Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A playwright who reshaped American drama

Tennessee Williams wrote "A Streetcar Named Desire", a play that premiered on Broadway in 1947 and won him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the following year. Set in New Orleans, it follows Blanche DuBois as she moves in with her sister Stella and Stella's husband Stanley Kowalski. Its raw treatment of desire, class and mental fragility helped push American theatre away from polite drawing-room drama. Williams drew heavily on his own Southern upbringing and troubled family life.

The painting that van Gogh called a failure

Vincent van Gogh painted "The Starry Night" in 1889 while staying at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum near Saint-Remy-de-Provence, which he had entered voluntarily after a period of severe distress. The swirling sky and glowing stars were partly imagined rather than painted from life, though the view from his window inspired the village below. Van Gogh himself was lukewarm about the work, considering it a study rather than a triumph. It now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Polo: fewer players than you might think

A polo match is played by two teams of four riders, so eight players are on the field at once. The sport originated in Central Asia and was later popularised in India before spreading to Britain and Argentina, which remains a dominant force in the game. Matches are divided into periods called chukkas, each lasting a set number of minutes. Players rotate horses between chukkas to keep the animals fresh.

Why Helsinki sits so far north

Helsinki lies at roughly 60 degrees north, which makes it noticeably further north than Berlin or Rome. This latitude shapes daily life: winter days are short and dark, while summer evenings stay light well past midnight. The city sits on the Gulf of Finland, and its harbour and archipelago are central to its identity. Berlin, by contrast, sits around 52 degrees north, and Rome closer to 42 degrees.