A New Sensation Trivia Quiz

Answer: First incumbent US president to win the Nobel Peace Prize

Although Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" just nine months after taking office in 2009, both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had previously won the prize during their presidential term. Roosevelt won in 1906 for his work to end the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, while Wilson was awarded the 1919 prize for his peace plan following the First World War and his role in setting up the League of Nations. Jimmy Carter also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, but that was 21 years after he left the White House.

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961 - just two years after Hawaii became the 50th state to join the United States of America. All of Obama's predecessors as US president were born before both Hawaii and Alaska became US states. As the son of a Kenyan-born father and a Kansas-born mother, Obama was not only the first African-American to be elected US president but also the first African-American to be either the Democrat or Republican nominee for the role. Obama was also the first US senator from Illinois to become US president, although Abraham Lincoln was appointed to represent Illinois in the US House of Representatives in 1847.

Answer: Trygve Lie

The Secretary-General is the leader and key spokesperson of the United Nations. The UN Security Council nominates a candidate who is then officially appointed by the UN General Assembly - the main body of the organisation to which all member countries have equal representation. Each Secretary-General is granted a term of five years in office and tradition dictates they serve no more than two terms, although this is not a written rule.

Trygve Lie was the first UN Secretary-General who held the post from 1946 until his resignation in 1952. He was a Norwegian politician who served in the Labour government of that country in both the run up to and during the early years of the Second World War. Following Nazi Germany's occupation of Norway in 1940, Lie held the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the London-based Government-in-exile. As UN Secretary-General, Lie supported the establishment of the nation of Israel, helped South Korea at the beginning of the Korean War and was instrumental in setting up the organisation as it is known today.

Answer: (James) Ramsay MacDonald

The British Labour Party developed from the increase in support for socialist policies and parties created by the enfranchisement of working class men in the late 19th century. In 1900, a group of left-wing political organisations (including Keir Hardie's 'Independent Labour Party') joined forces as the 'Labour Representation Committee' and began to gain influence in parliament. The name 'The Labour Party' was first adopted in 1906.

When Ramsay MacDonald became Britain's first Labour prime minister in January 1924, it was as the head of a minority government reliant on Liberal support. As a result it was unable to achieve very much and collapsed after only nine months. It took another five years before MacDonald was able to regain the office - that time with the necessary parliamentary majority.

The incorrect options are other former Labour prime ministers with the first name 'James' - although only James Callaghan was known by that name while in office. Harold Wilson held the post from 1964 to 1970 and then again from 1974 to 1976; James Callaghan was Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979; and Gordon Brown was in office from 2007 to 2010.

Answer: Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) became the first president of South Africa on 10 May 1994 following ground-breaking elections which allowed citizens of all races to vote for the first time. He held the position until his retirement in 1999 and was also the President of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. Mandela, a member of the Thembu people, earned acclaim both at home and abroad for his opposition to apartheid and subsequent focus on reconciliation, despite having spent 27 years of his life in prison for his political views and the militant actions he took in support of them. 'A Long Walk to Freedom' was the title of Mandela's autobiography.

Mandela is noted as the first 'president' of South Africa because between 1961 and 1994 the head of state was referred to as the 'state president'. Prior to 1961, the date at which the country became a republic, the British monarch held the position of South Africa's head of state.

Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma were the second and fourth presidents of South Africa respectively. Desmond Tutu was the Archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996 who was also a prominent activist against apartheid.

Answer: Sirimavo Bandaranaike

Sirimavo Bandaranaike held the position of prime minister of her country from 1960 to 1965, 1970 to 1977 and 1994 to 2000 - a total of nearly 18 years in the job. As well as being the first female prime minister of Ceylon, she also became the first prime minister of the new Republic of Sri Lanka in 1972.

Bandaranaike came to prominence as the wife of Ceylon's fourth prime minister, Solomon Bandaranaike. After her husband was assassinated in 1959, Sirimavo entered politics herself, assumed the leadership of her late husband's Sri Lanka Freedom Party and went on to grab the top job. The long gap between her second and third terms in office was due to her being banned from holding political positions in the 1980s after being charged with abuse of political power for delaying elections.

Chandrika Kumaratunga was the first female president of Sri Lanka (and was the daughter of Solomon and Sirimavo Bandaranaike). Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto were the first female prime ministers of India and Pakistan respectively - sadly both were assassinated.

