In the spirit of the King William's College General Knowledge Paper, released each December for completion over the Christmas break, I offer my own set of questions for the holidays.

While you are welcome to answer these questions from your own knowledge, it is intended that you may use any means of research available to you.

I apologise for the brevity of this year's paper. (Vague waving of hands in the direction of the world.)

You still do not get a bonus mark for knowing which Princess Charlotte.

There is no prize. Please don't post answers here, to avoid spoilers for other quizzers. I shall release them in January.

1. In 1921:

1. Which violence caused the daughter of the innkeeper and corset-salesman to suffer a revulsion of feeling?
2. Which less-rapey adaptation of a novel secured the reputation of the former taxi-dancer?
3. Where did an assortment of confectioners give away their wares, helped by Arab Death?
4. Who created the first child star while making another first of his own?
5. Which future screwball appeared for the first time – uniquely, under her real name?
6. What, in Britain, set the stage for 120 to become 4 (plus some scraps)?
7. What Southern territory lasted for a rather shorter time than its Northern neighbour?
8. What 3-inch piece of paper was introduced, to be used for the next 93 years?
9. What activity was limited to only registered practitioners?
10. How did a new charity cause people to remember what many of them wished to forget?

2. In 1971:

1. What officially opened in Egypt, to this day the largest of its type?
2. What first crossed the Atlantic, while its competitor was being cancelled?
3. Which former boxing champion, rugby forward, and fan of The Missioners started his caretaker régime?
4. What rodent-related television programme was first aired?
5. Who took a flight from Seattle to Mexico City, but left early?
6. What pestilence reached Australia in spite of legislators' best efforts?
7. What natural blonde was found to have been artifially enhanced?
8. Where did a new hippie squatter community (that survives to this day) quickly become the place to get cannabis in the capital city?
9. Where was the sailor the first to (almost) make landfall?
10. Where did a future bat ecology expert uniquely survive that falling feeling?

3.

1. Where was the man who shouldn't have slaked his lime caught?
2. What place turned out, during construction, to have a site both more appropriate for its purpose and more embarrassing than had been supposed?
3. Where did someone have to die to allow two friends to stay together and continue to enter the Fourth World?
4. What piece of software lost much of its credibility after the Russian doctor's body was found?
5. Who was caught on the basis of experiments with lady divers?
6. Where did the journalist die of carbon monoxide poisoning, or stabbing?
7. Where was a man convicted of murder for lending his car to a friend?
8. When was the term "serial killer" first used?
9. What first did the tailor commit on the banker in 1864?
10. Which murder inspired several novels, including one co-written by the co-creator of Lady Sara, one by the former postulant from Sussex who lived in Devon, and perhaps (though nobody can be sure) Finnegan's Wake?

4. In 2021:

1. Which US state was the 23rd to abolish capital punishment?
2. Which gastronomic pioneer of the urchin was no longer available for comment?
3. Who ran from Belarus, to Japan, to Poland?
4. What happened for the first time in Mecca?
5. What new sporting competition was announced before the broadcast rights had been sold, and folded after three days?
6. What legacy of Thomas Midgley was announced as having been phased out throughout the world?
7. Which forty-year-old divine spear ended its flight 850m down?
8. Where did Bitcoin become "legal tender" (and promptly fail to work, of course)?
9. Who was captured after ten years of searching, more than a hundred warrants, and millions of dollars of offered rewards?
10. Who won by telling people to shut up and behave?