My Family Abroad Trivia Quiz

Answer: Luzern

Hotel Des Balances is a four-star luxury hotel in the heart of Luzern. The modern hotel is housed in the former Guildhall of the city, a building which dates back to 1200 (don't worry, it has running water!). Luzern was founded in 1178, and joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1415.

Answer: Jersey

Jersey had been part of the Duchy of Normandy since 933, when William Longsword, great-great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror, relieved the Vikings of possession. With the exception of the 55 years between 1204, when the King of France conquered the Islands, and 1259, when France ceded the Islands back to England, they have been part of first England and then the United Kingdom, albeit self-governing provinces. Jersey is the largest of the islands, even though it measures a mere ten miles east to west and six miles north to south.

My ancestor settled on a hill in Herefordshire, the county where most of my father's family still lives.

Answer: Florence

My Welsh grandmother was conceived on her parents' honeymoon in Florence and they named her for the city. It was a family joke that she should be grateful that her parents didn't honeymoon in Turin, Genoa or Calabria! Her sisters bore the names Beatrice and Laura (for the women beloved of Dante and Petrarch).

Answer: Brittany

The Celts who settled in Brittany, Cornwall and Wales shared the same language. Over the years local modifications have crept in, but Breton-speakers and Welsh-speakers can understand one another when speaking their native languages in much the same way that a Glaswegian can hold a conversation with a Cockney, a native of Maine can make him or herself understood to a native of Louisiana, and a Quebecois can converse with a Parisian.

Answer: Somme

The Battle of the Somme, waged from July 1 to November 18, 1916, was one of the costliest of World War I. The British and French forces gained a mere 12 kilometres of ground in four and half months of fighting and the casualty list was enormous - 420,000 British troops (58,000 of them on the first day of the battle!), and 200,000 French troops, which accounts for more than four-fifths of the original force of 750,000 British and French officers and men. German casualties were estimated at 500,000.

In the end, the campaign was halted by bad weather when snow made it impossible to continue. My grandfather and two of his three brothers were killed on the Somme. The third brother survived, but came home without his legs. Isn't war a wonderful thing? When will we ever learn?

Answer: Dufourspitze

Dufourspitze, at 4,634 metres, is the highest mountain in Switzerland. It is part of the Monte Rosa Massif and was named for General Henri Dufour, co-founder of the Red Cross. Dufourspitze was first climbed in 1855 by a group of English mountaineers, Swiss guides and porters. One of the climbers was Charles Hudson, who died some 10 years later during the first ascent of the Matterhorn.

My cousin suffered a massive heart attack while scaling the Macugnaga Wall, the most difficult side of the mountain.

Answer: Hong Kong

Hong Kong was ceded to the British in 1842 under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking which ended the First Opium War. In 1898, Britain obtained a 99 year lease on part of mainland China and islands around Hong Kong (known as the New Territories) and agreed to return Hong Kong and the Territories to China in 1997. The deal was kept, even though the government of China was no longer in the hands of an Emperor and China is now the People's Republic with a Communist government.

Singapore became independent of the UK in 1963. Macao had been a Portuguese colony from the 17th century until 1999 when it was handed back to the Chinese, and Indonesia was a Dutch colony which won its struggle for independence in 1949.

Answer: Jerusalem

Part of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem served as headquarters for the British Army in the then-Palestine Mandate. On July 22, 1946, the Irgun, a right wing Zionist paramilitary organization which was a subdivision of the Hagganah, planted a bomb in the basement. Telephone calls were made to the hotel, warning of the impending explosion but none of those calls was made to British Army HQ. For some reason the hotel was not evacuated and the result of the explosion was the loss of 91 lives with 46 more people on the injured list. The leader of the Irgun at the time was Menachem Begin, who later served as Prime Minister of Israel as leader of the Likud, the political party with its roots in the Irgun. After the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, the new Israeli government branded the Irgun as a terrorist group.

My uncle avoided the explosion altogether. He had gone out for a walk just minutes before the bomb went off. We always maintained that he led a charmed life, because he survived campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Europe, and the Far East during World War II without a scratch, and he suffered no injuries while stationed in Malaya and Korea in the 1950s, either. He died in bed in Wales at the ripe old age of 91!

Answer: Zambia

Zambia (the former Northern Rhodesia) is the first African country that manufactures mobile phones. Mineral-rich Zambia is still struggling to overcome the effects of the one-party rule instituted by the Kenneth Kaunda, the country's first president and dictator after it achieved independence from Britain in 1964.

In 1991, Kaunda was ousted, a multi-political party democracy was instituted and Zambia began the slow climb out of its economic woes. By 2007, inflation was reduced to single digits and the economy was improving (thanks to foreign investment in the mining sector and higher prices for copper on world markets), although the worldwide economic downturn in 2008 hit the country hard. 55% of the Zambian population ekes out a living on less than $2.00 a day.

Answer: Medecins Sans Frontieres

Medecins Sans Frontieres was established in 1971 by a group of French doctors who had witnessed the horrors of the Biafran war of secession. Nowadays, some 26,000 medical professionals (doctors, nurses, lab techs), administrators, sanitation engineers and logistics experts are deployed in 60 countries which have been ravaged by war or natural disaster.

The secular humanitarian organization receives 80% of its funding through private donations, with the remaining 20% contributed by various governments. Despite receiving some of its funding from government sources, MSF/DWB resolutely maintains a non-political stance and provides care where it is needed, regardless of the politics, ethnicity or religion of the recipients. In 1999, Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its efforts to provide health care and medical training, hygiene and sanitation (including access to clean water) and basic food needs to the civilian victims of war and any natural or industrial disaster.