127 Fun Facts About Random

Which planet is nicknamed the Red Planet?

Mars is the Red Planet: iron oxide, essentially rust, in the dust covering its surface gives it the reddish colour visible from Earth.

Which score is worth six points in American football?

Touchdown: in 1883 it was worth just two points while a field goal was worth five, and it only rose to six in 1912.

What is the main ingredient of hummus?

Chickpeas: hummus is simply Arabic for chickpeas, and Lebanon and Israel fought a 'hummus war', trading Guinness records for the biggest plate.

Which fictional paper company employs the staff of the US version of The Office?

Dunder Mifflin became a real paper brand in 2011, when Staples' Quill.com licensed the name for copy paper.

Which superhero's secret identity is Peter Parker?

Spider-Man got no book of his own at first: he debuted in the final issue of Amazing Fantasy, and it sold so well that he soon got his own title.

Who wrote The Hobbit?

J. R. R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 and later revised the Gollum chapter so it sat comfortably alongside The Lord of the Rings.

What is the name of Batman's butler?

Alfred began as a plump, clean-shaven butler, but after a trim, moustached actor played him in the 1943 Batman serial, the comics slimmed him down to match.

Which capital city is the coldest in the world by average yearly temperature?

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital, sits over 1,300 metres up in a mountain-ringed valley that traps bitterly cold air each winter.

On which planet are the strongest sustained winds in the Solar System, reaching over 2,000 km/h?

Neptune has the fastest winds of any planet even though it is the farthest from the Sun and gets the least solar energy to drive them.

Which African country has Spanish as its main official language?

Equatorial Guinea speaks Spanish because in 1778 Portugal handed its islands and coast there to Spain in exchange for land in South America.

Which film won the inaugural Academy Award for Best Animated Feature?

Shrek was first voiced by Chris Farley, who had recorded almost all his lines before he died in 1997, so Mike Myers took over the role.

Which element has the symbol W, taken from its German name Wolfram?

Tungsten has the highest melting point of any metal, which is why it was long used for the filaments of incandescent light bulbs.

In which city were Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie assassinated in June 1914?

Sarajevo, capital of Austro-Hungarian-ruled Bosnia, was where Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot the couple on 28 June 1914, setting off the July Crisis.

Which chilli sauce takes its name from a coastal town in Thailand?

Sriracha is named after the Thai seaside town of Si Racha, and a California city once sued its best-known US maker over the chilli fumes from its factory.

What is the term for a group of owls?

A parliament of owls gathers in C. S. Lewis's Narnia book The Silver Chair to help two children search for a lost prince.

Which island is the largest in the Mediterranean Sea, and also its most populous?

Sicily was the prize Rome and Carthage fought over in the First Punic War, and it then became Rome's first province beyond Italy.

Who was the first person to lead a party to the South Pole, arriving on 14 December 1911?

Roald Amundsen reached the Pole over a month before Scott, relying on the sled dogs and fur clothing he had learned to use from Inuit in the Arctic.

Which Grand Slam tournament is played on clay courts?

The French Open is the only major played on clay today, yet the US Open also used clay courts from 1975 to 1977 before switching to hard courts.

What is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 70 million copies sold?

Thriller's sales surged after Michael Jackson first did the moonwalk on the Motown 25 TV special in May 1983.

Which human cells carry just 23 chromosomes?

Sperm cells, like egg cells, carry just 23 chromosomes, so when a sperm fertilises an egg the new embryo ends up with the usual 46.

Which explosive, patented in 1867, made the fortune of the man who founded the Nobel Prizes?

Dynamite tamed nitroglycerin into a form easier and safer to handle, making Nobel hugely rich.

Which team became the first to win 18 NBA championships, in 2024?

The Boston Celtics won their 2024 title under Joe Mazzulla, an assistant thrust into the head coaching job in 2022 after Ime Udoka was suspended.

Which post-impressionist painter severed part of his own left ear with a razor in December 1888?

Vincent van Gogh cut his ear after a blazing row with Paul Gauguin, then wrapped it in paper and handed it to a woman at a local brothel.

Besides Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest, which fourth national capital does the Danube flow through?

Belgrade, the Serbian capital, stands where the Sava meets the Danube; downstream the river forms much of the Romania-Bulgaria border before reaching the Black Sea.

