Q 01/05

Which Leonardo da Vinci portrait gained worldwide fame after a former Louvre workman stole it in 1911?

A) Mona Lisa

B) Salvator Mundi

C) Ginevra de' Benci

D) La Scapigliata

Answer · why

A) Mona Lisa

The Mona Lisa was taken by Vincenzo Peruggia, a workman who had helped build its glass case. He hid the painting in his apartment for two years, sayin...

Q 02/05

Which German composer was almost completely deaf when his Ninth Symphony was first performed in Vienna?

A) Brahms

B) Beethoven

C) Mendelssohn

D) Schumann

Answer · why

B) Beethoven

Beethoven was several bars adrift and still conducting when the contralto Caroline Unger turned him round to face the cheering audience. They waved ha...

Q 03/05

In Miguel de Cervantes's novel, which structures does Don Quixote attack in the belief that they are giants?

A) Watchtowers

B) Bell towers

C) Windmills

D) Granaries

Answer · why

C) Windmills

Windmills are the first thing Don Quixote charges once the farm labourer Sancho Panza has joined him as squire. The scene gave English its idiom for f...

Q 04/05

Which Athenian philosopher was sentenced to drink hemlock after a jury found him guilty of corrupting the young?

A) Diogenes

B) Epicurus

C) Anaxagoras

D) Socrates

Answer · why

D) Socrates

Socrates spent his last day in prison with friends who offered him a way to escape, which he refused. He wrote nothing himself, so the trial is known ...

Q 05/05

Which inscribed slab, found by French soldiers in Egypt in 1799, gave scholars the key to reading hieroglyphs?

A) Rosetta Stone

B) Palermo Stone

C) Narmer Palette

D) Merneptah Stele

Answer · why

A) Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone repeats one decree in hieroglyphs, Demotic script and ancient Greek, so the readable Greek unlocked the other two. It went on show a...