Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A family of sisters with a literary legacy

Anton Chekhov wrote Three Sisters near the end of his life, and the play premiered in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The Prozorov sisters - Olga, Masha and Irina - live in a provincial Russian town and long to return to Moscow, a dream that never materialises. The play is often read as a study of stagnation, hope and quiet disappointment, and it remains one of Chekhov's most performed works. The name Masha is a Russian diminutive of Maria, which appears frequently across Russian literature.

A river that shaped a capital

The Vltava is the longest river in the Czech Republic, running roughly 430 kilometres before joining the Elbe near Mělník. It flows directly through the centre of Prague, passing under the famous Charles Bridge and past Prague Castle. The river has long been central to the city's identity, trade and transport. Composer Bedřich Smetana made the Vltava the subject of one of the movements in his symphonic poem Má vlast, giving the river a lasting place in Czech musical culture.

The giant among carnivorous plants

Nepenthes rajah is a tropical pitcher plant found only on Mount Kinabalu and nearby Mount Tambuyukon in Borneo. Its traps can hold more than two litres of fluid and have been known to capture small vertebrates, although insects make up most of its diet. The species was described in 1859 and named after Sir James Brooke, the first White Rajah of Sarawak. Its size and rarity have made it one of the most famous carnivorous plants in the world.

The League of Nations and its short, complicated life

The League of Nations was established in 1920 as part of the post-First World War settlement, with its covenant written into the Treaty of Versailles. It was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation aimed at maintaining peace, but the United States never joined, and the League struggled to prevent aggression in the 1930s. It was formally dissolved in 1946, with many of its functions and some of its agencies transferred to the newly created United Nations.