BBC Radio 4 Brain of Britain Ultimate Quiz Book. Russell Davies

Quiz 19

      1. With the chemical formula Fe₂O₃, which ore is the world’s most important source of iron?

      2. The BBC Proms, founded in 1895, were held at which London venue until they moved to the Royal Albert Hall?

      3. The 18th century portrait popularly known as The Skating Minister, of the Edinburgh cleric the Reverend Robert Walker skating on Duddingston Loch, is by which painter?

      4. Which ocean liner, the first ever to exceed a thousand feet in length, ended her days under the name of Lafayette while being converted into a Second World War troopship?

      5. Which Holy Roman Emperor was one of the leaders of the Third Crusade in 1189, but drowned in a river before reaching the Holy Land?

      6. Who was born at 17 Bruton Street, London W1, at 2.40 in the morning on the 21st April 1926?

      7. A ‘kit’ is a tiny, high-pitched variety of which musical instrument, used widely by dancing-masters between the 16th and 18th centuries?

      8. Macfarlane Burnet, who discovered acquired immunological tolerance; Lawrence Bragg, a pioneer of X-ray crystallography; and Howard Florey, who isolated and purified penicillin, are all Nobel laureates born in which country?

      9. Which landmark of East Anglia owes its distinctive profile to the 14th century engineering work of Alan de Walsingham?

      10. What’s the present-day name of the capital city known until 1976 as Lourenço Marques?

      11. Which form of transport was first developed in Yokohama in 1869 by the Reverend Jonathan Scobie, for the use of his invalid wife?

      12. Which entertainer, whose real name was Daniel Patrick Carroll, was once described by Bob Hope as ‘the most glamorous woman in the world’?

      13. What is the Latin name for the element sodium, giving rise to its chemical formula Na?

      14. The so-called ‘Wicked Bible’ was printed in 1631 by Barker and Lucas in Blackfriars in London, and its nickname arises from a misprint of some rather crucial words in Exodus chapter. What four-word phrase, in particular, is responsible for this Bible’s notoriety?

      15. Which word for a source of wealth, often associated with a large output from a mine, comes from a Spanish term for ‘good weather’?

      16. What is the name of the American golfer who, in 1971, became the first to win the UK, US and Canadian Opens in the same year?

      17. The French term houille blanche and the German weisse Kohle, both literally meaning ‘white coal’, refer specifically to what?

      18. In physics, what name is given to a tiny particle emitted from a radioactive nucleus during beta decay that specifically contains no charge?

      19. Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave, is a work of fiction published in London in 1688, about an African prince tricked into slavery and barbarically killed, by a female writer about whom little is known. What was her name?

      20. Cryophytes, a group of organisms which are most likely to be algae and fungi, thrive in which specific type of environment?

      21. In 1974, after a rock concert in Boston, Massachusetts, the music critic Jon Landau wrote ‘I saw rock and roll future, and its name is –’ With which name did he complete the sentence?

      22. Hydrated magnesium silicate is often used in the home. By what everyday name do we know it in that context?

      23. Now an archaic poetic term, a ‘Palfrey’ was a horse meant especially to be ridden by which group of people?

      24. Heard in the US Supreme Court in 1893, the case of Nix v Hedden established that which edible crop was a vegetable and not a fruit?

      25. Also a musical term for a florid melodic passage in music, what name is given to the posture in ballet where the dancer stands with one leg extended horizontally backwards, the torso extended forwards, and the arms outstretched?

      26. In the 2005 Julian Barnes novel Arthur & George, George Edalji is a solicitor accused of multilating horses. Who is Arthur – the novelist whose investigations help acquit him of the charge?

      27. Bernardo O’Higgins was the first President of which country?

      28. Which species of North American pit viper gave its name to a Northerner sympathetic to the South, or opposed to Lincoln’s policies, in the American Civil War?

      29. The term ‘dystrophy’, as in muscular dystrophy, literally refers to a fault or defect in what function?

      30. Franz Schubert’s Ninth Symphony is known as the ‘Great’; but which number is ascribed to his so-called ‘Unfinished’ Symphony?

      31. If all of the characters in the Bible were listed alphabetically, who would come first?

      32. In the BBC television situation comedy Yes Minister, by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, to which fictional government department was Jim Hacker first appointed a Minister?

      33. Which popular grape variety is used to produce the wines of Chablis?

      34. Which humorous artist and musician often used to sign his name with a trademark signature in which the double ‘f’ in his surname was replaced by two treble clefs?

      35. ‘It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going’ was the catchphrase of the character Mona Lott, in which classic radio comedy show popular in the 1940s?

      36. Which two-word phrase, indicating the tendency of writers and artists to ascribe human emotions and sympathies to nature, was coined by John Ruskin in the third volume of his work Modern Painters?

      37. Which Spanish city has a name that literally means ‘pomegranate’?

      38. What’s the name of the unfeasibly articulate and scheming toddler at the centre of the cartoon series Family Guy?

      39. What name describes a mechanical model, usually clockwork, representing the motions of the planets around the sun, an example having been depicted in a famous 18th century painting by Joseph Wright of Derby?

      40. Which American woman, who escaped from slavery in Maryland in the 1840s, is remembered for helping over 300 Southern slaves to freedom via the so-called ‘Underground Railroad’ of safe-houses?

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Quiz 20

      1. Robert Fitzroy, who commanded HMS Beagle on which Charles Darwin sailed as the ship’s naturalist, served from 1843 as the governor of which British colony?

      2. Which flower, referred to as ‘gillyflower’ in works by Shakespeare and Chaucer,