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Islands
Land Surrounded by Water
How islands form and which ones people misplace.
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What is the largest island in the world?
Islands With a Story
Islands make convenient prisons, convenient monasteries and convenient places to keep people you would rather not see again. Ten islands that ended up carrying a piece of history.
About this topic
Being surrounded by water cuts both ways. It kept monks safe on Iona and it kept prisoners in on Robben Island, and for centuries governments used the same geography for both purposes without much sense of irony. The ten islands here are famous for what happened on them rather than for how they look. One of them was traded away for a nutmeg plantation, a decision that looked perfectly sensible at the time and rather less so now.
Questions & answers
Islands With a Story: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1Which island in New York Harbor processed arriving immigrants between 1892 and 1954?
- A Roosevelt Island
- B Ellis Island Correct
- C Liberty Island
- D Governors Island
Answer: B. Ellis Island
Why: Roughly twelve million people passed through Ellis Island in that period. Liberty Island, which holds the Statue of Liberty, sits a short distance away in the same harbour.
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2Napoleon was exiled after Waterloo to which South Atlantic island?
- A Saint Helena Correct
- B Elba
- C Corsica
- D Ascension
Answer: A. Saint Helena
Why: He died on Saint Helena in 1821, on one of the most isolated inhabited islands anywhere. His first exile had been to Elba, from which he escaped after less than a year.
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3Which island off Cape Town held Nelson Mandela as a prisoner?
- A Dassen Island
- B Bird Island
- C Seal Island
- D Robben Island Correct
Answer: D. Robben Island
Why: Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years of imprisonment there, much of it breaking limestone in a quarry. The island had earlier served as a leper colony and a quarantine station.
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4Alcatraz stands in which bay?
- A Chesapeake Bay
- B Massachusetts Bay
- C San Francisco Bay Correct
- D Monterey Bay
Answer: C. San Francisco Bay
Why: The federal prison ran from 1934 to 1963 on a rocky island about two kilometres offshore. Before that it was a military fort, and it carried the first lighthouse built on the American west coast.
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5Which Greek island is traditionally identified as the home of Odysseus?
- A Naxos
- B Ithaca Correct
- C Crete
- D Rhodes
Answer: B. Ithaca
Why: Homer places the kingdom of Odysseus on Ithaca, in the Ionian Sea off western Greece. Scholars have argued for well over a century about whether the modern island really matches the description in the poem.
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6Which island was the centre of the Minoan civilisation?
- A Crete Correct
- B Cyprus
- C Sicily
- D Malta
Answer: A. Crete
Why: The palace complex at Knossos is the largest Minoan site on Crete and gave the civilisation its modern name. Minoan power faded in the second millennium BC, not long after a huge eruption on nearby Thera.
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7Devil's Island, the French penal colony, lay off the coast of which territory?
- A Madagascar
- B New Caledonia
- C Senegal
- D French Guiana Correct
Answer: D. French Guiana
Why: The penal settlement operated from 1852 until the 1950s and was one of three islands used for the purpose. Alfred Dreyfus was held there for four years before his conviction was overturned.
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8Under the 1667 Treaty of Breda, the Dutch gave up which island to England in a settlement that left them holding the nutmeg island of Run?
- A Staten Island
- B Bermuda
- C Manhattan Correct
- D Long Island
Answer: C. Manhattan
Why: Run is a speck in the Banda Islands, and at the time it produced something England could not get anywhere else. Nutmeg was worth more by weight than most land, which made the trade look reasonable.
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9Which East African island was the seat of the Sultanate of Oman from 1840?
- A Mozambique Island
- B Zanzibar Correct
- C Socotra
- D Lamu
Answer: B. Zanzibar
Why: Said bin Sultan moved his court from Muscat to Zanzibar, which sat at the centre of the Indian Ocean spice and slave trades. Its old quarter, Stone Town, is now a World Heritage Site.
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10Iona, where Columba founded a monastery in 563, lies off the coast of which country?
- A Scotland Correct
- B Ireland
- C Wales
- D Iceland
Answer: A. Scotland
Why: The monastery became the base for spreading Christianity across northern Britain. The Book of Kells is widely thought to have been begun on Iona before being taken to Ireland for safety.
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