Q 01/05

Which English king put his seal to Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215?

A) John

B) Henry II

C) Richard I

D) Edward I

Answer · why

A) John

John's barons forced the charter on him after years of heavy taxation and lost French lands; the Pope annulled it within weeks.

Q 02/05

Suleiman the Magnificent was the longest-reigning sultan of which empire?

A) Mughal

B) Safavid

C) Ottoman

D) Byzantine

Answer · why

C) Ottoman

His 46-year reign from 1520 pushed the empire's borders to the gates of Vienna and made its navy the master of the Mediterranean.

Q 03/05

Soldiers from which country's army found the Rosetta Stone in Egypt in 1799?

A) Britain

B) France

C) Italy

D) Prussia

Answer · why

B) France

The British took it from the French two years later under the Capitulation of Alexandria, which is why it sits in the British Museum today.

Q 04/05

Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?

A) Rosalind Franklin

B) Lise Meitner

C) Dorothy Hodgkin

D) Marie Curie

Answer · why

D) Marie Curie

She remains the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911.

Q 05/05

Despite its name, the Anglo-French Hundred Years' War actually lasted how many years?

A) 106

B) 110

C) 116

D) 113

Answer · why

C) 116

It ran from 1337 to 1453, and five generations of kings from two rival dynasties fought over the French throne.