Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The Battle of Hastings in 1066 obvious happened in Hastings didn't it? Er... No. Where (according to the majority of historians and evidence) did it actually take place?
2. When told that the poor of Paris had no bread to eat, Marie Antoinette, the consort of Louis XVI, simply and callously replied "then let them eat cake". Well... Actually... She didn't. From which philosopher's writings was this phrase taken and later wrongly attributed to Marie Antoinette?
3. Perhaps fairly obviously, a certain great 11th century king of Sweden, Denmark, England and Norway did not stand and command the tide to reverse in a fit of arrogance. Which king is this story usually attributed to?
4. The Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, ordered the US forces to treat ALL slaves as free. WHAT?! No, actually... it didn't. The Proclamation required that the US Executive Branch and above all, the Army, treat as freed only slaves from the Confederate states still considered to be in rebellion, leaving those in all other states to be treated as they were previously. How many Confederate states were still in rebellion at this time?
5. Museums and galleries across Europe are full of ancient Roman and Greek white marble statues. As beautiful as these currently look in white, they were not originally finished as such. Why is it a misconception that all statues in these ancient empires were all white marble-finished?
6. Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, huge numbers of people committed suicide, having lost everything. Erm... that's not quite true... How many suicides recorded in New York City between Black Thursday and the end of 1929 were linked to the Crash?
7. Which of these is a common misconception about the Vikings, the Norse explorers who settled in Europe and Asia from the late 8th to the mid-11th century?
8. Christopher Columbus was unable to raise the money for his most famous voyages because everyone believed the earth was flat, making his plan to sail West to the Indies impossible. Er... no! Educated people already knew that the world is spherical. So why was Columbus' voyage really so difficult to fund?
9. King Tutankhamun's tomb was cursed, and those who discovered it in 1922 died grisly deaths very soon after as a result! Sorry... they didn't really! From the evidence available, is seems that there was never actually any curse on the tomb. So why did people believe that there was?
10. We all know that Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned. But it's not actually true! There are many reasons why this is incorrect, but which of the following is just one of them?
Source: Author
suzidunc
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bloomsby before going online.
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