Answer: Lenin

Russia suffered two revolutions in 1917; in the February revolution parliament seized control of the country and ousted Tsar Nicholas II, while the October revolution saw the Bolsheviks grab power and marked the start of Communist rule. It is important to note that at the time Russia was still using the Julian calendar, so the two revolutions actually occurred in March and November according to the modern Gregorian calendar.

Lenin was born in 1870 in the Russian city of Simbirsk, which was later renamed Ulyanovsk in his honour. He developed his radical political views while at Kazan University and by 1897 had been sentenced to three years exile in Siberia for sedition. He then spent most of his time living in various countries around Europe (including Germany, Britain and Switzerland) despite his commitment to the revolutionary cause in Russia. After the success of the October Revolution he remained the Russian leader until his death in 1924.

Joseph Stalin (real name Iosef Dzhugashvili) was Lenin's successor as leader of the USSR. Leon Trotsky (real name Lev Bronstein) was a key Bolshevik and opponent of Stalin. Alexander Kerensky was the leader of the provisional government that was ousted during the October Revolution.

Answer: Alex Salmond

Alex Salmond first became the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1990 and was an SNP member of the British parliament from 1987 to 2010. In 1999 he also became an SNP member of the new devolved Scottish Parliament. He became First Minister of Scotland in 2007 as the head of a minority government supported by the Scottish Green Party. By 2011, he held a majority at Holyrood (an informal name for the Scottish Parliament based on its location near Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh) and was finally free to call a referendum on the party's long-held policy of making Scotland an independent nation.

The 2014 Scottish independence referendum followed a hard-fought and lengthy campaign by both Alex Salmond's SNP and the 'Better Together' campaign led by the Labour politician (and former Chancellor of the Exchequer) Alistair Darling. In the end the Scottish people voted by 55% to 45% to remain part of the United Kingdom and Salmond tendered his resignation as First Minister.

Nicola Sturgeon was Salmond's successor as First Minister, Moshe Sardines was a member of the Israeli Knesset in the 1960s, and Bill Skate was the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea from 1997 to 1999.

Answer: Isabel Martinez de Perón

Isabel Martinez de Perón was the second wife of Juan Perón, who himself served three terms as president of Argentina. She was his vice-president during his third and final term in office and therefore succeeded him in the role following his death from a heart attack.

Perón's government was plagued by economic problems (recession and rampant inflation just two of the issues), allegations of corruption and political violence. Probably unsurprisingly, she was eventually overthrown by a military coup in 1976 and placed under house arrest before being exiled to Spain.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner also took over the presidency of Argentina from her husband, and became the first elected female president of the country in 2007. Lidia Gueiler Tejada was acting president of Bolivia from 1979 to 1980 and Violeta Chamorro was president of Nicaragua from 1990 to 1997.

Answer: Indulis Emsis

Indulis Emsis was one of the founding members of the Latvian Green Party in 1990 and one of his first government jobs was, rather fittingly, as Minister of the Environment. Although he gained the job of Latvian prime minister in 2004, he was not leading a fully 'green' government (which really would have been a sensation). In fact, he was the leader of a minority coalition government of four main parties, which included the Latvian Farmer's Union, the People's Party and the Latvia's First Party in addition to his own.

Unsurprisingly for the leader of a minority government with many coalition members, Emsis lasted less than nine months in the job as his government was ousted when their budget plans were defeated in the Saeima (the Latvian parliament). Oddly though, his government was replaced by another minority coalition with even more members (one of which was Emsis's Latvian Green Party).

Bondevik, Persson and Vanhanen were, respectively, the prime ministers of Norway, Sweden and Finland in 2004.

Answer: Jefferson Davis

Jefferson Davis was both the first and last President of the Confederate States of America, the group of southern US states that wanted to retain slavery - largely for both economic and ideological reasons. At the time of Davis's inauguration as president, the Confederacy consisted of seven states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas) although a further four joined a few months later (Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina).

Prior to the civil war, Davis had been both a soldier in the US army and a US senator for the state of Mississippi. He was named after the 3rd US President (Thomas Jefferson) and briefly married to the daughter of the 12th (Zachary Taylor). After the civil war he was imprisoned for treason and largely blamed for the failings of the Confederacy's political and military strategy. However, in later life he regained some popularity and became a proponent of reconciliation.

Alexander Stephens was Davis's vice-president; Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston were both well-known Confederate army generals.