POUNCE- ROUND 1

Instructions

• +10/-5 for pounce.• Pounce shall be open for the first 10 seconds• +10/0 for direct

1. What is the significance of this street?• The Via Dolorosa is a street, in two parts, within the Old City of

Jerusalem. The winding route is from the Antonia Fortress west to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—a distance of about 600 metres (2,000 feet). The current route has been established since the 18th century, replacing various earlier versions. It is today marked by nine Stations of the Cross; there have been fourteen stations since the late 15th century, with the remaining five stations being inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Answer

• Supposed to be the path, Jesus took on his way to crucification.

2. What are we talking about here?

“The unglamorous truth is that it is only visible from low orbit under a specific set of weather and lighting conditions. And many other structures that are less spectacular from an earthly vantage point—desert roads, for example—appear more prominent from an orbital perspective. Misinformation about the it's visibility dates back decades. It started with A 1932 Ripley's Believe It or Not! cartoon claim. The belief persisted into the Space Age. Since Neil Armstrong returned from the moon in 1969, he has been repeatedly asked whether he could see it. His answer was relayed in a recent NASA Johnson Space Center oral history: He saw continents, lakes and splotches of white on blue. “

Answer

• The myth that the GREAT WALL OF CHINA is visible from space.

3. What does this map show?

Answer

• Santa’s Route on Christmas

4. What does this picture depict?

Answer

• English Channel Tunnel

5. Identify the city.

• The traditional founding of this city is said to have been at the stroke of noon of March 25, 421 AD. This city’s unique location gave it strategic and economic importance. It was the last Byzantine outpost in its country till almost the 12th Century after which it declared is independence.• It was closely associated with Constantinople, being twice granted trading

privileges in the Eastern Roman Empire, through the so-called Golden Bulls or 'chrysobulls' in return for aiding the Eastern Empire.• The city protected itself from land-based attacks by diverting all the major

rivers flowing into the lagoon and thus preventing sediment from filling the area around the city. This created an ever-deeper lagoon environment. (Remember Riverrun from the Game of Thrones fame)

Answer

• Venice

6. Identify the city (you would have heard about this place)• This city has a permanent population of 343,334, making it largest resort city in its

country. It is one of the very few places in its country with a subtropical climate, with warm to hot summers and mild winters. It is elongated along the Black Sea coast for 145 kilometers (90 mi). Depending on how one chooses to divide Europe and Asia, some sources claim it is in Europe, whereas if one uses the Caucasus Mountains as the divide, it is in Southwest Asia, falling on the southern (Asian) side of the Greater Caucasus. In terms of human geography, it falls within Krasnodar Krai, which is geographically located entirely within European Russia as does, generally, all territory west of the Ural Mountains and Ural River.

• The city is named after a local river passing through it.• It has a humid subtropical climate with mild winters (average 11 °C (52 °F) during the

day and 4 °C (39 °F) at night) in the period from December to March and warm summers (average 24 °C (75 °F) during the day and 16 °C (61 °F) at night) in the period from May to October.

Answer

• Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Olympics

7. Connect (place)

Answer

• Las Vegas

8. What are we talking about?

• It is located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. • It is noted for its very rich flora with several species. It is a National Park of

Greece and a World's Biosphere Reserve.• In Greek mythology it was regarded as the "home" of the Twelve Olympian

gods of the ancient Greek world. It formed itself after the gods defeated the Titans in the Titan War, and soon the palace was inhabited by the gods. It is the setting of many Greek mythical stories. • In the words of Homer:“It was not shaken by winds nor ever wet with rain, nor did snow fall upon it, but the air is outspread clear and cloudless, and over it hovered a radiant whiteness”

Answer

• Mount Olympus

9. Identify X

• X is where heroes and other favored mortals in Greek mythology and Celtic mythology were received by the gods into a winterless blissful paradise. According to Greek mythology, they were reserved for those who had chosen to be reincarnated thrice, and managed to be judged as especially pure enough to gain entrance to the Elysian Fields all three times.

• These islands were thought to lie in the Western Ocean near the encircling River Oceanus; • Madeira, Canary Islands, Azores, Cape Verde and Bermuda have sometimes been cited as possible matches.• Flavius Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana (v.2) says, "And they also say that the X are to be fixed by the

limits of Libya where they rise towards the uninhabited promontory." In this geography Libya was considered to extend westwards through Mauretania "as far as the mouth of the river Salex, some nine hundred stadia, and beyond that point a further distance which no one can compute, because when you have passed this river Libya is a desert which no longer supports a population.“

• Ptolemy used X as the reference for the measurement of geographical longitude, and they continued to play the role of defining the prime meridian through the Middle Ages. Modern geography names these islands as Macaronesia.

• The islands clearly inspired the English writer J.R.R. Tolkien to locate Aman, the Blessed Realm, and, more importantly, Valinor, the land of the Valar and Elves who left Middle-Earth, in the West in his own mythology.

Answers

• Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed

10. Identify the fictional place being mentioned here• It is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton.

Hilton describes it as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains.

• It has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world.

• In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live here are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient.

• In the ancient Tibetan scriptures, existence of seven such places is mentioned as Nghe-Beyul Khimpalung. Khembalung is one of several beyuls ("hidden lands") believed to have been created by Padmasambhava in the 8th century as idyllic, sacred places of refuge for Buddhists during times of strife.

• Many scholars believe that it is Shambhala, a mythical kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which was sought by Eastern and Western explorers.

Answer

• Shangri-La