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1. Which country gives its name to a canal which links the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean?
a) Suez
b) St Lawrence
c) Corinth
d) Panama
2. What range of hills, mainly in Northumberland, forms the border between England and Scotland for some 48 km/30 mi?
a) Cairngorms
b) Sidlaw Hills
c) Cheviot Hills
d) Lammermuir Hills
3. Which range of mountains extends for some 65 km/40 mi along the border of Poland and the Slovak Republic?
a) Tatra Mountains
b) Transylvanian Mountains
c) Ruthenian Mountains
d) Carnic Alps
4. Who said `We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.`?
a) Maurice Maeterlinck
b) Immanuel Kant
c) Benjamin Franklin
d) Jean-Paul Sartre
5. Who wrote the words `The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.`?
a) General William Booth
b) John Calvin
c) John Knox
d) William Shakespeare
6. Which volcanic island appeared from the sea to the south west of Iceland in 1963?
a) Selsey
b) Fair Isle
c) Stornaway
d) Surtsey
7. For what offence was Al Capone imprisoned between 1931 and 1939?
a) Bootlegging (selling alcoholic liquor during Prohibition)
b) Grand larceny
c) Murder
d) Tax evasion
8. In World War I, which was one of the last of a series of battles in the Somme area in 1916-17?
a) Battle of the Ancre
b) Battle of Trafalgar
c) Battle of Stamford Bridge
d) Battle of Saratoga
9. In which mountain range of New York State is the source of the Hudson River?
a) Appalachians
b) Black Hills
c) Adirondack Mountains
d) Blue Ridge Mountains
10. Who wrote the words `Don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?`?
a) D H Lawrence
b) T H White
c) J D Salinger
d) Doris Lessing
11. To which English county do the Farne Islands and Holy Island belong?
a) Tyne and Wear
b) Cumbria
c) Yorkshire
d) Northumberland
12. Who led the Parliamentarians to victory over the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby in 1645 during the English Civil War?
a) The Old Pretender
b) Oliver Cromwell
c) John of Gaunt
d) Guy Fawkes
13. The Crimea is a peninsula on the Black Sea. Which country does it belong to?
a) Russia
b) Ukraine
c) Turkey
d) Romania
14. The Arabian Sea is a branch of which tract of water?
a) Mediterranean Sea
b) Atlantic Ocean
c) Red Sea
d) Indian Ocean
15. Who said `Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.`?
a) James Thurber
b) H L Mencken
c) Don Marquis
d) Ralph Waldo Emerson
16. What is the abbreviation for Berkshire?
a) Beks
b) Brks
c) Berks
d) Bks
17. Which dam on the Columbia River, USA supports the waters of Franklin D Roosevelt Lake?
a) Grand Rapids Dam
b) Hoover Dam
c) Oroville Dam
d) Grand Coulee Dam
18. His novel Ulysses was banned in England and the USA on the grounds of obscenity. Who was he?
a) Christopher Isherwood
b) James Joyce
c) Samuel Beckett
d) D H Lawrence
19. Who wrote the words `The whole worl's in a state o' chassis!`?
a) James Joyce
b) Sean O'Casey
c) W B Yeats
d) Brendan Behan
20. Of which Australian state, named after a Queen, is Melbourne the capital?
a) Victoria
b) Queensland
c) Adelaide
d) Alice Springs
21. Which is the most southerly state of the USA?
a) Texas
b) Hawaii
c) Florida
d) New Mexico
22. How many colonies, represented by the number of stripes on the US flag, originally signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776?
a) 33
b) 43
c) 13
d) 23
23. Which beach was used in the D-Day landings by the US V Corps 6 June 1944?
a) Omaha Beach
b) Arromanches Beach
c) Paimpol Beach
d) Pointe de Barfleur
24. Which novel by the German writer Thomas Mann was published 1901?
a) Immensee
b) Andorra
c) Der Blaue Reiter
d) Buddenbrooks
25. Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, was actually a relative. What was her relationship to him?
