Bring Your Thing’s Soldiers, Sailors, and Jailors was an amazing opportunity for members of the community to showcase their artifacts and their life stories. The event was also an opportune moment for those same people to show off their Soldiers, Sailors, and Jailors knowledge with a night of trivia. After the artifacts were put away, everyone was invited to stay for 3 rounds of trivia. The theme of the first round was soldiers, with the questions ranging anywhere from local Kingston to national military history. The second round was a combo of Sailors & Jailors, which included questions about Kingston and Canada’s rich corrections and marine history. The final round had the theme of Kingston, these were general questions about local history. Each round had 15 questions with one bonus question, and the winning team of each round was given a prize.
The trivia started at 8:30, with some initial technical difficulties, and quickly became a competition of the curators, with representatives of Murney Tower, the RMC Museum, the Marine Museum, and Canada’s Penitentiary museum all hoping to be the champions. In the end, we had an extremely close match, after three rounds there was only a half point difference between first and second place. Our winning team was “The Team,” creativity was not their strong suit, and in second was “Team Lock Up.” While there were winners and losers, I can honestly say that it was fun to see everyone engaged and interested in historical trivia.
Soldiers, Sailors, and Jailors was the first night of trivia Bring Your Thing had ever attempted. While we may have struggled in certain areas, what we can say looking back is that we managed to get people thinking and appreciating local and national history. To spread this information to as many as possible we challenge you to a game of trivia with some questions from our event.
In the Canadian army which rank is represented by a single St. Edward’s Crown?
The designer of our current Canadian flag George Stanley used the template of this institution’s flag as the basis for his design?
Which local Kingston prison was originally called “The preferred class penitentiary” and was designed to house younger, more physically fit white collar criminals?
Often before the name of a naval ship the acronym HMCS will appear, what does this stand for?
Multiple fires throughout Kingston’s history eventually caused legislation to be passed preventing the use of what material for construction?
The name Kingston comes from the original name of the city, Kings Town, which was created in 1787 to honour this ruling monarch. What is their full name?
Name the Canadian Prime minister who served in the Army Medical Corps and the Royal Air force during WWI. Hint, he also has won a Nobel Peace Prize.
During the American Revolution, Kingston became a refugee centre for people, what were they called?
What company opened its plant in Kingston in 1940 with the purpose of manufacturing aluminum productions to support the war effort?
Legendary Kingston band “The Tragically Hip,” wrote this song about the escape of 14 inmates from the Millhaven penitentiary in 1972?
Our next event “Homegrown” will be taking place at the Memorial Centre Farmers Market on Sunday, August 20, at 10 am. Feel free to bring an item that is homemade, some old farming tools, or anything you feel relates to the theme.
A Closer Look at the Museums, Art Galleries & Historic Sites of Kingston 
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