Q 01/05

The Wright brothers made the first controlled, powered flight in December 1903 near which town?

A) Dayton in Ohio

B) Kitty Hawk in North Carolina

C) Cape Canaveral in Florida

D) Le Mans in western France

Answer · why

B) Kitty Hawk in North Carolina

Their patent, filed months earlier, claimed not a flying machine but a system for controlling one.

Q 02/05

The Titanic sank in April 1912 on a voyage from Southampton to where?

A) Philadelphia

B) Boston Harbor

C) New York City

D) Halifax, Nova Scotia

Answer · why

C) New York City

About 1,500 of the 2,208 aboard died on her maiden voyage.

Q 03/05

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in June 1914 in which city?

A) Belgrade

B) Budapest

C) Vienna

D) Sarajevo

Answer · why

D) Sarajevo

The Bosnian Serb student Gavrilo Princip shot him and his wife Sophie at close range; the assassination lit the fuse of the First World War.

Q 04/05

How many casualties did the British Army suffer on the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916?

A) 57,470

B) 67,470

C) 87,470

D) 107,470

Answer · why

A) 57,470

Including 19,240 killed, the worst day in the British Army's history.

Q 05/05

The Balfour Declaration of November 1917 was a letter from the British foreign secretary to whom?

A) The Emir of Mecca

B) Chaim Weizmann

C) Lord Rothschild

D) David Lloyd George

Answer · why

C) Lord Rothschild

It pledged support for a 'national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with an Arab majority.