History by Letter: D

Questions

1. 1 Which Spanish surrealist artist is most well-known for pieces such as The Persistence of Memory and his extravagant moustache?

2. Which 19th century politician and adversary of William Gladstone, is the only British prime minister to-date to have been born Jewish?

3. Which Phoenician queen is credited with having founded the ancient city of Carthage near to modern day Tunis?

4. Which 'great' king of Persia's attempt to conquer Greece ended in failure following a loss at the battle of Marathon in 490BC?

5. Which city in Syria holds a claim to being the oldest continually inhabited capital in the world, having first been settled in the second millennium BC?

6. Which Italian Rennaissance polymath is perhaps most well-known for his painting the Mona Lisa, which now hangs in the Louvre in Paris?

7. Which general and resistance leader served as President of France from 1959 to 1969, and has an airport in Paris named after him?

8. What name is given to priests of various Celtic religions, though particularly those of pre-Roman Britain?

9. What is the most famous invention of Alfred Nobel - the man after which the Nobel Prizes are named?

10. Which French philosopher is most well-remembered for his Latin proposition 'Cogito, ergo sum' - which roughly translates to 'I think, therefore I am'?

11. Which controversial naturalist, geologist and biologist was born on the 12th February 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire and would go on to marry his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood?

12. Which Victorian writer created famous characters such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby?

13. Which English explorer and privateer undertook only the second continuous circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580?

14. Which large flightless bird, native to Mauritius, became extinct shortly after human occupation began during the 16th and 17th centuries?

15. What is the name of the 17ft marble Renaissance statue of a man by Michelangelo, which currently stands in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence?

16. What name is given to the series of amphibious Allied landings in Normandy on June 6th, 1944 as part of Operation Overlord?

17. Which Hollywood heartthrob and star of Rebel Without a Cause sadly died in a car crash in 1955, aged just 24?

18. What title was given to the leaders of medieval Venice, whose palace still stands on St. Mark's Square in the city?

19. Which small state ("the First State") on the US Eastern seaboard was the first to ratify the constitution, in 1787?

20. What name, meaning 'Ocean Guru' is given to the Buddhist spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, the current of which fled China during civil unrest in 1959?