Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A fresco that gathers antiquity's greatest minds

Raphael painted "The School of Athens" between 1509 and 1511 as part of his commission to decorate the private apartments of Pope Julius II in the Vatican. The fresco imagines a grand gathering of ancient Greek philosophers, with Plato and Aristotle at the centre, and it is widely read as a tribute to the intellectual exchange between classical antiquity and Renaissance Italy. Raphael placed several of his own contemporaries among the crowd, a habit that has kept art historians busy for centuries.

Hemingway in the year 1954

Ernest Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, an award that followed his Pulitzer Prize for "The Old Man and the Sea" the previous year. By then he was already a household name for novels such as "A Farewell to Arms" and "For Whom the Bell Tolls". The Nobel committee cited his mastery of the art of narrative, and Hemingway, never a fan of formal ceremonies, did not attend the presentation in Stockholm.

Italian neorealism and a stolen bicycle

Vittorio De Sica's "The Bicycle Thief", released in 1948, is one of the defining films of Italian neorealism. Shot largely on the streets of postwar Rome with non-professional actors, it follows a father and his young son searching for a stolen bicycle that he needs for a job. The film's plain style and focus on ordinary hardship influenced generations of directors, and it regularly appears on lists of the greatest films ever made.

A river that crosses a border

The Ganges rises in the Himalayas and flows across the northern plains of India before entering Bangladesh, where it is known as the Padma. For millions of Hindus it is a sacred river, and cities such as Varanasi and Haridwar draw pilgrims to its banks. Its delta, shared by Bangladesh and India, is the largest river delta in the world.

Chromium, the element behind the shine

Chromium takes its name from the Greek word for colour, a nod to the vivid hues of its compounds. Its symbol, Cr, sits between vanadium and manganese on the periodic table, and the metal is prized for its hardness and resistance to corrosion. That combination is why it appears in stainless steel, in decorative plating on cars and fittings, and in the pigments that gave some classic paints their deep greens and yellows.