Q 01/05

Which of these existed first?

A) The fax machine

B) The telephone

C) The phonograph

D) The electric light bulb

Answer · why

A) The fax machine

Alexander Bain's 'Electric Printing Telegraph' patent predates Bell's telephone by more than three decades.

Q 02/05

Which came first?

A) The Aztec Empire

B) The University of Oxford

C) The Inca Empire

D) The Ottoman Empire

Answer · why

B) The University of Oxford

Teaching at Oxford dates to the 11th century, centuries before the Aztec Triple Alliance formed in 1428.

Q 03/05

Which of these 17th-century milestones came first?

A) Newton's Principia

B) The Bank of England

C) Harvard University

D) The Royal Society

Answer · why

C) Harvard University

Harvard was founded in 1636, half a century before Newton published the Principia in 1687.

Q 04/05

Which invention came first?

A) The friction match

B) The photograph

C) The electric telegraph

D) The two-wheeled bicycle

Answer · why

D) The two-wheeled bicycle

Karl Drais's foot-propelled 'running machine' of 1817 beat the friction match and the first photograph, both from 1826.

Q 05/05

Which of these 18th-century milestones came first?

A) The US Declaration of Independence

B) The Encyclopaedia Britannica

C) The steam locomotive

D) The Guinness brewery

Answer · why

D) The Guinness brewery

Arthur Guinness set up at St. James's Gate in 1759, seventeen years before American independence was declared.