one of the few countries to prosper during the Great Depression. While unemployment spiked elsewhere, Australia desperately recruited immigrants to ease its constant labor shortages.
8. New Zealand was sympathetic to the ambitions of Japan, a fellow island nation, and tried to remain neutral during World War II. Only when the United States and Australia threatened military occupation did New Zealand finally join the Allies, in 1943.
9. During the 1950s, Australia and New Zealand took steps towards unification as a single country. Although the plan broke down over arguments about where to place the capital, the two countries shared both a single Prime Minister (Howard Abelman) and a single supreme court from 1954 to 1956.
10. Australia pursued a "White Australia Policy," almost completely barring immigration by non-Europeans, until 1973.
11. New Zealand banned nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered ships from its territorial waters in 1984. The United States cancelled its military alliance with New Zealand as a result of this decision, but the ban has remained in place to the current day.
12. Both Australia and New Zealand are constitutionally separate from the United Kingdom -- but the British monarch is still technically the sovereign of both countries.
Submit your answers in the comments.
13 comments:
1. Isn't
2. Isn't
3. Is
4. Is
5. Isn't
6. Is
7. Is
8. Isn't
9. Is
10. Is
11. Is
12. Is
Total guessing. I eagerly await the answers though.
G'day, Thursday!
1 no
2 yes
3 yes
4 no
5 yes
6 no
7 no
8 yes
9 no
10 yes
11 yes
12 yes
1 False
2 False - they took boatloads of them in the first few waves
3 True
4 True
5 False
6 True
7 True
8 False
9 False
10 True
11 TRUE! Bobby is from New Zealand and her hippy parents refused to have kids until the nuclear ban, and she's spot on 23 =P
12 I"m not sure that they are actually constitutionally separate from the UK, and I know they are not yet completely independent. False.
Hmmm.... wishing good ol' Bryson had nipped over to NZ for a bit so that I might have had a better chance on this quiz. Can I get extra credit for knowing that the current Aussie PM is Kevin Rude and that a former PM Harold Holt got eaten by a shark during his term?
I'm baaack....
1. Hmm. I don't think this is so.
2. False. The statistic might be true, but the transportation and prison servitude was very real. Captain Bligh (of the Bounty mutiny) governed the island at one time and was so repressive that he had to be removed. Landowners were allowed to (mis)treat prisoners without penalty, and for any convicts who were transported, Australia was hell.
3. True
4. False
5. False. Even though it sounds stupid enough to be true.
6. False
7. False.
8. False
9. False
10. True
11. True
12. True
1f 2f 3t 4f 5t 6t 7t 8t 9f 10t 11t 12f
You're really leaving me no choice but to play the quiz this morning.
1. F
2. F
3. T. But wait, wasn't the Treaty in 1840? Will go look that up in a minute.
4. T.
5. F. That's sort of a guess based on my belief that foxes are pretty rare in NZ. Actually, I'm not sure there are any, but lots of other nasty imported critters.
6. F. Again, sort of a guess, based on the fact that some guys kayaked across the Tasman recently and it nearly killed them.
7. F.
8. F
9. F
10. T
11. T. Althouth not sure if there's been some back sliding - there was certainly some talk of letting the US bring in nuclear powered ships again.
12. T, that is, if I understand "constitutionally separate" correctly. This one could be a bit blurry, actually. Yes, the Queen rules, yes, NZ and Oz have own governments, but highest courts are still, I think, the British Privy Council. Plus NZ doesn't have a constitution as far as I know. See, too much information trips you up. So, I am boldly changing my answer to False.
Ha!
1-F/2-F/3-T/4-T/5-T/6-T/7-F/8-F/9-F/10-T/11-T/12-T
?
1. False
2. True
3. Even when there's only one language for treaties involving native folks, non-native folks rarely seem to give a damn whether they follow the word of the treaty or not, so, FALSE
4. True
5. False.
6. True
7. False
8. True
9. False
10. True
11. True
12. True, lamely enough.
1. No way
2. Yes way
3. No way did they make a Maori language version of a treaty in 1839
4. Yes way
5. Yes way
6. Yikes. No way.
7. Yes way.
8. No way.
9. No way.
10. Yes way.
11. Yes way.
12. Yes way.
Really, I have no idea. But in my imagination, this is how it rolls.
Crap! A late start.
1. No
2. No
3. No
4. Yes
5. No
6. Plausible
7. Yes
8. No
9. No
10. Yes
11. They did the nuclear ban and it remains in effect, but there is a military alliance with the US, Australia and New Zealand that is current. But I don't know if an alliance was cancelled at the time. I figure the longer I type the more likely I am to get half credit.
12. True
OK, here we go:
1. New Zealand colonized way early: NO.
2. Australia not really a prison colony: NO. Big time prison colony, as everyone knows.
3. Treaty of Waitangi reads differently in its two languages: YES.
4. Seperate Australian colonies until 1901: YES.
5. Roberts Island: NO, although I tell this story from time to time in different quizzes in the hope of it developing a life of its own.
6. Swimming from Australia to New Zealand: ABSOLUTELY NOT. The two countries are about 1200 miles apart at their closest points.
7. Australia prospered during the Great Depression. NO. With an export-based economy, Australia's unemployment rate hit around 1/3.
8. New Zealand, cryptofascist Japanese toadies: OF COURSE NOT.
9. The NZ/Aussie merger: NO.
10. The "White Australia Policy": 'FRAID SO.
11. No Nukes in New Zealand: YES.
12. Queen Elizabeth of Australia, Queen Elizabeth of New Zealand: YES.
Meaning that Sandy Parker, of the Empire State, scores her first ever GOLD STAR with a perfect 12/12. In so doing, she becomes the 16th person to achieve QUIZ LEGEND status, having compiled a complete set of Gold, Silver, Blue, and Green Stars.
pause to let the crowd roar die down
Taking the TQLXXXVIII Silver Star is Elaine; it's her first Silver and third Star overall.
Eversaved claims the Blue, her third and fifth Star overall.
@Sandy: You've been out of town too long. The Privy Council is no longer a court of appeal for New Zealand as of about 5 years ago.
@Critical Bill: The ANZUS alliance still stands, kinda, but since the nuclear ban the United States has vacated its obligations to New Zealand. ANZUS is thus a half-assed umbrella over Australia's military alliance with NZ and Australia's military alliance with the US.
US/Kiwi relations have been improving since our recent return to sane government here in the States, but there is no immediate prospect of resuming the alliance. It is mildly amusing to check out the various bulletins and communiques on New Zealand from the US state department and see them wrestle with the language, describing our two counties as "friends" and "partners" (although, disappointingly, stopping short of "lovers") but dilligently avoiding any mention of the a-word. We're buddies, but we don't have each others backs. That's just how the US and New Zealand roll.
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