Q 01/05

Which White Star liner sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in April 1912?

A) Lusitania

B) Olympic

C) Titanic

D) Britannic

Answer · why

C) Titanic

Titanic carried lifeboats for only about half the people aboard, and that was fully legal under the safety rules of the day.

Q 02/05

Which Dayton bicycle-shop brothers made the first powered, controlled airplane flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903?

A) Orville and Wilbur Wright

B) Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier

C) Gabriel and Charles Voisin

D) Horace and Oswald Short

Answer · why

A) Orville and Wilbur Wright

Orville and Wilbur Wright made a first flight of just 12 seconds and 120 feet, shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747.

Q 03/05

Whose assassination in Sarajevo in June 1914 set off the crisis that became the First World War?

A) Emperor Franz Joseph

B) Tsar Nicholas II

C) Kaiser Wilhelm II

D) Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Answer · why

D) Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand's driver was never told of a route change, turned at the Latin Bridge and stopped right in front of Gavrilo Princip.

Q 04/05

Which drug did Alexander Fleming discover in 1928 when a mould killed the bacteria on a culture plate by chance?

A) Streptomycin

B) Penicillin

C) Chloramphenicol

D) Tetracycline

Answer · why

B) Penicillin

Penicillin was not mass-produced until the Second World War, after Florey and Heatley carried the mould to the United States in 1941.

Q 05/05

Which barrier, built in 1961 to stop East Germans fleeing west, was opened on the night of 9 November 1989?

A) Iron Curtain

B) Checkpoint Charlie

C) Berlin Wall

D) Inner German border

Answer · why

C) Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall opened after spokesman Günter Schabowski, reading a note he had not been briefed on, told reporters the new travel rules took effect '...