Nobody Remembers Who Came Second - Or Do They? Quiz

Answer: Run a mile in under four minutes

Just 56 days after Roger Bannister's historic run of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, John Landy broke the record by over a second (Recorded as 3 minutes 57.9 seconds, later ratified as 3 minutes 58.0 seconds) in Turku, Finland.

Answer: A heart transplant by Dr Christian Barnaard

Dr Philip Blaiberg was given the heart of a donor who had died of a brain hemorrhage and survived for over 19 months after the operation, unlike Louis Washkansky, the more famous first patient, who only lived for eighteen days before succumbing to pneumonia. Dr Philip Blaiberg was actually the third patient to get a heart transplant, the second being only three days after the first, on a baby operated on by Dr Adrian Kantrowitz in the USA.

Answer: Climb Everest

Only 11 days after the Japanese climber Tabei Junko reached the top by the south Col, Phantog reached the summit on May 27 1975.

Answer: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

Yes, these were also Neil Armstrong's words on July 21, 1969 as he became the first human being to set foot on the surface of the moon. The wrong answers were the puported last words of Oscar Wilde "Either that wallpaper goes or I do", Henry Morton Stanley's greeting to Dr Livingstone on the shore of Lake Tanganyika at Ujiji "Dr. Livingstone I presume?" and Winston Churchill's words to the Cabinet on May 13 1940 "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat".

Answer: 'You Better Run' by Pat Benatar

Apparently on the opening night of MTV on 1 August 1981 there were a lot of technical hitches, with dead air and videos being played in the wrong order, before it became the slick presentation it is today.

Answer: Captain Matthew Webb

Captain Matthew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel, from Dover to Calais in 21 hours and 45 minutes. Thomas Burgess was second after 12 attempts (Webb managed it on his second). Sir Edmund Hillary was the first person (with Tensing Norgay) to climb Everest, Roald Amundsen beat Shackleton to the South Pole and the remarkable David Miln Smith was the first person to swim from Africa to Europe.

Answer: Dogs

The early history of our race for the stars is littered with unfortunate animals, of which the most famous is undoubtedly Laika the dog, who went into space on 3 November 1957 in Sputnik 2 but again did not survive re-entry. Monkeys and rats were also part of this experimentation but my hamster Hamish is pleased that he wasn't chosen.

Answer: Richard III

Interestingly, if you count all the "Henry IV" plays (where he is known as Hal) and "Henry V", the character of Henry V has the most lines of any Shakespearian character with 1,063 in "Henry V" alone. However, in a single play, playing Hamlet requires 1,569 lines of memorisation, while the character of Richard III weighs in with 1,161. Iago, with 1,117 (more than the Moor, Othello, who is the title character) is the only other character with more than 1,000 lines.

Answer: English

This mountain is known as Dufourspitze in German, Pointe Dufour in French, Punta Dufour in Italian, and Piz da Dufour in Romansh. It is Switzerland's highest mountain and was named after the head of the team surveying Alpine peaks, General Guillaume-Henri Dufour.

Answer: X

This show, chaired by the wonderful Simon Cowell, aims to take ordinary members of the public and make them recording stars. Sometimes the runners up have a better career than the winners! I hope you've enjoyed the quiz and maybe it's convinced you that the spoils are not always to the winner!