How much do you know about Iran? Take our quiz to find out.

The world's focus has turned upon Iran in recent months, as it moves ahead with its nuclear program despite crippling sanctions from the West and the threat of preemptive attack by Israel. But how much do you really know about Iran's history and place in the Middle East? Take our quiz to test your knowledge.

1. Modern Iran lies at the heart of the lands of which ancient empire?

Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters
Iranians walk on a bridge through the rubble of Bam, a centuries-old citadel town in eastern Iran, in Sept. 2004. Built in the sixth century BCE, the adobe citadel was devastated by a Dec. 2003 earthquake that killed more than 26,000 people.

Sumer

Babylonia

Persia

Assyria

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About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

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