a) His first cousin
b) His brother's widow
c) Half-sister
d) His niece
26. What novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky was published 1879-80?
a) Crime and Punishment
b) The Idiot
c) Notes from Underground
d) The Brothers Karamazov
27. On which island off the British coast can you visit the 700 year-old Beaumaris Castle?
a) Isle of Man
b) Anglesey
c) Lindisfarne
d) Skye
28. Which is Zimbabwe's second city?
a) Salisbury
b) Mutare
c) Giveru
d) Bulawayo
29. Translating into English as `Divine Wind`, by what name were the Japanese suicide pilots of World War II known?
a) Banzai
b) Kamikaze
c) Karaoke
d) Ju jitsu
30. Who wrote the words `My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.`?
a) Anthony Burgess
b) John Donne
c) Andrew Marvell
d) William Shakespeare
31. Which is the most sacred city in the Hindu religion?
a) Jaipur
b) Varanasi - formerly Benares
c) Poona
d) Lucknow
32. What is the ancient name for Pantelleria, an Italian island in the Mediterranean?
a) Filicudi
b) Lipari
c) Cossyra
d) Panarea
33. What was the name of the Englishman who collaborated with Arthur Sullivan to write The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore, and The Mikado?
a) William Gilbert
b) John Lennon
c) Bernie Taupin
d) P G Wodehouse
34. What was the pre-revolutionary name of Krasnodar, an industrial town in Russia?
a) Rostov-on-Don
b) Nizhniy-Novgorod
c) Yekaterinburg
d) Ekaterinodar
35. What was the name given to the Netherlands by the French in 1795?
a) Antwerpen
b) Batavian Republic
c) Zeeland Republic
d) Gelderland
36. What was the name of the ancient collection of writings, including copies of Old Testament books, found in caves near the River Jordan in 1947?
a) The Scroll of Testament
b) The Book of Books
c) The Dead Sea Scrolls
d) The Jordan Manuscripts
37. Which system of economic preference and protection within Europe 1806-13 was created by the French emperor Napoleon in order to exclude British trade?
a) Continental System
b) European Alliance
c) Continental market
d) European market
38. What is the name of the narrow stretch of water, flowing past Istanbul, linking European Turkey with Asian Turkey?
a) Suez Canal
b) Isthmus of Corinth
c) River Nile
d) Bosporus
39. Who introduced the Penny Post in 1840?
a) Rowland Hill
b) William Cooke
c) Charles Wheatstone
d) Thomas Cook
40. Who accepted the dare to ride naked through the streets of Coventry so that taxes would be reduced?
a) Lady Macbeth
b) Lady Luck
c) Lady Godiva
d) The Lady of Shalott
41. Who said `As I grow older and older, And totter towards the tomb, I find that I care less and less Who goes to bed with whom.`?
a) Stevie Smith
b) Dorothy Sayers
c) Philip Larkin
d) Dorothy Parker
42. In Christian church tradition, what is the name of the festival of St Michael and all angels, observed 29 Sept?
a) Martinmas
b) All Saint's Day
c) Michaelmas Day
d) Epiphany
43. Which type of public transport carried passengers around Britain from the mid-1600s until the 1840s when the railways began to take over?
a) Stagecoach
b) Bicycle
c) Canal boat
d) Horse and cart
44. Which country joined England in the 1707 Act of Union?
a) USA
b) Scotland
c) Wales
d) Ireland
45. Which prolific English comic playwright wrote the trilogy The Norman Conquests?
a) Robert Bolt
b) Alan Bleasdale
c) Alan Ayckbourn
d) Tom Stoppard
46. In what year were Family Allowances introduced?
a) 1948
b) 1945
c) 1946
d) 1947
47. What North African civil-engineering project diverts the White Nile in order to improve the water supply to Egypt from Sudan?
a) Jonglei Canal
b) Rogun Dam
c) Owen Falls Dam
d) Suez Canal
48. Which river has an eleven-letter name that uses only four letters of the alphabet?
a) Tennessee
b) Brahmaputra
c) Murumbidgee
d) Mississippi
There are 48 questions, you have one minute to answer each one.