Trivia Bits 13 January

 

Angkor Wat (pictured) was a significant temple complex in Cambodia of the two religions of Hinduism and Buddhism and is the largest religious monument in the world.

On 26 January 2013 The Phantom of the Opera, a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart with additions from Richard Stilgoe, celebrated its 25th anniversary with its 10,400th performance making it the longest-running show in Broadway history.

Symphony No 9 in E minor, is better known as the New World Symphony, was written by Czech composer Antonin Dvorak and was written between January and May 1893, while Dvorak was in New York.

Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote a ballet based in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with the ballet in its original form was completed in September 1935, on commission by the Kirov Ballet.

Belgian martial artist, actor, and director best known for his martial arts action films, Jean-Claude Van Damme is known as The Muscles from Brussels.

Starborough Castle, known historically as Sterborough Castle, is a Neo-Gothic garden house of dressed sandstone, near Edenbridge, Kent, England, which on 4 July 1648 was ordered to be destroyed by Order of Parliament under the rule of Oliver Cromwell as it was feared the castle would provide a base for Royalist Rebellion forces.

A dray is a type of cart a low, sideless, heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies, and sometimes people.

The fifth wife of Henry VIII was Catherine Howard who was beheaded in 1541 after less than two years of marriage to Henry on the grounds of treason for committing adultery while married to the King and was the third of Henry's consorts to have been a member of the English gentry instead of European nobility.

Part of John London's punishment for his role in a 1543 failed plot against Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was to ride through several towns seated backwards on a horse and be pilloried by being placed in a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands similar to stocks.

Mr Johnson the Panda is a character from the Irish preschool animation television Fluffy Gardens broadcast from 2007 – 2010.