Q 01/05

Which two men were the first confirmed to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on 29 May 1953?

A) Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler

B) George Mallory and Andrew Irvine

C) John Hunt and Charles Evans

D) Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary

Answer · why

D) Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary

News reached London in time for the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on 2 June. Colonel John Hunt led the expedition.

Q 02/05

What happened to Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance in the Weddell Sea in 1915?

A) It burned after a galley fire

B) It ran aground on Elephant Island

C) It was hit by an iceberg

D) It was crushed by pack ice and sank

Answer · why

D) It was crushed by pack ice and sank

Its 28 men camped on the drifting ice for months. The remarkably preserved wreck was found on the seafloor in 2022.

Q 03/05

What was the name of the lifeboat Shackleton and five men sailed 800 miles to South Georgia?

A) James Caird

B) Aurora

C) Nimrod

D) Discovery

Answer · why

A) James Caird

He then arranged the rescue of the men left on Elephant Island and brought every one of them home alive.

Q 04/05

Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to traverse which sea route, in 1903–06, aboard the sloop Gjøa?

A) The Northeast Passage

B) The Northwest Passage

C) The Drake Passage

D) The Strait of Magellan

Answer · why

B) The Northwest Passage

Five years later he beat Scott to the South Pole, having sailed to Antarctica in the Fram.

Q 05/05

By how many days did Amundsen's party beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole in 1911–12?

A) 34

B) 3

C) 10

D) 21

Answer · why

A) 34

Scott's five-man party reached the pole on 17 January 1912 and all died on the return journey.