Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The trumpet that made a city swing

Louis Armstrong did not simply play the trumpet; he reshaped what the instrument could do in popular music. Growing up in New Orleans, he absorbed the city's marching-band and blues traditions before moving to Chicago and later New York. His rhythmic phrasing and improvised solos helped shift jazz from collective ensemble playing toward the spotlight on individual soloists. Songs like "West End Blues" and "What a Wonderful World" show two very different sides of the same restless musical mind.

A motto born from revolution

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité" became associated with the French Republic during the revolutionary era, though it took time to become an official slogan. The three words condensed Enlightenment ideals into a compact political promise. Over the centuries the motto has appeared on public buildings, coins, and stamps, and it remains a reference point in French political debate. Its simplicity is deceptive: each word carries a long history of argument about what the Republic owes its citizens.

From prisoner to president

Nelson Mandela's inauguration in 1994 marked the end of decades of institutionalised racial segregation in South Africa. His path to the presidency ran through 27 years in prison, much of it on Robben Island, before negotiations dismantled the apartheid system. The election that brought him to power was the country's first in which all adult citizens could vote regardless of race. Mandela served a single term, setting a precedent for peaceful transfer of leadership in a fragile democracy.

The mountain that confuses travellers

Kilimanjaro is often mistakenly placed in Kenya, but the entire massif lies within Tanzania, close to the Kenyan border. It is Africa's highest peak and the world's tallest free-standing mountain, rising from savanna through rainforest and alpine desert to a glaciated summit. Its three volcanic cones - Kibo, Mawenzi, and Shira - give the mountain its broad, distinctive profile. Climbers pass through several climate zones in a matter of days.