Q 01/05

Which Latin name for Prussia survives in football club names in Dortmund and Mönchengladbach?

A) Germania

B) Arminia

C) Borussia

D) Alemannia

Answer · why

C) Borussia

Borussia is the Latin name for Prussia, and Dortmund and Mönchengladbach both lay in Prussian provinces when their clubs were founded.

Q 02/05

Which crop did Frederick the Great promote so keenly that visitors still leave it on his grave?

A) Potatoes

B) Sugar beets

C) Cabbages

D) Barley

Answer · why

A) Potatoes

Potatoes earned Frederick the nickname Der Kartoffelkönig, the Potato King, for introducing the new crop to his country.

Q 03/05

King of Prussia, a community famous for its huge shopping mall, is in which US state?

A) Wisconsin

B) Pennsylvania

C) Missouri

D) Massachusetts

Answer · why

B) Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's King of Prussia took its name from an 18th-century tavern, the King of Prussia Inn, which honoured Frederick the Great.

Q 04/05

Which material lined the room, later looted by the Nazis, that Prussia gave Russia's tsar in 1716?

A) Ivory

B) Marble

C) Jade

D) Amber

Answer · why

D) Amber

Amber panels backed with gold leaf made up the room, which the Prussians handed over to seal an alliance against Sweden.

Q 05/05

Königsberg, the old capital of East Prussia, took which new name after the Soviet Union annexed it?

A) Kaliningrad

B) Sverdlovsk

C) Leningrad

D) Voroshilovgrad

Answer · why

A) Kaliningrad

Kaliningrad honours the Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin, who had died shortly before the city was renamed in 1946.