Who became the first human being to travel into space, and in which year?

The correct answer is A, 1889. The Eiffel Tower was completed in Paris in 1889, a hundred years after the storming of the Bastille in 1789, and it served as the entrance arch of the World's Fair held that year to mark the centenary of the French Revolution. Designed by Gustave Eiffel's firm, it was meant to stand for twenty years and remained the tallest structure in the world for about four decades. B is wrong because 1900 was another Paris exposition year but the tower was already eleven years old by then. C is wrong because 1886 is the year the Statue of Liberty, also linked to Gustave Eiffel through its internal framework, was dedicated in New York, which is why the year is offered here. D is wrong because 1913 falls just before the First World War and carries no connection with the tower.

The correct answer is C, Waterloo. Napoleon Bonaparte was finally defeated on 18 June 1815 at Waterloo in present-day Belgium by the allied armies led by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian commander Blucher. The defeat ended the Hundred Days that followed his return from exile on Elba, and he was sent to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821; the phrase to meet one's Waterloo comes from this battle. A is wrong because at Ligny, fought two days before Waterloo, Napoleon actually beat the Prussians. B is wrong because Jena in 1806 was one of his greatest victories, in which Prussia was crushed. D is wrong because Arcole in 1796 was an early victory in his Italian campaign that helped make his reputation.

The correct answer is B, 1799. Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in November 1799 in the coup that overthrew the Directory, and he became First Consul of France, which is the point at which the French Revolution is usually said to have ended; he crowned himself emperor five years later, in 1804. A is wrong because 1797 is the year of the Treaty of Campo Formio, which ended his first Italian campaign but gave him no political office in Paris. C is wrong because by 1800 he was already in power and fought the battle of Marengo as First Consul. D is wrong because in 1798 he was away in Egypt, where his fleet was destroyed by Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, and he returned from that campaign only in 1799. The chain worth keeping is 1789 revolution, 1799 Napoleon in power, 1804 emperor, 1815 Waterloo.

The correct answer is B, 1919. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles and formally ended the First World War between Germany and the Allied powers. It placed the guilt for the war on Germany, imposed heavy reparations, cut its territory and limited its army, and the resentment it created is treated by historians as one cause of the Second World War. A is wrong because 1921 saw separate agreements between the United States and Germany, as the American Senate had refused to ratify Versailles. C is wrong because 1933 is the year Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, a consequence of the post-war settlement rather than part of it. D is wrong because 1940 falls in the middle of the Second World War, twenty-one years after the treaty.

The correct answer is A, The fission bomb dropped at Hiroshima. Little Boy was the code name of the uranium fission bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, the first use of a nuclear weapon in war. Three days later, on 9 August, a plutonium bomb named Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered shortly afterwards. B is wrong because the bomb dropped at Nagasaki was Fat Man, and it was a fission bomb as well, not a fusion or hydrogen bomb, which came only in the 1950s. C is wrong because the first nuclear device tested by the United States was code-named Trinity and was exploded in New Mexico in July 1945. D is wrong because North Korea's first nuclear test came decades later and has no connection with these code names.