The Christmas quiz: answers

Looking back on 2020

1. The vaccine they developed, with Pfizer, was found to be 95% effective
2. Santa Barbara, in California
3. Jack Dorsey (pictured)
4. Luxembourg 
5. Shuggie Bain; fashion designer 
6. North Macedonia
7. Challenger Deep 
8. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton 
9. 23 March 
10. Princess Nut Nut
11. Rita Ora
12. Sputnik V

History and politics

1. Rudolf Hess
2. The Curies
3. The Boxer Rebellion
4. A film processing firm
5. Quarantine
6. Oliver Cromwell
7. Tilbury
8. Justin Trudeau
9. Keir Hardie
10. 1066; 1483; 1936
11. Portugal
12. Battle of the River Plate

Film and TV

1. Louise Fletcher 
2. Fritz Lang 
3. R2-D2 and C-3PO 
4. Joseph L. Mankiewicz 
5. Get Out 
6. Darling; Lawrence of Arabia 
7. Bob Marley 
8. The zither; Anton Karas 
9. John McClane and Hans Gruber; the Nakatomi Plaza 
10. Judith Anderson 
11. a) Freddy Mercury b) Lauren Bacall c) Kirk Douglas d) Michael Keaton e) Stevie Wonder f) Snoop Dogg 
12. Rex Harrison; Eddie Murphy 
13. Wacky Races

Places

1. Washington DC 
2. Hawaii and Tennessee; Iowa 
3. Algeria; Nigeria 
4. Ted Heath 
5. a) Laos b) Cuba c) Egypt 
6. Vilnius, Vienna, Vaduz, Valletta, Vatican City; Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan 
7. Madagascar 
8. The Karakoram Highway 
9. Highway 61 
10. Darwin

Literature and the arts

1. The Browns; Mrs Bird 
2. Ossie Clark, Celia Birtwell and their cat (Blanche, though they did also have one called Percy) 
3. The Artful Dodger 
4. Hamnet 
5. a) That there’s some corner of a foreign field, that is for ever England b) And not waving but drowning c) Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair 
6. Benjamin Britten 
7. Grendel 
8. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë 
9. The theft of the Mona Lisa 
10. Architecture 
11. Mary, Colin and Dickon; Pevensie 
12. The Secret History 
13. W.B. Yeats 
14. Catch-22; Lolita 
15. Abraham 
16. Ulysses

Obituaries

1. Lucille 
2. Les Misérables 
3. Max von Sydow 
4. Ladysmith Black Mambazo 
5. Prozac Nation 
6. Albert Uderzo, of Asterix the Gaul 
7. Leonard “Nipper” Read 
8. Honor Blackman

Science and nature

1. Saffron 
2. Copper and zinc 
3. Sulphur 
4. CO stands for corona, VI for virus, and D for disease, first seen in 2019 
5. Giraffe 
6. He suggested tennis balls should be yellow 
7. Grinding teeth 
8. Edward Jenner; supposedly because it was for cowpox, and the Latin word for cow is vacca 
9. Euclid 
10. China 
11. Mistletoe

Famous Olympians

1. Daley Thompson 
2. Eric Liddell 
3. Simone Biles 
4. Jesse Owens 
5. Cathy Freeman