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.

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.

Many thanks to my wife for having a collection of obscurities that overlaps with mine.

Many thanks as always to my wife for having a collection of obscurities that overlaps with mine.

1. in 1925:

1. Which author of anti-clerical romance took up a more senior role?
2. Where were dogs instrumental in the treatment of disease?
3. In what uniquely named endeavour did a 7-year-old act on its own for the first time?
4. What design movement, over ten years old, finally got a name?
5. What historic mistake by Churchill revitalised an historic mistake by Isaac Newton?
6. Who did on land what aircraft had been doing unofficially since 1918?
7. What territory did the French leave, having built up great sympathy for the other side while they occupied it?
8. What naval ship was lost in Ohio, over a hundred miles from the water?
9. What was introduced to fight secularism and atheism?
10. Which former child soldier took up his throne?

2.

1. What, inspired by the rhythm of train wheels, is one of the few American classical pieces one has heard, but is almost never performed in its original arrangement?
2. Would this worry a dog with a Scottish name?
3. What was replaced by Barbarossa in 1958?
4. What can happen once a month, or once a season, or after a volcanic eruption?
5. What was a political consideration in the appointment of the Metropolitan of Ethiopia?
6. What does trace boron make, though it's only valuable if it happens by accident?
7. What 1970s invention was named by Scots after a place it doesn't come from?
8. What might refer to UFOs, diplomatic correspondence, compact discs, several programming languages, or the shocking backwardness of the Welsh?
9. What was first demonstrated in 1993, and had made it from expensive rack-mounted servers into mass-market Christmas decorations by 2000?
10. What cheap item of clothing became associated with intellectual women although it was never worn by them?

3.

1. Who turned to blackmail and even busking in a quest for non-existent jewels?
2. Where did the burglar mutter darkly about the resale value of wedding presents?
3. What happened to criminals who went up Apron Street?
4. Why did the artist's former fiancée refuse a ménage a trois?
5. Where might the youths have been planning anything from burglary to skiffle?
6. Who was using what nobody knew at the time was an actual Nazi plot in order to set himself up as dictator?
7. What was the business case for reconditioning the watermill?
8. How was war-surplus Perspex given a creative new use?
9. Where did Dr Abbershaw and Meggie get supplanted by an incidental character?
10. How was the pig killed five months after his own funeral?

4. in 1875:

1. Where was Second abolished, to leave only First and Third?
2. How did inter-university rivalry escalate to armed conflict?
3. Where did drink kill 13 people?
4. What shrank by 2'3½" in order to remove a break?
5. Who took nearly forty miles to get from Dover to Calais?
6. What new synthesis of science, religion and philosophy was founded to Change the World?
7. What did Disraeli cause Britain to buy, without Parliamentary approval?
8. What was done for the first time in St Petersburg?
9. Who crossed his last bridge?
10. What was attempted for the fourth time, though it would only last four years?

5.

1. What will you come to resemble if you haven't enough to do?
2. Who don't care in what part of you they fix their fretwork sets?
3. Whose hide would flatten what?
4. Who amply justifies his end how?
5. Who eventually found something he understood very well?
6. From whom would a small stute fish hide, and where?
7. Who wanted news of the iceberg?
8. What is not alarming if it is mistaken for a hat?
9. Into what had a detective been transformed by looking over a wall?
10. Which creature got a free lunch and a large toothpick, though blame could not be assigned?

6. in 2025:

1. Where did the army take over by election, for a change?
2. Which regicide reached 114mph?
3. Where did it take 67 deaths to get a problem noticed that had been warned about since 2011, and which still hasn't been fixed?
4. Where was the last of the 18th found, over a hundred years after the one before?
5. What was constructed as part of the road towards the mammoth?
6. Where was a woman brought in to clear up the mess after the man had been involved in one cover-up too many?
7. How did the last cock end its final flight?
8. Where have two revolutionaries been ejected for the second time?
9. What reached its trillionth?
10. What oligarch's toy was bought and immediately shut down?