Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The bear, the boy and the hundred-acre wood

A.A. Milne introduced Piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh in 1926, followed by The House at Pooh Corner two years later. The stories grew out of bedtime tales Milne told his son Christopher Robin, and the toys that inspired them - including a small pig - are now held in a New York museum. Piglet is remembered for his quiet courage: he is frightened of almost everything, yet he rarely refuses when a friend needs him.

A planet found by mathematics before it was seen

Neptune was spotted in 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle, but the real story began with pen and paper. Astronomers noticed that Uranus drifted slightly from its predicted path and suspected an unseen planet was tugging at it. Urbain Le Verrier calculated where that hidden world should be, and Galle found it close to the predicted spot. It was one of the first times a planet was discovered by prediction rather than by chance.

Hawthorne, Hemingway and the weight of a title

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) turns a single embroidered letter into a study of guilt and shame in Puritan New England. Hemingway's The Garden of Eden, by contrast, appeared long after his death and surprised readers with its portrait of a marriage in flux. Both novels show how much a title can carry: one letter, one place, and a whole world of meaning.

Samba, a music born of many traditions

Samba grew up in Rio de Janeiro in the early twentieth century, shaped by Afro-Brazilian communities and the rhythms they brought with them. Its breakthrough came with the 1917 recording "Pelo Telefone", often called the first samba on record. Today it is the sound of Carnival, driven by percussion ensembles and sung in Portuguese.