Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A rainforest that refuses to stay in one country

The Amazon Rainforest spreads across nine South American countries, with roughly sixty percent of it inside Brazil. Suriname, on the northeastern coast, is almost entirely covered by forest, which is why it belongs on any list of Amazon nations. The river that drains this vast region is similarly international: it rises in Peru and runs through Colombia before reaching Brazil, and French Guiana, an overseas department of France, also sits within its basin.

Elements named after people, not places

Bohrium, symbol Bh, honours the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, whose model of the atom reshaped twentieth-century chemistry. It is a synthetic element, created in a laboratory rather than found in nature, and it sits among the heavy, short-lived transactinides on the periodic table. Naming rights for such elements are serious business: they are proposed by the discovering team and confirmed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Dan Brown and the lure of hidden symbols

Dan Brown built his reputation on thrillers that mix art, history and conspiracy, most famously with The Da Vinci Code. The Lost Symbol continues that formula, sending his recurring protagonist Robert Langdon through Washington, D.C. in a chase tied to Freemasonry and American iconography. Brown's books are often criticised for stretching historical facts, yet their pace and puzzle-like plots keep readers turning pages.

Two leaders, one transition

South Africa's 1994 election was the country's first to allow citizens of all races to vote, ending decades of apartheid rule. Nelson Mandela, who had spent twenty-seven years in prison, led the African National Congress to victory and became president. F. W. de Klerk, the outgoing state president, had shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela in 1993 for their work in dismantling apartheid.