Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The sentence that launched a thousand productions

J.M. Barrie's "All children, except one, grow up" opens Peter and Wendy, his 1911 novelisation of the stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. Barrie had already introduced the character in The Little White Bird before the play premiered in 1904. He later gifted the rights to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, a bequest that has supported the hospital for decades.

A continent that is also a country

Australia is the smallest of the seven continents, and the only one governed as a single sovereign nation. It is often called an island continent, though geographers usually reserve "island" for landmasses smaller than Greenland. Its isolation has produced wildlife found nowhere else, from kangaroos to platypuses.

From Pygmalion to a Broadway classic

George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion in 1912, retelling the Greek myth of a sculptor who falls in love with his own creation. The story of Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle became the musical My Fair Lady, with a score by Frederick Loewe and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, in 1956. Shaw himself reportedly disliked musical adaptations, yet the show won six Tony Awards in its first Broadway run.

Why centuries are always one number ahead

The period from 1801 to 1900 is the 19th century, not the 18th. The reason is that the first century ran from the year 1 to 100, so each subsequent century begins on a year ending in 01. This off-by-one quirk still trips people up in history quizzes and everyday conversation alike.

The day the Bastille fell

On 14 July 1789, a Parisian crowd stormed the Bastille, a fortress and prison that had come to symbolise royal tyranny. Although only a handful of prisoners were held there at the time, the event became a turning point of the French Revolution. The date is now celebrated as Bastille Day, France's national holiday.