Which Levantine or Turkish dessert is made from layers of filo pastry, chopped nuts and sweet syrup?

Baklava's paper-thin filo sheets are brushed with melted butter before baking, giving the crisp layered texture beneath the chopped nuts and syrup.

Which cue sport has a maximum break of 147?

Snooker's usual maximum is 147, but a foul can leave a free ball that counts as an extra red, which let Jamie Burnett make a 148 in 2004.

Which is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species?

The emperor penguin breeds in the Antarctic winter, when males huddle together for over two months with the egg on their feet, eating nothing.

Which Canadian author wrote the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale?

Margaret Atwood answered book bans with an 'unburnable' copy of The Handmaid's Tale, testing it herself with a flamethrower before it sold for $130,000.

Which sultan's 46-year reign, from 1520 to 1566, was the longest of any Ottoman ruler?

Suleiman the Magnificent died in his tent while besieging a Hungarian fortress, and his officials hid his death, faking doctors' visits so the army fought on.

Which company did Paul Allen co-found in 1975?

Microsoft began with a BASIC for the Altair computer that Gates and Allen wrote without owning an Altair, and it worked the first time Allen demonstrated it.

Which is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, played on outdoor grass since 1877?

Wimbledon's host club was founded in 1868 as the All England Croquet Club and only took up lawn tennis as interest in croquet began to fade.

What is the sole official language of Suriname?

Dutch is Suriname's official language because in 1667 the English handed the colony to the Netherlands in exchange for New Amsterdam, later New York.

Which hormone, produced by beta cells in the pancreas, lowers blood glucose?

Insulin won Frederick Banting a 1923 Nobel Prize, and he shared his prize money with his student Charles Best, whom the award had left out.

Which 1977 Fleetwood Mac album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year?

Rumours was recorded while both of the band's couples, John and Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, were breaking up, and many of its songs are about those splits.

What is the least populous state capital in the United States?

Montpelier, Vermont's tiny capital, won the title in 1805 partly because local residents donated land and money for the first State House.

Which unit is the SI base unit of electric current?

The ampere was redefined in 2019 partly because its old definition required two infinitely long parallel wires in a vacuum, which nobody could ever build.

Whose tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by a team led by Howard Carter?

Tutankhamun's tomb, KV62, was opened in November 1922; Carter's patron George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, had funded his digs since 1907.

Which sparkling wine may only carry its name if made in one designated region of north-east France?

Champagne is guarded so strictly that the Swiss village of Champagne was banned from printing its own name on the wine it makes.

Which board game's weapons include a candlestick, a rope and a lead pipe?

Cluedo's inventor, Anthony Pratt, was told sales were disappointing and in 1953 signed away his overseas royalties for £5,000, before it sold in the millions.

Which chess piece moves only along diagonals?

The bishop moves any distance along diagonals only, so each bishop stays on the same colour of square for the entire game; a player starts with one on each colour.

Which star, about 4.25 light-years away, is the nearest to the Sun?

Proxima Centauri was discovered only in 1915, when Robert Innes found a faint star sharing Alpha Centauri's motion across the sky.

Salvador Dali's 1931 painting of melting clocks is called what?

The Persistence of Memory, painted in 1931 and held by New York's Museum of Modern Art since 1934, was inspired, Dali said, by Camembert cheese melting in the sun.

Which Charles Dickens novel opens with the line 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'?

A Tale of Two Cities grew from Dickens's role in Wilkie Collins's play The Frozen Deep; his preface says that is where he first conceived the story.

Which Japanese drink is made by a process closer to brewing beer than making wine?

Sake is brewed from rice starch like beer, but its starch-to-sugar and sugar-to-alcohol steps run at once, so it can pass 20% alcohol, stronger than beer or wine.

Which mammal has the longest gestation period, carrying its calves for about 22 months?

The African elephant carries its calf for about 22 months, the longest gestation of any mammal; a newborn weighs around 100 kg and can stand within an hour of birth.

Which Irish rock band formed in Dublin in 1976?

U2 began when 14-year-old drummer Larry Mullen Jr. pinned a notice on his Dublin school's board seeking musicians to form a band.

The city of Fez is one of the four imperial cities of which country?

Morocco takes its very name from Marrakesh: the former royal capital's name came to stand for the whole country in European languages.

Which sprinter set the 100 m world record of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin?

