1. In the United Kingdom, Mothering Sunday falls on which Sunday of Lent?

2. Anna Jarvis campaigned for decades to establish Mother’s Day as an official US holiday. In which year did President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaim it a national day?

3. Which flower is most traditionally associated with Mother’s Day in the United States, and was Anna Jarvis’s own mother’s favourite bloom?

4. Anna Jarvis, who fought to create Mother’s Day, spent the later years of her life fighting to abolish it. What was her main objection to the holiday she had created?

5. The English tradition of Mothering Sunday originally involved people returning to which place on the fourth Sunday of Lent?

6. The ancient Greeks held spring festivals honouring Rhea, the mother of the gods. According to Greek mythology, Rhea was the mother of which group of famous deities?

7. Which spring flower is most commonly given on Mothering Sunday in the United Kingdom?

8. Simnel cake is a traditional Mothering Sunday treat in the UK. How many marzipan balls decorate the top of a traditional simnel cake, and what do they represent?

9. In which month is Mother’s Day celebrated in the United States, Canada and Australia?

10. In Iran, Mother’s Day is celebrated on the 20th of Jumada al-Thani in the Islamic calendar, which also marks the birthday of which revered figure in Islamic tradition?

11. In France, “La Fete des Meres” is typically held on the last Sunday of May. What is the traditional gift most commonly given to French mothers on this occasion?

12. In Thailand, Mother’s Day is celebrated on August 12th, the birthday of which beloved member of the royal family?

13. Norway celebrates Mother’s Day on the second Sunday of February, making it one of the earliest in the year among major countries. Which Scandinavian neighbours also observe Mother’s Day in May rather than February?

14. In Mexico and many other Latin American countries, Mother’s Day falls on a fixed calendar date rather than a Sunday. What is that date?

15. In the UK, Mothering Sunday historically gave a rare day off to which group of workers, who were permitted to travel home to visit their families and their mother church?

16. Australia and New Zealand celebrate Mother’s Day on the same date as which other major English-speaking nation?

17. Which actress played the fiercely protective mother Sarah Connor in the Terminator film franchise?

18. In the long-running American sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond”, what is the name of Ray’s overbearing but devoted mother, played by Doris Roberts?

19. In the 2003 Pixar film “Finding Nemo”, what happens to Nemo’s mother Coral at the very start of the story?

20. Which 2002 film, based on a Nick Hornby novel, stars Toni Collette as a single mother raising a son in London, alongside Hugh Grant as a wealthy bachelor with no responsibilities?

21. In the television series “Game of Thrones”, which character earns the title “Mother of Dragons”?

22. Which 1982 film stars Meryl Streep as a Polish survivor of the Nazi concentration camps who is forced to make an impossible decision about which of her children to save?

23. Which British actress played the sharp-tongued but devoted matriarch Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham, in the television drama “Downton Abbey”?

24. In the 1993 film “Mrs Doubtfire”, which actor plays a father who disguises himself as a female housekeeper in order to spend time with his children after a divorce?

25. In which Jane Austen novel is the anxious Mrs Bennet consumed by the need to find suitable husbands for her five daughters?

26. In Greek mythology, which primordial goddess is considered the mother of all life and the personification of Earth itself?

27. In Louisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”, what is the affectionate nickname the four March sisters use for their wise and patient mother?

28. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, what is the name of Hamlet’s mother, who marries his uncle Claudius shortly after his father’s death?

29. In Homer’s “Odyssey”, which faithful wife and mother waits twenty years for her husband to return from Troy, weaving and unweaving a tapestry to fend off persistent suitors?

30. In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, what was the name of Harry’s mother, who died protecting him from Voldemort when he was a baby?

31. In Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved”, published in 1987, a formerly enslaved woman is haunted by the ghost of her daughter. What is the mother’s name?

32. In the fairy tale “Snow White”, what is the relationship between Snow White and the vain, murderous Evil Queen?

33. Which Queen of England gave birth to nine children during her reign and was widowed at the age of 42, going on to wear black for the remaining forty years of her life?

34. Marie Curie’s daughter Irene also won a Nobel Prize. In which scientific field did Irene Joliot-Curie receive her Nobel Prize in 1935, making them the first mother and daughter to both win Nobels?

35. Which ancient Egyptian queen, beloved wife of Ramesses II and mother of several of his children, has one of the most beautifully decorated tombs in the Valley of the Queens?

36. Which American civil rights activist, sometimes called the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement”, refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955?

37. Eleanor Roosevelt, mother of six children, played a central role in drafting which landmark international document, adopted by the United Nations in 1948?

38. Which nun and humanitarian, known by a maternal honorific, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her decades of work with the sick and dying in Calcutta?

39. Boudicca, the warrior queen of the Iceni tribe in Roman Britain, led a major uprising partly in response to the brutal treatment of her daughters by Roman soldiers. In which century did her rebellion take place?

40. Cleopatra VII of Egypt had a son with Julius Caesar, whose name translates roughly as “little Caesar” in Greek. What was this son called?