By Ng Tze Yong

DIDN'T know that? Well, they did.

Contestants at a business quiz held at Suntec City last Friday had to negotiate the nooks and crannies of big business history as they competed for the top prize game show-style.

The event was the Tata Crucible, held in Singapore for the second time by the Tata Group, a business conglomerate.

The top prize went to Singapore Management University business students Anirban Datta Gupta and Bhavya Khanna, who walked away with a cool $10,000.

Easy money, you think?

Test yourself then, with some of the questions reproduced here.

(Go on, we've picked the easiest ones.)

Q: Which toy company got its name from the Latin translation of 'I put together'?

A: Lego.

An abbreviation from the Danish phrase 'leg godt', which means 'play well', the name Lego can also be interpreted as 'I put together' in Latin.

It was coined by Mr Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish carpenter who founded the company in 1932.

Q:Which company was originally known as Finnish Rubber Works?

A: Nokia.

What is known today as Nokia started out in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill in southern Finland, manufacturing paper.

Due to a need for more hydropower, the company was later relocated to the town of Nokia by the Nokianvirta river.

The river was named after an old Finnish word for a dark, furry animal locally known as the nokia, an animal belonging to the weasel family.

Q: During World War I, Lieutenant Harry Colebourn bought an animal for US$20 ($30) from a hunter who had killed its mother.

He named it after his hometown, the Canadian city of Winnipeg.

The animal was adopted as the mascot of Lieutenant Colebourn's unit, the 2nd Canadian Infantry Brigade, and went to Britain with the unit.

Lieutenant Colebourn later donated the animal to the London Zoo where it became a much-loved attraction.

What cartoon character did this animal inspire?

A: Winnie the Pooh.

Q: Which vacation resort was started in 1950 by a former Belgian water polo champion, Gerard Blitz, on the Spanish island of Mallorca?

A: Club Med.

Q: This method of packaging was accidentally invented in 1908 out of a need to save mailing costs.

But its popularity soared only later when the product it contained was rationed during WWII. What is it?

A: Tea bags.

They were invented by a tea importer named Thomas Sullivan who was looking for a cheaper way to transport tea samples to his customers.

The usual method then was packing it in tins. But it spelt bad business because the tea was heavy and the tins expensive.

So he started packing the tea in small silk bags instead. Believing that the bags were meant to be used, customers started dropping them into pots of water, accidentally inventing a new way of tea-drinking.

Q: This product was invented when the US flooded Japan with wheat to alleviate food shortage after WWII.

What is it?

A: Instant noodles

At first, the Japanese Ministry of Health encouraged people to make bread from the wheat flour.

But an ex-convict with an entrepreneur streak named Momofuku Ando wondered why bread was recommended instead of noodles, a staple food which Japanese were more familiar with.

In 1958, Mr Ando invented instant noodles, which proved to be a hit among time-pressed workers in post-war Japan.

He later founded Nissin Food Products.

Q: Noda Kakuseisha is a Japanese company whose name means 'the voice of the crane'.

What product has it supplied to the FIFA World Cup for over 20 years?

A: Referee's whistles.

There is an expression in Japanese - 'tsuru no hitokoe' - which means 'the single cry of the crane'. It refers to the voice of authority.

This was the idea which drove the company's founder, Mr Noda Yoshisada, to start producing his own whistles in 1968, which are known for their unique sound of 'decisiveness'.

How did he do it? Mr Yoshisada used to work in a factory that made harmonicas.