Usain Bolt's 9.58 in Berlin broke his own 9.69 from the 2008 Olympics, a record he had set while slowing down to celebrate before the finish line.

Which Paris museum displays the Mona Lisa?

The Louvre's Mona Lisa became a media sensation when Vincenzo Peruggia stole it in 1911, and its fame partly stems from that theft.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 started in a bakery on which street?

Pudding Lane's bakery fire was blamed on Robert Hubert, a watchmaker who confessed and was hanged, though he was still at sea when the fire broke out.

Which initialism on an invitation comes from the French for 'please respond'?

RSVP already means 'please respond', from répondez s'il vous plaît, so writing 'please RSVP' on an invitation says please twice.

The Super Bowl trophy is named after which coach, who won the first two Super Bowls?

Vince Lombardi's name went on the trophy in 1970, but its Tiffany design was first sketched on a cocktail napkin over lunch and is still used today.

Who became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic, in 1932?

Amelia Earhart was aiming for Paris, but strong winds and mechanical trouble forced her down in a pasture near Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Which fermented Korean side dish is most often made from salted napa cabbage or radish?

Kimchi is traditionally made in bulk each late autumn in kimjang, when communities work together so every household has enough for winter.

Which nickname for Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 grew from imagery by the poet Ludwig Rellstab?

Moonlight: the nickname is often dated to 1832, after Beethoven's death, but Rellstab's moonlit-lake image appeared in an 1824 story, while Beethoven was alive.

In which country is Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall?

Venezuela's Angel Falls is named after Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who spotted it in 1933 while searching for gold.

Which conflict on 18 June 1815, fought in what is now Belgium, was Napoleon's last battle?

After Waterloo, scavengers pulled teeth from the dead soldiers and sold them to make dentures for the rich.

Which martial art, meaning 'gentle way', became an Olympic sport in 1964?

Judo debuted at the 1964 Tokyo Games, yet Japan lost the showcase open category when Dutchman Anton Geesink beat Akio Kaminaga before a home crowd.

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, what kind of animal is Napoleon?

A pig: Napoleon and Snowball are the two young boars who take command after Old Major dies, until Napoleon's dogs chase Snowball away.

Which river carved the Grand Canyon?

The Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon, yet so much of its water is taken by dams, farms and cities that it rarely reaches the sea.

Which 1942 film paired Humphrey Bogart with Ingrid Bergman?

Casablanca was due out in 1943, but after Allied troops landed at Casablanca in November 1942, Warner Bros moved its premiere up to cash in.

Which Quentin Tarantino crime film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1994?

Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in May 1994 and the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, shared by Tarantino and Roger Avary, whose story Pandemonium Reigns became the Butch storyline.

Which Adele album, released in 2011, topped the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks?

21's closing ballad, Someone Like You, became Adele's first UK No 1 single only after she sang it with just a piano at the 2011 Brit Awards.

Roughly what is the speed of light in a vacuum?

300,000 km per second, so precisely 299,792,458 m/s that the metre is now defined as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

Which paprika-seasoned soup is one of Hungary's national dishes?

Goulash is named after the gulyás, Hungary's cattle herders, who cooked it as a meat soup while out pasturing their herds.

Which bird lays the largest eggs of any living land animal?

The ostrich lays the biggest egg of any living bird, yet relative to the hen's size it is among the smallest eggs of any bird.

At which racecourse is the Kentucky Derby run each May?

Churchill Downs has held the Kentucky Derby every year since 1875; it has been postponed only twice, by a wartime racing ban in 1945 and by the pandemic in 2020.

Which Australian natural wonder is the world's largest coral reef system?

The Great Barrier Reef nearly wrecked James Cook's ship Endeavour in 1770, and the crew had to throw six cannon overboard to free her.

Which Holst orchestral suite, first performed in 1918, has seven movements?

The Planets has seven movements because Holst left out Earth, and Pluto was not discovered until 1930, twelve years after the premiere.

Which Italian dessert is built from coffee-soaked ladyfingers and mascarpone cream?

Tiramisu is often credited to Le Beccherie in Treviso, whose owner was hailed as its father, though obituaries credit his wife and a chef.

Who became South Africa's first Black president in 1994?

Nelson Mandela was president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, yet the US kept his name on its terrorism watch list until 2008.

