Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A garment that dressed an empire

The tunic was the everyday garment of ancient Rome, worn by men, women and children alike. Its length, colour and the width of the purple stripe told you something about the wearer's status: senators and equestrians were entitled to distinctive stripes, while ordinary citizens wore plainer versions. Roman tunics were usually made of wool, and most people owned several. Over time the garment evolved, but it never lost its role as the basic item of Roman dress.

Cicero, the man who argued for a living

Cicero was a Roman lawyer, political theorist and philosopher, and one of the most influential prose stylists of Latin literature. He built his reputation in the courts before rising through Roman politics to the consulship. His speeches, letters and philosophical works survived in large quantities, which is why he remains such a vivid window into the late Roman Republic. His writing shaped European rhetoric and political thought for centuries afterwards.

A capital on the steppe

Astana lies in northern Kazakhstan, in the Asian part of the country, on the Ishim River. It has been renamed more than once - the city was known as Akmola, then Tselinograd, then Akmolinsk again, before becoming Astana in 1998. In 2019 it was renamed Nur-Sultan, and in 2022 the name Astana was restored. Its winters are famously severe, with temperatures that can drop far below freezing.

Where the Equator crosses land

Ecuador takes its name from the Equator, which runs across the country just north of the capital, Quito. It is one of only a handful of countries the Equator actually passes through, and the line crosses both mainland Ecuador and its Galapagos Islands. Quito itself sits close to the Equator at high altitude, which gives the city a mild climate despite its tropical latitude. A monument north of the city marks the line for visitors.

Lawrencium and the art of chemical symbols

Lawrencium is a synthetic element with the symbol Lr, named after Ernest Lawrence, the American physicist who invented the cyclotron. It sits at the far end of the actinide series and does not occur naturally; it is produced in laboratories. Its symbol is a useful reminder that chemical shorthand is not always a neat abbreviation - La belongs to lanthanum and Lu to lutetium, so Lawrencium needed something different.