Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A word that became shorthand for total control

George Orwell published "1984" in 1949, and its vocabulary has outlived the plot. Terms like "Big Brother", "doublethink" and "newspeak" entered everyday political language, often used to describe surveillance or manipulative public messaging. Orwell wrote the novel while seriously ill with tuberculosis, and it was his final completed book before his death in 1950.

A metal that quietly powers modern technology

Cerium, symbol Ce, is the most abundant of the rare earth elements, found in the minerals bastnasite and monazite. It has a surprising range of everyday uses: it polishes glass, helps refine petroleum and appears in catalytic converters. The famous strike-anywhere lighter flint also contains a cerium alloy, which produces the bright sparks.

The deepest point on Earth

The Mariana Trench lies in the western Pacific Ocean, east of the Mariana Islands. Its deepest section, Challenger Deep, reaches roughly 11,000 metres down. Only a handful of people have ever descended there, including Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh in 1960, and filmmaker James Cameron in 2012.

The Great Gatsby and the Jazz Age

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" (1925) follows Jay Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, set against the wealth and excess of Long Island's fictional communities. The novel explores the American Dream, class and reinvention. It was not a major success in Fitzgerald's lifetime, but it is now considered one of the defining works of American literature.

Colombia and the equator

Colombia sits in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, since the equator passes through its southern territory. The country's name derives from Christopher Columbus, though he never set foot on its land. Its position gives it a varied climate, from Caribbean coastlines to Andean highlands and Amazon rainforest.

A wall that fell in 1989

The Berlin Wall came down on 9 November 1989, after weeks of peaceful protests and loosening travel restrictions. East German officials announced that crossings would be permitted, and crowds quickly began dismantling the barrier. German reunification followed less than a year later, in October 1990.