Wherio #4 — July 16th, 2026

Twelve Western European countries ratified the convention establishing CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, with physicist Felix Bloch as its first Director-General. Built in Meyrin, a western suburb of Geneva on the border between Switzerland and France, the laboratory was designed to pool Europe’s scientific resources for fundamental physics research after the Second World War. CERN grew into the world’s leading particle physics laboratory, home to the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, and the birthplace of the World Wide Web, invented there by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989.

Geography clue given: Its flag is one of only two national flags that are square.

Chemist Cyril Callister developed Vegemite in Melbourne, Australia, in 1922 for the Fred Walker Company, which had asked him to create a spread from the used brewer’s yeast being dumped by breweries. Using autolysis to break down yeast cells from the Carlton & United brewery’s waste, he produced the thick, salty black paste that went on sale the following year. Early sales flopped despite advertising touting its health value for children, but the spread eventually became an Australian national icon. Still made to essentially Callister’s original recipe, Vegemite today far outsells Marmite and similar spreads in Australia.

Geography clue given: Off its coast lies the world's largest coral reef system.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won Liberia’s presidential election, held as the country emerged from the devastation of the Second Liberian Civil War, and took office in January 2006. A Harvard-trained economist and veteran of Liberian politics, she became the first elected female head of state in Africa. Her presidency focused on rebuilding a shattered nation, restoring international relations, and reducing its crushing debt. In 2011 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkol Karman, in recognition of her efforts to bring women into the peacebuilding process.

Geography clue given: It was founded by freed and free-born Black Americans.

Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana completed the first known navigation of the entire length of the Amazon River, reaching its Atlantic mouth in present-day Brazil. What began as a foraging detour from Gonzalo Pizarro’s expedition east of Quito turned into one of history’s most improbable voyages, carrying Orellana and his men thousands of kilometers downriver through the heart of South America. He named the river after reporting battles with female warriors, likening them to the Amazons of Greek myth described by Herodotus. The name stuck to the world’s largest river by volume.

Geography clue given: It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas.

The German Empire enacted the Old Age and Disability Insurance Bill, widely regarded as the world’s first national old-age pension system. It was the capstone of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s State Socialism program, launched in 1883 with health insurance and followed by accident insurance, all designed to win over the working class and undercut support for the socialist movement he had tried to suppress through the Anti-Socialist Laws. Financed by a tax on workers, the program paid a pension annuity at age 70. The political gambit failed on its own terms: by 1912 the Social Democrats were the largest party in the Reichstag.

Geography clue given: It borders nine countries, the most of any nation lying entirely in Europe.