Q 01/05

Scott's last diary entry was written in March 1912, about two weeks before which famous disaster?

A) The Hindenburg fire

B) The sinking of the Titanic

C) The San Francisco earthquake

D) The sinking of the Lusitania

Answer · why

B) The sinking of the Titanic

The sinking of the Titanic came on 15 April 1912, yet the world mourned the liner first: nobody outside Antarctica knew Scott's party was dead until t...

Q 02/05

Who scored the film Scott of the Antarctic?

A) William Walton

B) Benjamin Britten

C) Ralph Vaughan Williams

D) Michael Tippett

Answer · why

C) Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams later reworked his music for the film into a full symphony, his seventh, the Sinfonia antartica, first performed in 1953.

Q 03/05

Amundsen's tent at the South Pole held a letter he asked Scott to deliver to whom?

A) King Haakon VII of Norway

B) Fridtjof Nansen

C) The Norwegian parliament

D) His brother Leon

Answer · why

A) King Haakon VII of Norway

King Haakon VII of Norway was the addressee: Scott kept Amundsen's note and logged the request in his diary with an exclamation mark, the beaten man a...

Q 04/05

Where was Scott born in 1868?

A) Cardiff, South Wales

B) Leith, near Edinburgh

C) Portsmouth, Hampshire

D) Near Devonport, Plymouth

Answer · why

D) Near Devonport, Plymouth

Near Devonport, Plymouth: with soldiers and sailors on both sides of the family, Scott and his younger brother were marked out for the armed services ...

Q 05/05

Which Royal Geographical Society president backed Scott to lead the Discovery Expedition?

A) Fridtjof Nansen

B) John Murray

C) Clements Markham

D) Ernest Shackleton

Answer · why

C) Clements Markham

Clements Markham had marked Scott out years earlier, after watching the young midshipman win a boat race in the West Indies, and he stayed Scott's fir...