Q 01/05

Which South African city, nicknamed the City of Gold, was founded in 1886 after a gold strike on the Witwatersrand?

A) Pretoria

B) Port Elizabeth

C) Johannesburg

D) Pietermaritzburg

Answer · why

C) Johannesburg

Johannesburg grew from farmland to more than 100,000 people within a decade of the gold rush. It is now South Africa's largest city, yet it is not one...

Q 02/05

Which African capital hosted the 1974 'Rumble in the Jungle' title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman?

A) Kinshasa

B) Brazzaville

C) Luanda

D) Kampala

Answer · why

A) Kinshasa

Kinshasa staged the fight because President Mobutu Sese Seko wanted the publicity for Zaire, as the country was then called. Ali won it with his famou...

Q 03/05

Which East African capital, named from a Maasai phrase meaning 'cool waters', has a national park inside its boundaries?

A) Kampala

B) Nairobi

C) Kigali

D) Dodoma

Answer · why

B) Nairobi

Nairobi National Park is fenced on three sides, but its southern edge is left open so migrating herds can come and go. Opened in 1946, it was Kenya's ...

Q 04/05

Which Malian city on the edge of the Sahara grew rich on gold and salt and became a centre of Islamic scholarship?

A) Bamako

B) Mopti

C) Koulikoro

D) Timbuktu

Answer · why

D) Timbuktu

Timbuktu owed its fame to Mansa Musa, who recruited scholars from across the Islamic world to teach there. In Europe its reputation later shifted from...

Q 05/05

Which Egyptian port, founded in 331 BC by a Macedonian conqueror, was famed for its Great Library and Pharos lighthouse?

A) Damietta

B) Alexandria

C) Marsa Matruh

D) Rosetta

Answer · why

B) Alexandria

Alexandria takes its name from its founder, Alexander the Great, and served as Egypt's capital for almost a millennium. Its lighthouse was one of the ...