1. What happened on the Montebello Islands off the west coast of Australia in 1952 that made Britain the third member of a very limited club which, to this day, only comprises nine nations?

2. First published in 1859, what was the name of the book whose subtitle was “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle of Life”?

3. What did the Swiss chemist, Albert Hofmann, first synthesise in 1938?

4. What public institution was the first to be established in Europe when it was opened in 1741 in in the remote village of Leadhills in Dumfriesshire. This achievement chimed well with Scotland’s claim to be the most literate and well-educated population in the world from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

5. Who is this? Born on the same day that the Titanic sank, he founded the “Down-with-Imperialism Union”, was a guerrilla fighter against the Japanese occupiers of his nation, and became leader of that country in 1948. To this day, many in his land believe that he was a God who created the world millions of years ago and returned to Earth as a Messiah. The present leadership of that country does not actively discourage this bizarre delusion.

6. Who was head of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain, 1940?

7. Who was “Joltin’ Joe”, one of America’s most famous sportsmen of the 1930s and 1940s? He married Marilyn Monroe in 1954, but the marriage lasted less than a year.

8. Who succeeded Robert the Bruce as King of Scotland?

9. Who said, “The political bourgeoisie is about to leave the stage of history. In its place advance the oppressed producers of the head and hand, the forces of labour to fulfil their historical mission”? Was it Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Josef Stalin, Joseph Goebbels or Ramsay MacDonald?

10. Who was supposedly killed in the following manner? Poisoned with cyanide-laced cakes which had no apparent effect on him, then further plied with poisoned madeira wine with similarly negative results, he was then shot in the chest. Some hours later he revived and was shot twice more and, just to make sure, he was then thrown into an ice-filled river.

11. Who was Prime Minister when Scotland beat England 5-1 at Wembley, the Scottish team being immortalised as the Wembley Wizards?

12. Which famous unit in the British Army began life as a battalion in the East India Company in 1815 and was initially called the Nasiri Regiment? Fighting on the side of the British in the Indian Rebellion of 1857, they were subsequently one of the first units to be incorporated into the British Indian Army which replaced the discredited East India military forces.