Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Henry III became King of England shortly after his ninth birthday and Richard II was 10 when he gained the throne. Some people have to wait much longer. In British history, which aspiring monarch has spent the longest period as "heir apparent"?
2. The United States of America was founded in 1776, but it was really only the "United States of Part of America" at that time. It was more than a century until what we now know as the "Contiguous 48 states" were united as a single country. Who was President at the time when the "lower 48" was completed?
3. Let us now step further back into history... Emperors are like London buses -- you wait ages for one and then five come along at once. The year 238 AD saw a remarkable six different Roman Emperors. Three of them were assassinated by the Praetorian Guard. Can you identify the one who avoided that fate but instead committed suicide?
4. The French began construction of a canal across the Panama isthmus in 1881, but gave up before the end of the decade. The Americans took on the project in 1904 and finally completed it ten years later. In which century, though, was the idea of a canal across Panama first mooted?
5. Edward III became King of England in 1327 at the age of 14 and ten years later declared himself the rightful heir to the French throne. At the time, Edward probably expected things to be resolved fairly quickly... Thus began the "Hundred Years' War". Who was King of England when the final battle took place 116 years later?
6. The Chinese just love building walls, it seems. The first major barriers were built by the "Seven Warring States" as long ago as the 8th century B.C. During which dynasty, though, was most of what we know today as "The Great Wall of China" built?
7. The name of a country's monarch sometimes changes three or four times in a year. At other times, a century or more may pass without the royal name changing. Which country has had nine consecutive monarchs with the same royal name in a period lasting from 1782 into the 21st century?
8. American history is rife with the tales of railroad robber barons, but it was not until 1869 that a single route crossed from coast to coast. An 1862 Act approved by Abraham Lincoln facilitated the construction of a westbound railroad from the Missouri River and an eastbound one from California as a Civil War measure for preserving the Union. In which state did the two lines finally join up?
9. Built between 2584-2561 B.C., the Great Pyramid of Giza has survived relatively undamaged for the best part of four and a half millennia, so the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were really built to last, weren't they? Which of the traditional list of seven survived intact for the shortest period?
10. The tactic of besieging a city, throttling it by cutting off supplies, goes back thousands of years. Although not the longest siege of all time, the World War II Siege of Leningrad is by far the most costly ever in terms of loss of life, with most estimates ranging from 1.1 to 2 million killed. How long did the Siege of Leningrad last?
Source: Author
EnglishJedi
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