FREE IQ COMPETITIONS, FREE HISTORY QUIZZES

1. Where in 480 BC, on being told by an adversary that Persian arrows would fly so thickly they would blot out the sun, did a Greek reply, 'So much the better. We shall fight in the shade'?
   (Before the battle of) Thermopylae
   
   
2. Who in 213BC allegedly destroyed an invading Roman fleet at Syracuse by fire produced by using mirrors to focus the sun's rays?
   Archimedes
   
   
3. The Greeks believed that Helios the sun god drove his chariot every day across the sky from East to West, returning how?
   Sailing over the Ocean
   
   
4. According to Lord Macaulay a message was passed across England by fiery beacon from south to north via locations including Edgcumbe, Malvern, Ely, Belvoir, Lincoln and Trent 'Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt's embattled pile / And the red glow on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle'. The message announced the imminent arrival of what?
   The Spanish Armada (quotation from the ballad 'The Armada')
   
   
5. Whose investigations into the nature of light (among many other things) are evoked in these lines by Alexander Pope: Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; / God said, 'Let ******be!' and all was light?
   Newton (epitaph)
   
   
6. The importance of the British contribution to leisure travel and sunseeking from the earliest days of the industry can be seen in place names such as the Promenade des Anglais in which French resort?
   Nice (Cox and Kings was the first travel company 1758)
   
   
7. Between 1816 and 1835 a number of experiments involving light and various chemicals such as asphalt solution and sodium iodide finally made what activity a practical proposition?
   Photography
   
   
8. Which London born artist (1775-1851) was known as 'the great pyrotechnist' or 'the painter of light'?
   JMW Turner
   
   
9. In 1879 a grand total of just 8 arc lamps bathed an English promenade in what was described as 'artificial sunlight', so marking the beginning of what great holidaytime institution?
   Blackpool Illuminations
   
   
10. Which French fashion designer sparked off a suntan craze in the 1920s after returning from a cruise?
    Coco Chanel
    
    
11. British Summer Time, intended to increase the hours of daylight and reduce the requirement for artificial light, was first introduced when?
    (an epoch accepted in lieu of a year) 1916/First World War