Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A metal that hides in your pocket

Gallium, symbol Ga, sits just below aluminium on the periodic table and has a curious party trick: its melting point is about 30 degrees Celsius, so a gallium spoon will soften and melt in a cup of hot tea. It was predicted by Dmitri Mendeleev before it was discovered, and Paul-Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran isolated it in 1875, naming it after Gallia, the Latin word for France. You will also find gallium in semiconductors and LEDs.

Paella is bigger than the pan

Valencia is the home of paella, and the original version was not seafood at all but a land-based dish of rabbit, chicken and sometimes snails. Rice is the constant, cooked in a wide, shallow pan that gives the dish its name. The famous socarrat, the toasted layer at the bottom, is the mark of a well-made paella. Seafood versions came later, from coastal areas.

A triptych full of puzzles

Hieronymus Bosch painted "The Garden of Earthly Delights", a three-panel work probably made between 1490 and 1510. It moves from Eden on the left to a crowded, strange paradise in the centre and a dark, musical hell on the right. Nobody has ever fully agreed on what it means, which is part of why it still fascinates viewers. It hangs in the Prado in Madrid.

The grasslands of South America

The Pampas are fertile lowlands covering parts of Argentina, Uruguay and southern Brazil, though the core region is usually tied to Argentina and Uruguay. The name comes from a Quechua word meaning plain. This is cattle and wheat country, and it shaped the gaucho culture of the region. Buenos Aires and Montevideo both sit near its edge.

From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe

The name Rhodesia honoured Cecil Rhodes, whose British South Africa Company ran the territory. After decades of colonial rule and a bitter liberation war, the country gained independence and became Zimbabwe in 1980, taking its name from the Great Zimbabwe stone ruins. Robert Mugabe became its first prime minister. The change was more than a label; it marked a break with the colonial past.