Which cat's biggest individuals are the largest living felids?

Tigers now hold only about 7% of their historic range, lost partly to habitat destruction as human populations expanded.

The papermaking process is traditionally credited to Cai Lun, a court eunuch of which Chinese dynasty?

Han: Cai Lun presented his papermaking process to Emperor He of the Eastern Han in 105 CE, though archaeological finds show paper-like material in China from the 2nd century BCE.

Which sea creature has three hearts and blue blood?

The octopus's blood is blue because it carries oxygen with copper, which works better than iron-based haemoglobin in cold, low-oxygen water.

Which planet's solar day of about 117 Earth days is roughly half its year?

Venus: its slow retrograde spin gives a solar day of 116.75 Earth days against a year of 224.7 Earth days, while its sidereal rotation of 243 days is longer than its year.

The Bluetooth wireless standard is named after a 10th-century king of which country?

Denmark: King Harald Bluetooth's name was only a placeholder codename, but no replacement could be cleared before launch, so it stuck.

Which food, when properly stored, does not spoil thanks to its high sugar and acidic pH?

Honey keeps partly because it is too sugary for microbes to grow, and bees add an enzyme whose hydrogen peroxide helps suppress bacteria.

Which fruit grows on the world's largest herbaceous flowering plant, whose 'trunk' is really rolled leaf stalks?

Banana plants are giant herbs, not trees: what looks like a trunk is a pseudostem of tightly packed leaf sheaths. Botanically, the fruit itself counts as a berry.

Which Australian marsupial has fingerprints so human-like that they are hard to tell apart under a microscope?

Koala fingerprints evolved independently of ours, yet one study found them hard to tell from human prints even with an electron microscope. Climbing and grasping seem to favour the same ridged design.

Which engineer built the Statue of Liberty's inner metal framework, years before his own landmark opened in 1889?

Gustave Eiffel gave the statue an iron truss skeleton that was deliberately not rigid, so stresses would not build up and crack its thin copper skin. The sculptor Bartholdi shaped only the outside.

Which colour jersey has the overall leader of the Tour de France worn since 1919?

Yellow may echo the newsprint of L'Auto, the newspaper that organised the race. Another account says it was simply the only colour a manufacturer could supply at late notice.

Which physicist won the 1921 Nobel Prize for explaining the photoelectric effect?

Albert Einstein was honoured for his 1905 paper on light, written in the same year that he explained Brownian motion, introduced special relativity and showed that mass and energy are equivalent.

Which search engine began in 1996 as a Stanford research project nicknamed BackRub?

Google grew out of BackRub, built by PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Page compared tracking the links that point at a web page to counting citations in academic publishing.

Which egg-laying Australian mammal has venomous spurs on the males' hind feet?

The platypus baffled the first European naturalists who examined it. It is one of only five living monotremes, mammals that lay eggs instead of bearing live young; the other four are echidnas.

Which Italian city is built on more than 100 small islands in a shallow lagoon, linked by hundreds of bridges?

Venice and its lagoon were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. The city's historic nickname is La Serenissima, 'The Most Serene'.

Which human internal organ can regrow to full size from as little as a quarter of its original tissue?

The liver is the only human internal organ capable of naturally regenerating lost tissue. Strictly speaking, biologists class it as compensatory growth rather than true regeneration.

Which spice, made from the dried crimson stigmas of an autumn-flowering crocus, must be harvested by hand?

Saffron regularly sells for more than US$5,000 per kilogram at premium grades, a price sustained by that labour-intensive harvest. The crocus it comes from is unknown in the wild.

Which colourless gas makes up about 78 percent of the air in Earth's atmosphere, more than any other?

Nitrogen accounts for 78.08% of dry air, with oxygen at 20.95% and argon a distant third at 0.93%. Carbon dioxide, for all its influence on climate, is only about 0.04%.

Which salt lake between Jordan and Israel has shores that are the lowest land elevation on Earth?

The Dead Sea is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean, dense enough that swimming there feels more like floating. It is also the deepest hypersaline lake in the world.

Which Shakespeare tragedy, the shortest he wrote, opens with three witches planning to meet a general on a heath?

Macbeth gave English the witches' cauldron chant 'Double, double toil and trouble'. The play was first printed in the Folio of 1623, seven years after Shakespeare died.

