Royal weddings and desert flowers

Nalaka Gunawardene and Vindana Ariyawansa

The past two weeks have been eventful. First, a royal wedding in England showed signs of renewal and hope for the British royal family. Just three days later, the world's most wanted terrorist was killed in a pre-dawn raid by US special forces in Pakistan. Today's quiz takes off from the wedding and roams the news landscape and frontiers of knowledge.

1. On 29 April 2011, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and the grandson of Queen Elizabeth II was married to Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey, in central London. This large and famous landmark of London is located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English, later British and later still (and currently) monarchs of the Commonwealth realms. What is its full official name?

2. Catherine "Kate" Elizabeth, née Middleton, 29, is now the wife of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who is second in line to the British throne. She grew up in Chapel Row at Bucklebury, a village near Newbury, Berkshire, and studied at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where she met Prince William in 2001. On the day of her wedding, she was conferred with a title. What is it?

3. The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. Members of the current British royal family belong to, either by birth or marriage, the House of Windsor. It was in 1917 when King George V changed the name of the royal house to Windsor, while Britain was at war with Germany. Given the British royal family's strong German ancestry, it was felt that its public image could be improved by choosing a more British name. What was the earlier family name that was replaced in 1917?

4. The 1909 Nobel Prize for Physics was split and shared between two individuals. Half of it went to the German physicist Karl Ferdinand Braun and the other half to an Italian inventor who in 1896 had been granted the world's first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy. Who was he?

5. This woman, an American teacher, was instrumental in using new techniques to teach the blind including the famous Helen Keller. This teacher's life was the basis for a television drama, Broadway play and a Hollywood movie, all by the name The Miracle Worker. The movie, directed by Arthur Penn, was made in 1962. Actress Anne Bancroft won the Oscar for best actress for portraying this character. Who was this remarkable teacher?

6. A Sri Lanka-born professional astronomer, now a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Toronto, Canada, is one of the world's leading researchers looking for exo-planets, or planets orbiting a normal star other than our Sun. He has recently written a new book about this work, titled "Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life Beyond Our Solar System." Who is he?

7. NASA announced that 1,235 new possible exo-planets had been observed by a powerful telescope mounted on a spacecraft it launched in 2009 "specifically designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover dozens of Earth-size planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets". This has created new excitement in the search for Earth-like planets elsewhere in the universe. What is the NASA spacecraft called (clue: it is named in honour of a great German astronomer who lived 400 years ago).

8. The Sinhala drama titled Bakmaha Akunu (1963) produced by Dayananda Gunawardena Introduced the Revolving Stage to Sri Lankan theatre for the first time. It was an adaptation of a French comedy drama originally written in 1778. What was the original work called (either English name or French name is accepted)?

9. Name the American journalist and author, who lived from 1917 to 1986, who once remarked: "The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers."

10. In the early days of travelling overseas, US Presidents used passenger or military ships. It was in 1943 that a sitting US President first made an overseas visit using an aeroplane. Using a Boeing 314 Clipper aircraft, the President first flew from Miami to Trinidad, and on to Belem in Brazil. From there, he flew to The Gambia in northern Africa (19 hours) and on to Casablanca in Morocco. Which US President made this historic trip during the height of the Second World War to plan the European strategy of the Allied Forces?

11. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the international governing body of cricket. It has its international headquarters in Dubai, UAE. Its current president is an Indian politician, Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India. Who is he?

12. The death of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden dominated international news in recent days. Al-Qaeda is a global militant Islamist group founded sometime between August 1988 and late 1989, which operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad (or struggle). What does the term 'Al-Qaeda' literally mean in Arabic?

13. A Police sub-inspector won the first ever international sports gold medal for Ceylon when he competed at the 1938 Empire Games held in Sydney, Australia. His gold medal was for boxing in the Featherweight category. Who was this boxer?

14. 2011 Formula One Grand Prix championship is held in different circuits in 19 countries worldwide. What is the newest country to join the Formula One championship as a host in 2011?

15. Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad is an autobiographical book published in 1998 about the life of Somalia-born model, Waris Dirie. In 2009, the book was adapted into a movie. The book's Sinhala translation has been one of the best selling books in Sri Lanka. Name the writer who translated it into Sinhala as Kantharaye Kusuma.

Answers will be published next week

Last week’s answers

1. Tarzie Vittachi (1921 – 1993)
2. Among Those Present, by D B Dhanapala
3. Edward Harper
4. Yusuf Raza Gilani
5. Taruga
6. Sabaragamuwa Province and Southern Province
7. Dayananda Gunawardena (1934 – 1993)
8. Anant Pai (1929 – 2011)
9. Tuvalu
10. Astronaut Alan B Shepard, Jr
11. Elizabeth Taylor
12. Joseph Priestley (1733 – 1804)
13. Nikita Khrushchev (1894 - 1971)
14. Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Pune Warriors
15. Cocos Islands