The Seven Summits are the highest mountains of each of the world’s seven continents. Richard Bass compiled this list in the 1980s and established as a mountaineering challenge the summiting of all seven. Reinhold Messner, another climber, proposed substituting one of the mountains with New Guinea’s Carstensz Pyramid (4,884 m). From a mountaineering standpoint, Messner’s list is considered the more challenging one. As of March 2007, how many climbers had scaled all of the peaks on both lists?
Source: The Free Dictionary
The Khmer Rouge was the extremist Communist organization that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. It was one of the most lethal regimes of the 20th c and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million people through execution, starvation, and forced labor. Victims were often buried in mass grave sites, known as The Killing Fields, scattered throughout Cambodia. Whom did the Khmer Rouge target for their “re-education” campaigns?
Debt-ridden farmers, struck by the economic depression that followed the American Revolution, petitioned the Massachusetts state senate to halt foreclosure of mortgages on their property and imprisonment for debt. When the senate failed to undertake these reforms, armed rebels, led by Daniel Shays and other local leaders, forcibly closed a number of debtors’ courts. The rebellion, suppressed in 1787, less than a year after it began, prompted the fledgling US government to make what changes? 
The craft of bookbinding began simply, with the use of boards to protect parchment manuscripts. By the 2nd century, sheets of parchment were being folded and sewn together. During the Middle Ages, the practice of making fine bindings for these sewn volumes rose to great heights; books were rare and precious articles, and many were treated with exquisite gilded and jeweled bindings. What is the uncommon practice of binding books in human skin, a technique dating back to the 17th century, called? 
In 1951, the British Royal Navy ship HMS Challenger II surveyed the Challenger Deep trench of the Pacific Ocean, located between Indonesia and Japan, establishing it as the deepest known point of any ocean on Earth. Less than a decade later, a US Navy deep-sea diving submersible descended to the trench floor. There, the crew observed small sole and flounder and noted that the floor consisted of diatomaceous ooze. What is the maximum depth surveyed at the Challenger Deep? 
The Han dynasty ruled China from 202 BCE to 220 CE. During the period of civil strife that followed the fall of the Ch’in dynasty, Liu Pang, a farmer and guerilla fighter, defeated his rivals for the throne and established himself as the first Han emperor. Under Han rule, the harsh laws of the Ch’in were repealed, taxes were lightened, and the absolute autocracy of the emperor was lessened. Which emperor is credited with China’s shift from the Taoist system to the Confucian ideal? 
Light is any wavelength of electromagnetic radiation, though the word is commonly used to refer to the visible light spectrum. The human eye typically perceives electromagnetic wavelengths between 400 and 700 nanometers, interpreting them as a range of colors from red to violet. Light is understood to exhibit both particle and wave properties, and the fundamental particle, or quantum, of light is called the photon. What is the scientific study of light called? 
The tar is a long-necked lute found in Iran and throughout the Caucasus region. Its music was believed to cure a number of physical maladies and induce philosophical moods that compel listeners to reflect upon life. The tar’s double-bowl shape is carved from mulberry wood, and a thin membrane of stretched lambskin covers the top. It has a number of adjustable frets as well as three double courses of strings. Tar, Persian for string, is the root for the names of what other instruments? 
In the early 1600s, three manifestos were published describing an esoteric order founded by Christian Rosenkreuz. The Rosicrucian Order’s secret teachings deal with the occult symbols of the rose and the cross and with mystical writings containing kabbalistic, Hermetic, and other doctrines. Practitioners claim occult powers and employ the terminology of alchemy to expound their mystical doctrines. According to the 17th century texts, Rosenkreutz was born in 1378 and lived for how many years? 
The organs of smell are confined to a small area in the roof of the nasal cavity. Olfactory cells are stimulated when certain molecules reach them, and nerve fibers extend from these receptor cells to the olfactory bulb in the human brain. Smell is one of our most subtle senses, amplifying the sense of taste and detecting tens of thousands of distinct scents. Odor information is easily stored in long-term memory and has strong connections to emotional memory. Why might this be?