Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

Two epics, one disputed author

"The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" are traditionally attributed to Homer, a figure so shadowy that scholars have debated for centuries whether he was a single poet, several contributors, or a name attached to an oral tradition. The poems likely grew out of centuries of storytelling before being written down. Whatever the truth, their characters - Achilles, Odysseus, Helen - have shaped Western literature for roughly 2,700 years.

A pandemic that circled the globe

The Spanish flu of 1918-1919 struck in the final year of the First World War and killed tens of millions of people worldwide, far more than the war itself. Wartime censorship and neutral Spain's relatively open reporting gave the outbreak its misleading name. It is now understood to have been an H1N1 influenza virus, and it remains one of the deadliest pandemics in recorded history.

The butterfly with a royal name

Queen Alexandra's birdwing, native to Papua New Guinea, is the world's largest butterfly, with females reaching wingspans of around 25 centimetres or more. It was named for Alexandra of Denmark, who became queen consort of the United Kingdom. The species is endangered, largely because its rainforest habitat has been cleared for agriculture.

A capital chosen to settle a rivalry

Ottawa became the capital of the Province of Canada in 1857 and remained the seat of government after Confederation in 1867. Queen Victoria reportedly favoured it partly because it sat safely away from the tense border with the United States. Today it is a bilingual city on the Ottawa River, distinct from the larger, more commercial Toronto and Montreal.

Roman numerals and the subtractive trick

XIV, the Roman numeral for 14, shows the subtractive principle at work: a smaller symbol before a larger one means subtraction, so IV is four, while XIV is ten plus four. The Romans themselves were not always consistent about this, and alternatives such as IIII appear on old clocks and buildings to this day.