Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A symbol that comes from a German mineral

Carbon is one of the few elements whose chemical symbol matches its English name, but tungsten is a different story. Its symbol, W, comes from wolframite, the mineral from which the element was long extracted, and from the German word "Wolfram". Many European languages still call the metal by that name, which is why the symbol and the English word refuse to line up.

A canvas that almost stayed in Florence

Sandro Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", painted in the mid-1480s, is one of the first large-scale depictions of a classical myth on canvas in Western art. It was made for the Medici circle and spent centuries in relative obscurity before finding a home in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Today it is one of the museum's most visited works.

The newest old capital in the Balkans

Podgorica became the capital of an independent Montenegro only after the country split from Serbia in 2006, though the city has ancient roots. It was called Titograd during the Yugoslav era, named after Josip Broz Tito, and reverted to Podgorica in 1992. Belgrade, one of the other options, is the capital of Serbia, while Sarajevo leads Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Faraday's quiet revolution

Michael Faraday's 1831 experiments with a moving conductor and a magnetic field laid the groundwork for the electric generator, and with it the modern power grid. Unlike Thomas Newcomen and James Watt, who worked on steam engines, Faraday was chasing something abstract: the relationship between magnetism and electricity. That curiosity ended up electrifying the world.

A forest that belongs to many

The Amazon Rainforest is often associated with Brazil, and rightly so, since most of it lies there. But it also stretches into Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. Peru alone holds the second-largest share, which is why the country is a key player in any discussion about the forest's future.