Mnemonics
Colours of the rainbow:
*Roy G. Biv*
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
A good mnemonic for quizzers to know is for the male ranks of the British peerage in order (highest to lowest):
*Did Mary ever visit Brighton beach?*
Duke (Did), Marquess (Mary), Earl (Ever), Viscount (Visit), Baron (Brighton), Baronet (Beach)
Wives of Henry VIII in order:
*A Big Secret Conceals Her Past*
Aragon, Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard, Parr
Perhaps the most famous mnemonic is the manner of Henry VIII's wives' deaths (in order):
*Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.
The the order of succession of English royal dynastic Houses:
*No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely*
Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover, Windsor
The planets of the solar system from the sun outwards:
*Mother Visits Every Morning, Just Staying Until Noon*
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune
The first 6 elements of the periodic table:
*Happy Henry Lives Beside Boron Cottage*
Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, and carbon (and also their chemical symbols H, He, Li, Be, B, C)
The Great Lakes in order of size:
*Super Heroes Must Eat Oats*
Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie, Ontario
The Presidents on Mount Rushmore National Memorial
*We Just Love Rushmore!*
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt
The order of the first five books of the Old Testament
*God Equals Light Not Darkness*
Genesis, Exodux, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
The Baltic States sit in alphabetical order from North to South. i.e. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. TRY to remember that and you can use the word 'TRY' to spark your memory that the capitals running from north to south are Tallinn (T), Riga (R) and Vinius (Y - the 'Y' looks close enough to a 'V'?)
Always problematic is remembering which two metalic elements are in the alloys brass and bronze. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, and bronze is copper and tin. If you think both have a copper coloured hue and then picture a brass monkey ("cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey") on a cold corrugated zinc roof, and then a bronze medal could be akin to a tin cup, it might help. Silly? Well, it always works for me!