Which Renaissance artist painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512 for Pope Julius II?

Michelangelo filled the vault with nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, including The Creation of Adam. Botticelli was among the painters who had decorated the chapel's walls in the late 1400s.

Which Steven Spielberg thriller became the prototypical summer blockbuster on its release in 1975?

Jaws owes much of its suspense to failure: the mechanical sharks kept malfunctioning, so Spielberg mostly suggested the animal with John Williams's ominous theme. The crew nicknamed the props Bruce.

Which US president is the only one to have served more than two terms, winning four straight elections?

Franklin Roosevelt's long tenure prompted a rule change: the Twenty-second Amendment, ratified in 1951, bars anyone from winning more than two presidential elections.

Which dormant volcano in Tanzania is both Africa's highest mountain and the world's highest free-standing one?

Kilimanjaro carries the largest glaciers in Africa near its 5,895-metre summit. Its two best-known peaks are Kibo, meaning 'spotted' for its snow, and the jagged Mawenzi, 'broken top'.

Which family of tiny birds can fly in any direction and hover on wings beating up to 99 times a second?

Hummingbirds are named for the humming sound of those rapid wing beats, which also serves to alert other birds. The hovering record of 99 beats a second was measured in male woodstars.

Which British rock band topped the UK chart for nine weeks with Bohemian Rhapsody?

Queen returned to number one with the same song for five more weeks after singer Freddie Mercury's death in 1991. The band had formed in London in 1970.

Which Italian physicist invented the electric battery in 1799 and also discovered the gas methane?

Alessandro Volta is honoured every time electricity is measured: the SI unit of electric potential, the volt, carries his name. He announced the battery in a letter to the Royal Society in London, published in 1800.

Which scientist is the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, physics and chemistry?

Marie Curie named polonium, the first element she and her husband Pierre discovered, after her native Poland. In 1906 she also became the first woman professor at the University of Paris.

Which last active ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt allied with Julius Caesar and later with Mark Antony?

Cleopatra lost her fleet to Octavian at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. His forces invaded Egypt the following year, and both she and Antony took their own lives.

Which royal document did King John of England seal at Runnymede in June 1215 to make peace with rebel barons?

Magna Carta, Latin for 'Great Charter', barely outlived its first summer: neither side kept its promises and Pope Innocent III annulled it, leading to the First Barons' War.

Which Roman city near Naples was buried under metres of volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD?

Pompeii was largely preserved under the ash, leaving a snapshot of Roman life frozen at the moment of burial. Nearby Herculaneum and Stabiae were lost in the same eruption.

Which state, created by the 1929 Lateran Treaty, is the world's smallest country by both area and population?

Vatican City covers just 44 hectares inside Rome and is named after Vatican Hill. Benito Mussolini signed the treaty that created it on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III.

Which future US state was bought from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million in a deal negotiated by William Seward?

Alaska was called Russian America until the handover. Seward, the US secretary of state, opened talks with the Russian diplomat Eduard de Stoeckl soon after the American Civil War.

Which bone is the longest in the human body and, by some measures, also the strongest?

The femur is the only bone in the upper leg, running from the hip to the knee. Some studies suggest the temporal bone of the skull may actually be stronger.

Which spotted cat is the fastest land animal, with a top reliably recorded speed of 104 km/h?

The cheetah is often credited with 114 km/h, but that popular figure was discredited because of a faulty measuring method. Cheetahs easily outrun greyhounds in a race.

Which Mexican spirit, unlike other mezcals, can be made only from the blue agave plant?

Tequila is named after a town in the state of Jalisco, where red volcanic soils are well suited to growing the blue agave.

Which city staged the first modern Olympic Games in April 1896, with a marathon won by local hero Spyridon Louis?

Athens was chosen at an 1894 congress in Paris organised by Pierre de Coubertin, the aristocrat who created the International Olympic Committee at the same meeting.

Which boxer won Olympic light heavyweight gold at 18 before becoming world heavyweight champion?

Muhammad Ali, then still fighting as Cassius Clay, won that medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics and turned professional later the same year. He held the undisputed heavyweight title from 1974 to 1978.

In which present-day African country did the rulers of ancient Kush build their royal pyramids?

Sudan holds the Nubian pyramids, royal tombs of the Kushite kingdoms along the northern Nile Valley. The treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini demolished several of them at Meroe in the 1830s.

