Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A treaty that removed an entire class of weapons

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in Washington in 1987, marked the first time the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate an entire category of nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev committed both countries to destroying ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometres. The treaty remained in force for over three decades before collapsing in 2019 amid mutual accusations of violations.

The speech that defined a movement

Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his most famous address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The event drew an estimated 250,000 people, making it one of the largest political rallies in American history up to that point. Although King had used the "I have a dream" refrain in earlier speeches, the Washington version became the defining rhetorical moment of the American civil rights movement.

A mural that changed painting

Leonardo da Vinci created The Last Supper on a wall of the refectory at the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. Rather than using traditional fresco techniques, Leonardo experimented with tempera and oil on a dry wall, which allowed him greater detail but made the work fragile almost immediately. Centuries of restoration attempts have preserved what remains, and the mural is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

From Byzantium to Istanbul

Constantinople served as the capital of the Byzantine Empire for more than a thousand years, from its dedication by Constantine the Great in 330 AD until its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The city occupied a strategic position on the Bosporus, controlling trade routes between Europe and Asia. After the Ottoman conquest, it gradually became known as Istanbul, though the name change was not formalised until the early Turkish Republic.

A global organisation born from war

The United Nations was founded in 1945 in the final months of the Second World War, when representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco to draft its charter. It officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, a date now observed annually as United Nations Day. The organisation replaced the League of Nations, which had been unable to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War.