Five questions about walls – Quick Quiz answers

By Dave, 31 January 2013

We asked you five questions all about walls. Here are the answers!

1. How many times better than normal would your eyesight have to be to see the Great Wall of China from the Moon?
   About 17,000 times. Although the claim’s been made for nearly three centuries that a man on the Moon could see the Wall, simple maths shows that this is nonsense – given that the Wall is a maximum of nine metres (30ft) wide, it’d be the equivalent of being able to see a human hair from over three kilometres (two miles) away!
2. What was the name of the Roman wall built coast-to-coast north of Hadrian’s Wall? Between which two rivers?
   The northern wall was built by Emperor Antoninus Pius, starting in the year 142 CE, and is therefore most commonly known as the Antonine Wall. It ran between the Firth of Clyde and the Firth of Forth, but was abandoned in 162, just eight years after its completion.
3. In what years was the Berlin Wall built and brought down?
   The Wall was built in August 1961, primarily to stop a brain drain that was costing East Germany the loss of several thousands of people a year, a disproportionate number of them professionals. Scores of people lost their lives trying to cross it; about 5,000 managed to escape or defect. It was opened to the general East German public in November 1989; by the end of 1990 most of it had been dismantled.
4. Which Wall appeared in three ITV soap operas?
   Max Wall, comedian and actor, most famous for his funny walks. In 1978 he appeared as Harry Payne in Coronation Street and Arthur Braithwaite in Emmerdale Farm, then from 1982 to 1983 he played Walter Soper in Crossroads.
5. Which company owns Wall’s ice cream?
   Unilever. The Heartbrand brand – named for its swirly heart-shaped logo – goes under umpteen different names around the world, including Algida across much of eastern and southern Europe, Good Humor in North America and China, Streets in Australia and New Zealand, and Langnese in Germany. But Wall’s – or its variant Kwality Wall’s – is still the most widespread.

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