The peacock is a bird that does not lay eggs. How do they get baby peacocks?

An artist while painting a scenic beauty, decides to paint three layers of blue colour on the sky.

Which layer will go on the first?

The horse jumps over the king.
Strangely there is absolutely no scratch on him.

Can anyone explain, how is this possible?

I am a type of room you cannot enter or leave. Raised from the ground below, I could be poisonous or a delicious treat. What am I?

Identify Me

Hint1: I am a god
Hint 2: I am a planet
Hint 3: measurer of heat

The first box has two white balls. The second box has two black balls. The third box has a white and a black ball.

Boxes are labeled but all labels are wrong!

You are allowed to open one box, pick one ball at random, see its colour and put it back into the box, without seeing the colour of the other ball.

How many such operations are necessary to correctly label the boxes?

As easy as you can get into me, it is as hard to get out of me.

Do you know what I am?

In a kingdom, King George did not allow any citizen to visit the world outside. Also, only a person with proper paperwork was allowed to enter or he was sent back. A wooden bridge was what connected the kingdom to the world. The king had appointed a sharpshooter who would check the every five minutes on the bridge to check. After checking, he would go back to his hut and return exactly after five minutes again. The bridge took 9 minutes to cross.

A merchant was able to escape the kingdom without harming the shooter. How?

In The 1st month of this year(the year 2013), I noticed that the date 13-1-13 (13 January 2013) is special.

This date is special as:

Date * Month = Year.

Can you figure out which year of this century has a maximum number of such dates?

A chess tournament is taking place on knock-out terms (the one who loses the match is out of the game).
(a) If 10 matches are played in total, how many players participated?
(b) If 20 players took part in the tournament, how many matches were played?