There's an assumption there that there is some reason why some of these are relevant to "common knowledge". Perhaps they had recently been in the news or something...

For example, I guessed that Spitsbergen was in Austria/Germany. It's actually a town of <3000 in Norway. Not significant, until you realize that it was the subject of the 1920 Svalbard Treaty between 41 countries. The Edison list purports to be from 1921.

So yes, you are exactly right... the man wanted people that were actively self and location aware, nothing wrong with that.