History Quiz!

martarg

Yes, yes, you're right! ... hmm, perhaps I should have asked you to quote a couple of lines to make it harder ... OK, I am ready to confront my own ignorance, go ahead...

Chinafoot

ok heres a dead easy one. what illness was Tsar Nicholas' son suffering from??

(Knackered and cant be arsed thinking of a difficult one!!)

martarg

Difficult question on the spelling side ... lucky thing all those years of Latin and Greek, let's see if they have been any use.... haemophilia???

Chinafoot

correct again....sorry that wasnt very challenging!

your turn.

martarg

Perhaps not challenging, but certainly great for building self-esteem .... OK, next question... what year did Louis Napoleon Bonaparte become Emperor of France?

(By the way, how about two kinds of questions, simpl-ish ones to answer from memory, reeeallyyy tough ones to reseach? that can also be fun...)

Manach

Sorry to break in, but was it 1801.

Hairy Homer

My guess is 1803

martarg

Nop, sorry ... actually, it is not that Napoleon Bonaparte I mean, but his nephew, this was a few decades later. He became emperor with the name of Napoleon III....

Chinafoot

1852!!! something i remembered from my french revolutions course!!!!!

martarg

Good! your lecturer would be proud... but after that confession I suppose I should rule out "French revolutions" from my repertoire of questions... OK, your turn again... (how about researchable questions?)

Chinafoot

ok heres a historical/literary question!

who wrote the following and what was it in relation to?


it was equally impossible to do the plainest right and undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gun-powder plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-vault of ungrammatical correspondence on the part of the Circumlocution Office.

martarg

Is that a researchable one? Otherwise, I have no idea, for a change, snif... although I will take my guess and say Jonathan Swift... I might try to explain what it was about, but considering that I am not even half sure, it would be a little silly to elaborate on my mistake ....

Chinafoot

nope, it aint swifty! i think you could research it. ok i'll tell you who wrote it and then you can tell me the historical relevance.

its charles dickins.

martarg

Even google has its mysteries.... OK, since you have given me permission to research , and no-one else seems to know, I have found out that it is a fragment of Little Dorrit (this was the easy part ), the historical relevance was a lot harder... I am not sure what you mean by that, but I have found something to the effect that the Circumlocution Office was a satire prompted by revelations of bureaucratic mismanagement of the Crimean War... I don't know if this is the answer you were looking for, but at least I have learnt something new...

Chinafoot

yup you research very well indeed my friend!!

your turn!

martarg

Thank you, The Queen of Google for you ....

Well, let's see.... scientific name of the fungus that destroyed the potato crop in 1845 and subsequent years?

Chinafoot

Phytophthora infestans......B in honours biology....remembered something afterall!

martarg

didn't take you long.... Crimean War, Biology, such wide interests ... OK, decided, I am going to spend the next few days searching for the toughest possible questions.... and for your information, I think I am going back to Spanish History... Well, go ahead, again.....

Chinafoot

okie dokie, who was the last king of poland?

Manach

Willeim II of Germany? I'm guessing this is a trick question btw.

martarg

Earth calling peachypants....

Chinafoot

sorry guys....been catching up on some sleep!!!

anyhoo the answer is:
*drumroll please......................*

Stanislaus II (sometimes spelt Stanislaw)


okie dokie..........next question....medieval history this time:

Who was crowned King of the Franks in 751?

Victor

Originally posted by peachypants
Who was crowned King of the Franks in 751?

Charlemange?

I googled to check afterwards and I'm wrong by about 50 years.

Manach

Charles "The Hammer" Martel?

Chinafoot

nope not "the hammer"......guess again.

cant reveal the answer til martarg has a go

*hint* he was known as _____ the short

martarg

That is not fair on the others, I was completely lost until you said that! But once you have given us the clue, and thank you very much, I will take advantage, Pippin the Short, married to Mathilda Bigfoot? (anyone can blame me for remembering this of all things from History class? )

(Edit: had a sort of self-centred lapsus with the lady's name...)

Chinafoot

Originally posted by martarg
Pippin the Short

well its actually Pepin the short but its close enough!

your turn again m'dear.

martarg

Well, you have to make allowances for backtranslation, to my lecturer this was "Pipino el Breve" (not Pepino, which means cucumber ), anyway, we both knew who I meant....

As for the question, back to Spanish history, as I said I would ... which muslim ruler lost Granada to the Catholic King and Queen in 1492?

Chinafoot

aaaah i rememebr something about this! i know that the name sounds like the LOTR character Tom Bombadil! crap. cant remember. tell me before i google!

martarg

Close enough yourself .... OK, a clue before you google...

From BOMBADIL, take away the M, swap two other letters....