Which composer, a child prodigy from Salzburg, premiered his last opera, The Magic Flute, two months before his death?

Mozart was already composing little pieces at the age of five, which his father Leopold wrote down for him. He went on to complete more than 800 works.

Which Golden Age painter from Delft created Girl with a Pearl Earring around 1665?

Johannes Vermeer worked slowly, produced relatively few paintings and earned his living mainly as an art dealer. The picture is a tronie, a study of a head that was never meant to be a portrait.

Which English author's novel Pride and Prejudice was originally titled First Impressions?

Jane Austen's heroine Elizabeth Bennet is witty and intelligent but quick to form prejudiced first impressions, the flaw that the working title pointed at.

Which American novel, a commercial failure for its author, opens with the famous sentence 'Call me Ishmael'?

Moby-Dick follows Captain Ahab's obsessive hunt for the giant white whale that bit off his leg. The book was out of print when Herman Melville died in 1891.

Which fictional detective made his first appearance in print in the 1887 novel A Study in Scarlet?

Sherlock Holmes shares rooms with Dr Watson at 221B Baker Street in London, where many of the stories begin. Arthur Conan Doyle eventually wrote four novels and 56 short stories about him.

Which Disney animated film about an exiled prince and his murdered father draws on Shakespeare's Hamlet?

The Lion King sends young Simba into exile after his uncle Scar murders Mufasa to seize the throne. Its writers also drew inspiration from the Bible.

Which puzzle video game of falling four-block pieces was created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov?

Tetris was written in Pajitnov's spare time at the Academy of Sciences' computing centre. It reached a vast new audience in 1989, when Nintendo released it for the Game Boy.

Which Soviet cosmonaut became the first human in space, completing one orbit of Earth aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961?

Yuri Gagarin flew under the call sign Kedr, the Russian word for a Siberian pine or cedar.

Which kingdom, the only country lying entirely above 1,000 metres, is completely surrounded by South Africa?

Lesotho stays cooler all year than other places at the same latitude because of that altitude. It is the largest of the world's three countries enclosed by a single neighbour.

Which sea in the North Atlantic is bounded by four ocean currents rather than by any coastline?

The Sargasso Sea is where European and American eels return to spawn after years in rivers. Expeditions in the early 1920s finally traced the European eel's breeding grounds to it.

Which Japanese art repairs broken pottery with lacquer dusted with powdered gold, leaving the mends on show?

Kintsugi means 'golden joinery'. Collectors grew so fond of it that some were accused of deliberately smashing valuable pottery so that it could be repaired with gold seams.

Which Babylonian king's law code, composed around 1753 BC, survives carved on a basalt stele over two metres tall?

Hammurabi's stele was carried off as plunder some 600 years after it was made and rediscovered only in 1901 at Susa, in present-day Iran. Its laws rest on the 'eye for an eye' principle.

Which Swedish biologist formalised binomial nomenclature, the two-part Latin naming system for living things?

Carl Linnaeus gave humans the binomial Homo sapiens, and he is himself designated as the type specimen for the human species. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy.

Which compound, the main active component of chili peppers, produces a burning sensation in mammals?

Capsaicin is a potent irritant to mammals, yet the pepper seeds it protects are spread mainly by birds. It is concentrated in the white pith that holds the seeds, not in the seeds themselves.

Which Puccini opera, left unfinished when the composer died in 1924, features the tenor aria Nessun dorma?

Turandot was completed by Franco Alfano and premiered in 1926. Before leaving for medical treatment, Puccini had begged the conductor Arturo Toscanini, 'Don't let my Turandot die.'

Which Siberian rift lake is the deepest in the world and holds over a fifth of Earth's fresh surface water?

Baikal contains more water than all of the North American Great Lakes combined. At 25 to 30 million years old, it is also the oldest lake in the world.

Which Gabriel García Márquez novel follows seven generations of the Buendía family in the fictitious town of Macondo?

One Hundred Years of Solitude takes its setting from Aracataca, the Colombian town where García Márquez spent his childhood. The book has sold more than 50 million copies.

Which ancient Greek mathematician wrote the Elements, a treatise on geometry and number theory, around 300 BC?

Euclid's thirteen books are often called the most successful textbook ever written. Only the Bible is said to have been translated, published and studied more often.