Really cool quiz, although I didn't do very well. Learned from it! But I would argue that Poland (Polonium) was a *communist* country, but not "Soviet." From the clue, I was thinking...Latvia? Lithuania? Georgia? I.e., former Soviet republics.
Hmm, that's a legitimate complain indeed. I think I'll change the clue for Polonium to make this one unambiguous. Thanks for the suggestion and I'm happy you enjoyed the quiz.
Samarium was isolated from the mineral samarskite, named in honour of a Russian mine official, Colonel Samarski, and which therefore gave samarium its name.
You're correct, last year IUPAC made the name of four new elements official. I just didn't keep the quiz up to date since it's already three years old, not that popular and not eligible for points.
I know it happened after you wrote the quiz, but it only takes a few minutes to add Moscovium, Nihonium, and Tennesine. It won't be a constant labour; there may not be any new elements now that 118 has been named. Anyway, you also missed Manganese which, like Magnesium, was named after Magnesia. Also, Thulium was named after Thule, whose location is still debated, but was probably Norway. You could say something like, "A location on medieval maps, whose exact location is unknown", or just say "Ultima ____".
Agree with everything that sumguy said ( besides that thule was probably norway ;) (spend quite some time researching it myself) but indeed you could say a mythological place shown on old maps because of mention in old documents about a place far north ( sorry for the bad english).
nihonium, tennessine and moscovium should be on here. Nihonium is named for Japan. Tennessine is named after Tennessee and Moscovium is named for Moscow respectively.
Nice quiz! Note that Europe is not synonymous with the old world, but rather part of it, along with Asia and Africa. And the spelling is Thessaly, without the a at the end.
According to Wikipedia, "Ytterby is perhaps most famous for being the single richest source of elemental discoveries in the world; the chemical elements yttrium (Y), terbium (Tb), erbium (Er), and ytterbium (Yb) are all named after Ytterby, whilst four more elements were first discovered there."