1. Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?A Marie CurieB Lise MeitnerC Irène Joliot-CurieD Bertha von Suttner
2. Who painted "The Night Watch"?A Johannes VermeerB RembrandtC Frans HalsD Peter Paul Rubens
3. Who led the first expedition to reach the South Pole?A Robert Falcon ScottB Ernest ShackletonC Roald AmundsenD Fridtjof Nansen
4. Who wrote the political treatise "The Prince"?A Dante AlighieriB Baldassare CastiglioneC PetrarchD Niccolò Machiavelli
5. Which composer wrote "The Four Seasons"?A Antonio VivaldiB Arcangelo CorelliC Tomaso AlbinoniD Domenico Scarlatti
6. Who was the first woman in space?A Svetlana SavitskayaB Sally RideC Valentina TereshkovaD Helen Sharman
7. Which architect designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York?A Le CorbusierB Frank Lloyd WrightC Ludwig Mies van der RoheD Walter Gropius
8. Who invented dynamite?A Werner von SiemensB Alfred KruppC Rudolf DieselD Alfred Nobel
9. Who was the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons?A Constance MarkieviczB Nancy AstorC Emmeline PankhurstD Margaret Bondfield
10. Who ran the first mile in under four minutes?A Roger BannisterB Chris ChatawayC Chris BrasherD John Landy
11. Who wrote the novel "Brave New World"?A George OrwellB H.G. WellsC Aldous HuxleyD Evelyn Waugh
12. Who developed the first successful polio vaccine, introduced in 1955?A Albert SabinB Alexander FlemingC Louis PasteurD Jonas Salk
13. Who founded the Mughal Empire in India?A BaburB AkbarC HumayunD Shah Jahan
14. Who invented the World Wide Web?A Vint CerfB Marc AndreessenC Tim Berners-LeeD Bill Joy
15. Who sculpted "The Thinker"?A Aristide MaillolB Auguste RodinC Edgar DegasD Constantin Brancusi
16. Which philosopher was the tutor of Alexander the Great?A PlatoB SocratesC DiogenesD Aristotle
17. Who was the first Secretary-General of the United Nations?A Dag HammarskjöldB Trygve LieC U ThantD Kurt Waldheim
18. Who published the first widely recognised periodic table of the elements, in 1869?A Dmitri MendeleevB Antoine LavoisierC John DaltonD Jöns Jacob Berzelius
19. Who was Queen Victoria's first prime minister?A Sir Robert PeelB Lord PalmerstonC Lord MelbourneD The Duke of Wellington
20. Who was the first winner of football's Ballon d'Or, in 1956?A Alfredo Di StéfanoB Ferenc PuskásC Raymond KopaD Stanley Matthews
ANSWERS
1. A) Marie Curie
She shared the Physics prize in 1903. Bertha von Suttner won the Peace Prize in 1905, and Irène Joliot-Curie, Marie's daughter, won in 1935. Lise Meitner never won one.
2. B) Rembrandt
3. C) Roald Amundsen
Amundsen's team arrived in December 1911, about five weeks before Scott's.
4. D) Niccolò Machiavelli
5. A) Antonio Vivaldi
6. C) Valentina Tereshkova
She flew in 1963. Savitskaya was the second woman in space, Sally Ride the first American woman and Helen Sharman the first Briton.
7. B) Frank Lloyd Wright
8. D) Alfred Nobel
9. B) Nancy Astor
Constance Markievicz was the first woman elected, in 1918, but as a Sinn Féin member she never took her seat. Astor took hers in 1919.
10. A) Roger Bannister
He ran 3 minutes 59.4 seconds at Oxford in May 1954, paced by Brasher and Chataway. Landy broke his record weeks later.
11. C) Aldous Huxley
12. D) Jonas Salk
Albert Sabin's oral vaccine, given on a sugar lump, followed a few years later.
13. A) Babur
Babur founded the empire in 1526. Humayun was his son, Akbar his grandson, and Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal.
14. C) Tim Berners-Lee
He invented the Web at CERN in 1989. Vint Cerf helped create the internet protocols it runs on, and Marc Andreessen co-wrote the Mosaic browser.
15. B) Auguste Rodin
16. D) Aristotle
17. B) Trygve Lie
Lie, a Norwegian, served from 1946 to 1952 and was followed by Hammarskjöld.
18. A) Dmitri Mendeleev
19. C) Lord Melbourne
20. D) Stanley Matthews
Matthews was 41 at the time. Di Stéfano won in 1957 and 1959, and Kopa in 1958. Puskás never won it.
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