Geography, History, Literature A-Z

River Scheldt. Diamond trade hub.

Stories about this girl surviving the massacre of her family in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 1918 are just that... fairytales.

1962. Droogs. Korova Milk Bar. Beethoven.

A US state capital, a sea bordering Papua New Guinea.

Axe-wielding, American, female teenager.

1976. Ira Levin novel about a plan to create little Adolfs'.

There was a small room in this Indian city that was packed tight with British soldiers and civilians on the night of 20 June, 1756.

US cavalry commander who did not stand a chance at a little creek in Montana in 1876. He was Siouxed with damages and turned into custard.

1957. Feline. Headwear.

Upland area in southern Devon, UK. Location of a famous prison.

The German heavy cruiser Lutzow was named this until January 1940. Hint - 'Uber alles'.

1866. Another axe. Another death. Name author.

North Brabant, Netherlands. Birthplace of a huge multinational company. Light bulbs.

Kay Summersby. D-Day. 'Crusade in Europe'.

1837. A cretinous emperor is swindled by two weavers into buying a new set of threads.

Torshavn is the capital and largest settlement on which archipelago?

American Civil War battle. December 11-15,1862. Virginia. Confederate victory.

1960. Collection of short stories featuring an incompetent, womanising alcoholic. Eighth book about this nincompoop, who in the films favours vodka martinis.

City. 40 miles southwest of Melbourne, Victoria. Second largest city in Victoria.

Irish mercenaries from the mid-13th century to the late-16th century.

1861. Kent. London. Philip 'Pip' Pirrip. Graveyard. Escaped convict. Joe Gargery. Miss Havisham. Estella.

The island of Haiti and Dominican Republic.

Sparta's slaves, who tended the land and grew their grits for them so they could traipse around the Greek world combing their hair and cutting off heads.

Time magazine's 'Man of the Year' for 1938.

Mount Hekla calls this place home... and so does a woman who likes to wear a swan.

The twentieth largest island in the world.

1950. Isaac Asimov fix-up novel. Automaton.

Its flag features a yellow cross, two green triangles and two black triangles.

Marching. Horn blowing. Shouting. First battle in the Israelite conquest of Canaan.

The shortest verse in the King James version of the Bible.

Second highest mountain in Africa.

The siege of this place in the Sudan saw the end of Major-General Charles George 'Chinese' Gordon in 1885.

Vatsyayana. A sex book.

Russian city... now known as Saint Petersburg. Once known as Petrograd and once known as...?

Sappho's Greek island.

1840. 'A Hero of Our Time'. This Moscow-born, Russian soldier and poet/novelist was killed instantly in a duel. Aged 26.

Eighth largest country in Africa. Mansa Musa. Timbuktu.

Signed the Treaty of Non-Aggression with Nazi Germany in August, 1939 on Russia's behalf. Cocktail.

1912. 'Death in Venice'. Name author.

The name 'Vidkun Quisling' is a dirty word in this country.

The largest human-made explosion (at that time) occured in the harbour of one of this Canadian province's cities. 6th December, 1917.

1962. Hans Hellmut Kirst. Novel about a German military policeman's dogged pursuit of a prostitute-slaying, German senior officer.

City in New South Wales, Australia. Eight US counties.

1944. Allied invasion of Europe codename.

"No, no, he's dead. Go to thy deathbed."

Lodz, Wroclaw, Szczecin, Bydgoszcz and Lublin can be found there.

Ancient Athenian politician. His arrogance and stubborn policies brought on conflict with Sparta in a long, gruelling war that saw the Spartans victorious and the end of Athenian hegemony in Greece. Died in the plague that hit Athens in 429 BC. The Greek with the helmet attached permanently to the top of his head.

1667. Epic poem by John Milton in blank verse. The fall of man. The temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and the silly couple getting booted out of a pleasant, little, botanical place.

City in New South Wales, Australia 14.9 kilometres (9 miles) from Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory.

1837-1865. Ruthless, Confederate guerilla leader. Rode with William 'Bloody Bill' Anderson, Jesse and Frank James, Cole Younger. 'Lawrence Massacre'.

1970. Coutroom tale by bestselling, hack writer Leon Uris.

Northernmost capital.

French big wheel during the 'Reign of Terror' of the 1790s. Had tumbril-loads of people have their heads shaved... off. Got splattered severely by the karma tumbril when Mister Gillette banged on his bedroom door in the wee hours of 28 July, 1794.

1960. Non-fiction piece by William L. Shirer. Packed full of Nazis and European statesmen, who were cowardly or incompetent... or both.

This little waterway saw Britain and France humiliated before the world in November, 1956.

Russian city. Battle 16-18 August, 1812 (Napoleon victory). Battle 10 July-10 September 1941 (German victory). Battle 7 August-2 0cotober 1943 (Red Army victory).

1850. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 'Hester Prynne'. Puritans. Adultery.

Yugoslav communist revolutionary.

Historical and cultural region in central Europe. Largest city - Cluj-Napoca.

William Shakespeare play. Written between 1590 and 1592. Hints - domestication, Sorex.

6th largest city in Baden-Wurttemberg. 60th largest city in Germany. Napoleon defeated the Austrian army here under General Mack in the 'War of the Third Coalition'.

Polish light cavalryman armed with a lance.

1954. Dylan Thomas. 'Llareggub'.

Briefly the capital of Habsburg Spain, 1601-1606. De facto capital of the autonomous region of Castile and Leon. Christopher Columbus croaked here in 1506.

King Louis XVI of France took a flight to here with his family in June,1791. This unwise move cost him and his wife, a promoter of cakes, their heads... when the peasantry asked him "What are you doing, Louis?"

Like Rowling's rubbish today... this over-rated dreck was in everyone's face in the late 'sixties and early 'seventies. Hack who wrote it? Jacqueline Susann.

City and bay in Namibia.

Short-lived republic in Europe (9 November, 1918 - 23 March, 1933). This name for the republic only gained wide usage after Adolf Hitler used it in speeches to destroy the credibility of its sovereignty over Germany.

1933. Science fiction novel. Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie. Originality in today's literature and cinema? Who said that?

Chinese city in the province of Fujian on the Taiwan Strait.

Ancient Persian king. According to some sources, in 480 BC, this crackerjack had the Hellespont punished by having it whipped with chains and stabbed with red-hot irons.

"In ______ did Kubla Khan, A stately pleasure-dome decree..."

City in the Crimea. Three political big wheels met here in 1945. A beaver, a bulldog and a bear.

Town in New South Wales, Australia 33 kilometres (21 miles) from the town of Harden. Local saying "_____ girls, Harden boys."

Irish poet. 'Easter, 1916' 1916. 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death' 1919. 'The Second Coming' 1920. 'Sailing to Byzantium' 1927. Maude Gonne.

Hannibal got to kill his last lot of natural prey here in 202 BC before going into forced, semi-retirement around the Mediterranean Sea for a few years.

Native warrior tribe who gave General Frederic Thesiger's command a nasty kick in the Niagara Falls at Isandlwana in 1879.

1970. Nancy Milford's biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife.