Q 01/05

Albert Einstein's 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded chiefly for his discovery of the law of what?

A) The photoelectric effect

B) General relativity

C) Brownian motion

D) Mass-energy equivalence

Answer · why

A) The photoelectric effect

Relativity was still considered too controversial for the committee, so the citation named his 1905 work on light and electrons instead.

Q 02/05

Which Leonardo-attributed painting sold for a record US$450.3 million in 2017?

A) Lady with an Ermine

B) Ginevra de' Benci

C) Portrait of a Musician

D) Salvator Mundi

Answer · why

D) Salvator Mundi

Leonardo spent his final years in France as a close friend of King Francis I and died at the manor of Clos Lucé in 1519.

Q 03/05

Cleopatra VII descended from Alexander's general Ptolemy I Soter, making her ethnically what?

A) Macedonian Greek

B) Native Egyptian

C) Nubian Kushite

D) Persian royal

Answer · why

A) Macedonian Greek

She is the only ruler of the dynasty known to have bothered to learn Egyptian, on top of several other languages, which helped her present herself as ...

Q 04/05

On which Mediterranean island was Napoleon Bonaparte born in 1769?

A) Sardinia

B) Elba

C) Corsica

D) Sicily

Answer · why

C) Corsica

France had only acquired the island the year before. His first exile was on Elba, his last and fatal one on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.

Q 05/05

At which Washington venue was Abraham Lincoln shot by John Wilkes Booth in April 1865?

A) The National Theatre

B) Grover's Theatre

C) The Willard Hotel

D) Ford's Theatre

Answer · why

D) Ford's Theatre

He died the next morning in a boarding house across the street. Booth, a well-known actor, had performed at the theatre himself.