Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The metal that named a record label

Platinum sits near the bottom of the periodic table with the symbol Pt, and its rarity has made it a byword for prestige. The element is dense, highly resistant to corrosion, and widely used in catalytic converters, laboratory equipment and jewellery. Its name even inspired a music industry award: a "platinum" record once meant a million copies sold, though the threshold now varies by country.

A capital split by a river

Budapest, the capital of Hungary, was created in 1873 by merging three towns: Buda and Obuda on the western bank of the Danube, and Pest on the eastern side. The result is a city of grand thermal baths, a dramatic parliament building and bridges that link its two halves. It is also one of the few European capitals where you can cross a river and feel you have entered a different district entirely.

From the page to the screen

Rudyard Kipling published The Jungle Book in 1894, a collection of stories about Mowgli, a boy raised by wolves in the Indian jungle. Kipling was born in Bombay and drew on his childhood there, though the book reflects the British colonial imagination of its time. Walt Disney's 1967 animated adaptation turned the tales into a musical comedy, and later live-action versions kept the characters alive for new generations.

Napoleon's final island

After his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to St. Helena, a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic. The British chose it precisely because it was isolated, thousands of kilometres from any continent, making escape nearly impossible. He died there in 1821, and his remains were later returned to France, where they rest under the dome of Les Invalides in Paris.