Q 01/05

Which admiral was shot by firing squad on the quarterdeck of HMS Monarch in 1757 for failing to relieve Minorca?

A) John Byng

B) George Anson

C) Edward Hawke

D) Thomas Graves

Answer · why

A) John Byng

John Byng's death moved Voltaire to write in Candide that in England it is good to kill an admiral from time to time 'to encourage the others'.

Q 02/05

At which 1801 battle did Nelson put a telescope to his blind eye and ignore the signal to withdraw?

A) The Nile

B) Copenhagen

C) Cape St Vincent

D) Camperdown

Answer · why

B) Copenhagen

Copenhagen saw Nelson tell his flag captain 'I have the right to be blind sometimes' before ignoring Admiral Hyde Parker's signal and beating the Dani...

Q 03/05

China's first aircraft carrier began as an unfinished Soviet hull that a Macau company bought from Ukraine as what?

A) A floating museum

B) A cruise liner

C) A floating casino

D) A scrapyard sale

Answer · why

C) A floating casino

A floating casino was the declared purpose when the hull of Varyag sold at auction for $20 million in 1998 to a firm with no listed phone number; she ...

Q 04/05

Which Russian battleship's crew mutinied in 1905 after refusing borscht made from maggot-infested meat?

A) Aurora

B) Retvizan

C) Tsesarevich

D) Potemkin

Answer · why

D) Potemkin

Potemkin's revolt began at gunnery practice off the Ukrainian coast and was immortalised twenty years later in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film.

Q 05/05

Cast adrift after the 1789 Bounty mutiny, William Bligh sailed an open boat 3,618 nautical miles to which island?

A) Timor

B) Tahiti

C) Java

D) Fiji

Answer · why

A) Timor

Timor held the nearest European outpost, the Dutch settlement of Kupang, and Bligh brought his loyalists there alive on the rations they had in the bo...