Q 01/05

Which bridal fashion is Queen Victoria credited with popularising after she married Prince Albert in 1840?

A) A gold tiara

B) A white dress

C) A long lace veil

D) A diamond ring

Answer · why

B) A white dress

A white dress was not her invention, but Victoria's satin and Honiton lace gown was so widely reported that she is credited with making it the bridal ...

Q 02/05

Which landmark, built as the centrepiece of the 1889 World's Fair, was meant to be dismantled after 20 years?

A) Eiffel Tower

B) Washington Monument

C) Brooklyn Bridge

D) Tower Bridge

Answer · why

A) Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower was due to come down in 1909 but was allowed to stay, having proved its worth as a mast for radio signals.

Q 03/05

Which nickname was given to the fortune-seekers who rushed to California after gold was found at Sutter's Mill?

A) Sooners

B) Carpetbaggers

C) Forty-niners

D) Klondikers

Answer · why

C) Forty-niners

Forty-niners took their name from 1849, the peak year of the rush; about half of the 300,000 arrivals came by sea.

Q 04/05

In which war did Florence Nightingale nurse British soldiers, later charting their deaths in her 'rose diagram'?

A) Napoleonic Wars

B) First Opium War

C) Second Boer War

D) Crimean War

Answer · why

D) Crimean War

The Crimean War made her 'The Lady with the Lamp', a name earned on night rounds of the wards at Scutari.

Q 05/05

Which author conceived the novel Frankenstein during an 1816 summer near Geneva with Lord Byron and John Polidori?

A) Jane Austen

B) Mary Shelley

C) Emily Brontë

D) George Eliot

Answer · why

B) Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley was 18 when Byron proposed that each guest write a ghost story; her tale was published anonymously in 1818.