All rested and ready for Week Two of the Quiztacular? Of course you are!

Rules for Round Two are as with Round One -- you have until the full-credit deadline -- 12:01 AM Thursday, January 12 -- to send your guesses to bt AT wombatfile DOT com (please put the word "quiz" in the subject line). On Thursday, I'll post some clues, giving you a chance at a half-credit answer to any stumpers. Any correct answers sent in (or revised) at that point get 1/2 their full point value. The final deadline for round two is 12:01 AM Friday, January 13 (oh, fateful day).

Again, four hundred possible points in this round. In this round, more of the questions are broken down into "subtopics" for varying point allowances. No, they're not all worth the same.

Special note: please stay away from Periodic Tables of the Elements this week. If you are a high school chemistry teacher, you should call in sick.

______________ROUND TWO QUESTIONS_______________

1. In 833, Prince Mojmír I's conquest of the Nitrian Principality led to the creation of what some referred to as an empire at the time, which lasted until a few years after the death of King Svatopluk I in 894 -- his sons had a falling out, and an ethnic group arriving from the east started making trouble. While it spanned parts of what are now six different countries, its core was in what are now two nations. Its name lives on as the name of a region of one of those two nations. What are the two nations? (25 points each). What are the other four nations whose modern borders this Empire once crossed (25 points each)?

2. The first recorded instance of this surgical procedure occurring with complete success was in the Holy Roman Empire in 1500. It was supposedly performed by a pig gelder named Jacob Nufer. On March 5, 2000, a Mexican, secluded at the time in a cabin, was the first person in recorded history to self-administer (successfully) this procedure. What was the procedure? (50 points).

3. The name of this element may come from Greek roots which would put its name as "opposed to solitude", since it is usually found in conjunction with other substances. Another suggested origin for its name is from an Egyptian expression which would translate as "bloom of" followed by the name of the sun god. It is quite poisionous, but in one form is sometimes still used for the treatment of the parasitical infection schistosomiasis. Its number on the Periodic Table is 51, but it is the very first of the elements named by Tom Lehrer in his song "The Elements." What is this element? (50 points) For 25 more points, from what famous operetta is the music of Lehrer's "The Elements" borrowed?

4. Despite claims to the contrary, he was born on July 3, 1878, in Rhode Island. He began show business as part of a family act, with his father Jere, mother Nellie, and sister Josie. He became a well-known dancer by his teens, but it was in another pursuit where he gained his greatest claim to fame. In 1904, the Broadway show Little Johnny Jones featured two songs that were to be among the greatest hits of his incredibly prolific career, one of which is still quite well known (the other, somewhat less so, though you may well be able to sing a bit of the chorus). For 50 points, name one. For 25 more points, name the other; for another 25 bonus points, name the composer. For 25 more points, name the man who won an Academy Award for playing the composer on film.