Prize crossword
Across
The ‘____Raj’, a dynasty of ‘white rajahs’ that ruled Sarawak, Borneo between 1841 and 1946 (6)
4 One of the two countries in the federation that replaced Yugoslavia in 2003, later becoming a separate nation (6)
7 First name of world-famous 20th-century US singer, sometimes referred to as the First Lady of Song (4)
8 The sacred mountain of ancient Greece that towers above Delphi (9)
10 National hero of Albania, following his rebellion against the Turks in the mid-15th century (10)
11 William ____, English Quaker leader and founder, in 1681, of an American ‘Commonwealth’ state (4)
12 ____Bates, US journalist and civil rights activist, known mostly for her role in the integration of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 (5)
14 City of north-west Germany, which, at one point, was the largest British military base outside the UK (9)
17 Wife of Julius Caesar, who, forewarned, supposedly begged him not to attend the Senate on the day of his assassination (9)
18 The charging of an exorbitant rate of interest; in old English law it applied to the charging of any interest at all (5)
20 Spanish river that formed the dividing line between the Roman and Carthaginian occupations in third century BC (4)
22 Dorset location of a chalk figure cut into the hillside, possibly a 17th-century prank (5,5) 24 Amphitheatre begun during the reign of Emperor Vespasian (9)
25 ____ Benedict, a 20th-century American anthropologist, the first woman to be recognised as a prominent leader in that profession (4)
26 Bergen-____, the Nazi concentration camp liberated by the Allies in April 1945 (6) 27 Polish commander, a staunch anticommunist, who became a leader of the Poles in exile after the Second World War (6)
Down
Indecisive battle of the Crimean War, inspiration for Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade (9)
2 ____ap Gruffydd, king of Gwynedd, north Wales, until his death in 1170 (5)
3 German astronomer (1571–1630), noted for formulating and verifying the laws of planetary motion (6)
4 The opening up of foreign trade following the 1842 Treaty of Nanjing turned this city into a major international port (8)
5 The ‘mother of the civil rights movement’, best known for her pivotal role in the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955/56 (4,5)
6 Nineteenth-century Norwegian playwright, a pioneer of modern realistic drama (5)
9 The Reign of Terror during the French Revolution effectively ended with the execution of this prominent leader (11)
13 One of the three great Athenian tragic playwrights, best known for Oedipus Rex (9) 15 Spanish author (1547–1616) of one of the world’s great novels, probably conceived while he was in prison (9)
16 Lars Magnus ____, 19th-century Swedish inventor and founder of a telephone company that later developed into a multinational corporation (8)
19 A medieval landholder, often a guard or attendant of a noble family (6)
21 Derogatory term, derived from the French for a German soldier, used by the Allies in the First World War (5)
23 Edmund ____, British statesman who played a key role in the impeachment of Warren Hastings in the late 18th century (5)