The problem: Answer a question about this article:
Hellenistic military equipment was generally characterized by an increase in size. Hellenistic-era warships grew from the trireme to include more banks of oars and larger numbers of rowers and soldiers as in the Quadrireme and Quinquereme. The Ptolemaic Tessarakonteres was the largest ship constructed in Antiquity. New siege engines were developed during this period. An unknown engineer developed the torsion-spring catapult (ca. 360) and Dionysios of Alexandria designed a repeating ballista, the Polybolos. Preserved examples of ball projectiles range from 4.4 kg to 78 kg (or over 170 lbs). Demetrius Poliorcetes was notorious for the large siege engines employed in his campaigns, especially during the 12-month siege of Rhodes when he had Epimachos of Athens build a massive 160 ton siege tower named Helepolis, filled with artillery.
What type of weapon is the Polybolos?
****
The answer: ballista


Problem: Please answer a question about the following article about Plymouth:
The City of Plymouth is divided into 20 wards, 17 of which elect three councillors and the other three electing two councillors, making up a total council of 57. Each year a third of the council is up for election for three consecutive years – there are no elections on the following "fourth" year, which is when County Council elections take place. The total electorate for Plymouth was 188,924 in April 2015. The local election of 7 May 2015 resulted in a political composition of 28 Labour councillors, 26 Conservative and 3 UKIP resulting in a Labour administration. Plymouth City Council is formally twinned with: Brest, France (1963), Gdynia, Poland (1976), Novorossiysk, Russia (1990) San Sebastián, Spain (1990) and Plymouth, United States (2001).
What fraction of the Plymouth council is elected each year?
A: a third


Question: Read this and answer the question

On December 8, 1991, at Viskuli near Brest (Belarus), the President of the Russian SFSR and the heads of Byelorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR signed the "Agreement on the Establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States" (known in media as Belavezha Accords). The document, consisting of a preamble and fourteen articles, stated that the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality. However, based on the historical community of peoples, relations between them, given the bilateral treaties, the desire for a democratic rule of law, the intention to develop their relations based on mutual recognition and respect for state sovereignty, the parties agreed to the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR by an overwhelming majority: 188 votes for, 6 against, 7 abstentions. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and recalled all Russian deputies from the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The legality of this act is the subject of discussions because, according to the 1978 Constitution (Basic Law) of the Russian SFSR, the Russian Supreme Soviet had no right to do so. However, by this time the Soviet government had been rendered more or less impotent, and was in no position to object. Although the December 12 vote is sometimes reckoned as the moment that the RSFSR seceded from the collapsing Soviet Union, this is not the case. It appears that the RSFSR took the line that it was not possible to secede from an entity that no longer existed.

What body ratified the Belavezha Accords on December 12?
Answer: the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR


Problem: A mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991. By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800 Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks. In World War II, Adolf Hitler kept a base of operation in the Bavarian Alps throughout the war.
Where was Adolf Hitlers base of operation during World War 2?
The answer is the following: Bavarian Alps


The restoration of power to the patriciate was only temporary. After a period of unrest with repeated violent clashes such as the Züriputsch of 1839, civil war (the Sonderbundskrieg) broke out in 1847 when some Catholic cantons tried to set up a separate alliance (the Sonderbund). The war lasted for less than a month, causing fewer than 100 casualties, most of which were through friendly fire. Yet however minor the Sonderbundskrieg appears compared with other European riots and wars in the 19th century, it nevertheless had a major impact on both the psychology and the society of the Swiss and of Switzerland.
What was responsible for most of the 1100 casualties incurred during the Swiss civil war in 1839?
friendly fire


Here is a question about this article: Britain now threatened to withdraw its subsidies if Prussia didn't consider offering concessions to secure peace. As the Prussian armies had dwindled to just 60,000 men and with Berlin itself under siege, Frederick's survival was severely threatened. Then on 5 January 1762 the Russian Empress Elizabeth died. Her Prussophile successor, Peter III, at once recalled Russian armies from Berlin (see: the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1762)) and mediated Frederick's truce with Sweden. He also placed a corps of his own troops under Frederick's command This turn of events has become known as the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg. Frederick was then able to muster a larger army of 120,000 men and concentrate it against Austria. He drove them from much of Saxony, while his brother Henry won a victory in Silesia in the Battle of Freiberg (29 October 1762). At the same time, his Brunswick allies captured the key town of Göttingen and compounded this by taking Cassel.
What is the answer to this question: How many troops did Frederick have left?
****
So...
60,000 men