Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The tiny island nation that barely shows up on a map

The Maldives is not just the smallest country in Asia by land area, it is also one of the smallest in the world, spread across roughly 1,190 coral islands grouped into atolls in the Indian Ocean. Its land area is small, but its exclusive economic zone, the sea it controls, is vast by comparison. Singapore and Brunei, the other options, are both considerably larger in land area.

Velázquez and the painting that puzzled later artists

Diego Velázquez painted "Las Meninas" around 1656, during his time as court painter to King Philip IV of Spain. The canvas shows the young Infanta Margarita Teresa surrounded by her attendants, with Velázquez himself standing at his easel on the left. What has fascinated viewers for centuries is the mirror at the back of the room, which seems to reflect the king and queen, raising the question of exactly who is watching whom.

Why fluorine sits at the top of the electronegativity scale

Electronegativity describes how strongly an atom pulls shared electrons toward itself in a chemical bond. Fluorine ranks highest of all elements, ahead of oxygen and chlorine, because of its small atomic radius and the way its nuclear charge acts on nearby electrons. This helps explain why fluorine forms such aggressive compounds and why it appears in materials like Teflon and in the fluoride added to many toothpastes.

Poirot, the Belgian detective with a very English creator

Hercule Poirot first appeared in Agatha Christie's 1920 novel "The Mysterious Affair at Styles". Christie, who was British, made her detective a Belgian refugee, a detail that gave him a distinctive outsider status in English society. Poirot went on to feature in dozens of novels and short stories, becoming one of the most recognisable detectives in crime fiction.

The Oscars, from a hotel dinner to a global broadcast

The first Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner in Hollywood, with an audience of a few hundred people and a ceremony that lasted only about fifteen minutes. It was a far cry from the televised spectacle of today. The awards were organised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which had been founded just a couple of years earlier.