Ten Dates With Destiny Trivia Quiz

The Normans, led by William the Conqueror, swept aside the English in 1066. The culmination or climax of this campaign occurred at the Battle of Hastings where the English leader, King Harold, met his demise, legend has it, with an arrow through his eye.

The Normans brought significant change to their new land, lifting the country economically, politically and socially. New castles were built and military strategies designed to provide stronger defenses, land ownership rules were changed and French was introduced to the upper classes, which had a significant effect on English vocabulary.

History has not looked kindly on the reign of King John. He was cruel, unchivalrous and extremely stingy. He taxed his subjects excessively, failed to protect his lands in France, he failed as a military leader and was in constant dispute with his nobles. Unsurprisingly, this led to a rebellion by the barons of England.

The Magna Carta, which King John reluctantly agreed to and signed on June 15, 1215, was designed to limit the power of the monarchy and provide certain protections to the higher ranking members of English society. In comes as no surprise that King John would later renege on this deal, instigating another uprising by the barons. King John's successor, Henry III, would later ratify the document, which would become one of the cornerstones of modern democracy.

Whilst there were a number of things that occurred in the lead up to this conflict, the spark that finally lit the fuse was a seizure of land. Philip VI of France seized the region of Aquitaine, which was an English held territory, in 1337. This led to Edward III to challenge the French King by declaring himself as the rightful King of France - his (Edward's) mother having been the sister to Charles IV, the previous King of France.

The conflict between the two nations would last more than a century and it was littered with numerous battles and intermittent periods of peace. There were numerous claims to the French throne during this time, it bore witness to the birth of the legend that was Joan of Arc and it would produce significant changes to the political, economic, social and military landscapes of both countries.

Best known for his painting, the "Mona Lisa", which he started to work on in 1503, Leonardo da Vinci would become known as the "Renaissance Man". Whilst he was an artist, his interests went well beyond this realm, delving into areas such as architecture, weaponry, nature, geometry, municipal construction and flying machines. His main themes, on which he made meticulous notes, centered on painting, architecture, the elements of mechanics, and the human anatomy.

Da Vinci's work coincided with the New Age of Exploration and the peak of the Renaissance, standing at the forefront of a period that focused on Humanism, a period that would change the world forever.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer who, sponsored by the Spanish monarchy, set sail for Asia in 1492. Instead of finding a route to Asia, he ended up finding a New World in the Caribbean. This would trigger a new wave of exploration by the Europeans to these territories, and spark what would become labelled as the "Columbian Exchange".

The exchange was a trading of new ideas and goods between the Old World and the New. Apart from people, the Europeans would bring livestock and plants to the Americas and, in return, brought home startling new products such as tobacco, potatoes and chocolate. However, it wasn't all good. With the Europeans, there also came diseases such as smallpox, which the indigenous peoples of the Americas were unprepared for and which decimated their populations. Also, the high demand for the New World products would prove a boon to the slavery trade.

Let me introduce a term called "mercantilism". This is a form of economic theory that says trade generates wealth. It was mercantilism that lay behind the Dutch government's decision to create the Dutch East India Company and grant them a monopoly on all of the country's trading. This wasn't merely an arrangement to go and create trading arrangements with other nations, the new conglomeration had the power to start wars, set up new colonies and enforce the law throughout Asia.

This set up gave rise to a whole new era of exploration and colonialism. The British soon followed suit with their own British East India Company. Raw materials were being gathered from the New World and taken to Europe, where they were transformed into finished goods. The money generated from the sale of these products would become the oil that lubricated the gears of imperial expansion for these nations.

From the middle of the 18th century through to the dawn of the 20th century the whole world experienced a massive growth in industrialization. This was called the Industrial Revolution and it transformed the world. These improvements assisted the explosion of an Agricultural Revolution that was also burgeoning. The increase in the production of food meant that more people could be serviced by towns as the demand for factory workers began to rise.

The world witnessed the creation of steam engines that drove industry, promoted railroads and extended trading to new markets. The introduction of the telegraph revolutionized communication. Eventually it would lead to mass production, greater urbanization and economic growth of a kind the world had not seen before. The underside of all this is that it changed the way wars would be fought, and ushered in or exacerbated toxic elements such as pollution and inequality among the classes.

The Industrial Revolution highlighted a severe lack in the common rights of workers. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, two German philosophers and political theorists, identified with this and it led them to writing and publishing "The Communist Manifesto", a critique that highlighted the flaws within the capitalist system.

Their idea was that history was a litany of class struggles and, Marx in particular, they pushed for a communist revolution that would see the working classes destroy all classes in society. This ideology caught the imagination of scores of leaders across Europe. The uprisings that they generated, however, were both sporadic and unsuccessful. That is, until 1917, when the Bolshevik Revolution, led by Vladimir Lenin, would transform Russia.

Gold. The very mention of the word sparks a light in the eyes of most human beings. It speaks of riches, wealth and power. So, when the Californian gold rush started in 1848 there were many Americans that wanted a piece of the action. However, it was too bad if you were on the other side of the country because your ability to get to the goldfields was severely limited. The American government recognized the issue but had no idea what to do about it. This need was exacerbated when Hawaii and the Philippines became territories of the United States. How could they possibly get from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean without taking a long journey all the way around South America?

The solution presented itself when Panama began its push for independence from Colombia. America supported this quest and, in return, was granted permission to create the canal. Whilst this new route would transform global economies, it also allowed the USA to indulge in its imperialism and become a superpower.

The 1920s was a time of great prosperity and rapid growth across the globe. In the United States, the stock market began to grow significantly and investors soon poured their savings, mortgaged their homes and borrowed large sums of money in an effort to cash in on this boom. When the crash occurred it inflicted a massive credit squeeze, banks foreclosed on those loans... a number of banks even went down with the crash.

What followed became known as the Great Depression. There was significant unemployment in all countries and widespread poverty. This, in turn, created an environment where political parties with extreme views were allowed to flourish. The best examples of these came from Germany and Japan where far-right nationalist movements were able to take control. Their quests for military expansion would eventually lead to World War II.