Question - 617

This year's winner at what famous event?

Answer: The Sapporo snow festival. Jaggi and Krithi got it. Nicely done!

Question - 613

What started this way?

Answer: The modern Miss Universe contest started out as the International Pageant of Pulchritude in Galveston, Texas in 1926. Ameya, matti tapaninen, Krithi, Dinesh, Saket, and Iam got it.

Question - 605

What was this curious event?

Answer: Tulip mania. The figure charts the price of tulip bulb contracts showing the tulip bubble burst dramatically in February 1637 (as Dinesh pointed out, a history-of-the-day question courtesy Wikipedia). Ameya, Dinesh, and Kaushik got it. Great job.

Question - 603

Connect (non-exhaustive).

Question - 600

What began this way?

Answer: DC comics. Manasi, Saket, Riskit got it. Dinky cracked the meta connect (DC=600). matti tapaninen and Ameya came close by identifying the protagonist of the first DC comic, Jack Woods.

Question - 599

Connect.

Answer: The US State of Ohio has special days named after the three people in the picture (clockwise): Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore, and (oddly enough) the singer Shreya Ghoshal. Ameya, mekie (wrong singer), Dinesh, Kaushik, and Manasi got it. Nicely done - especially give the obscurity of this piece of trivia.

Question - 583

"Map Tuesdays" are back by popular (read Iam) demand. What does this map depict? (courtesy: Manix)

Question - 581

Fill in the blanks with a public phenomenon.

Answer: Percent of people in those country who paid a bribe . Dinesh, mekie, Jaggi, Krithi, and Vetti got it. Nicely done.

Question - 580

What is the significance of these color mappings? (courtesy: Dinky)

Answer: The cardinal directions (NESW and Center -- the columns in the color matrix) in Far-East cultures were associated with certain colors that were used to name various geographical features, e.g. Red Sea, Black Sea etc. Krithi, Dinesh, Manix, Divya Shankar, and mekie got it. Well done.

Question - 579

What does this map depict? (courtesy: Manix)

Answer: United States of Autocomplete. Google's autocomplete feature applied to the names of each state (as of Dec 3, 2010). AJ, Krithi, Dinesh, mekie, and jamie got it. Nicely cracked.

Question - 572

What do these painting allude to? (courtesy: Meki)

Answer: Norman Rockwell's paintings depicting the "four freedoms" espouse by Franklin D. Roosevelt: Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Dinesh, matti tapaninen, Krithi, and Divya Shankar got it. Nice job.