It All Happened in the Sixties Quiz

1066

When Edward the Confessor died in January 1066 he was childless and the succession was unclear. His brother-in-law, Harold Gowinson also known as Harold II, was crowned, on 6 January, in Westminster Abbey by either the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Archbishop of York - accounts differ. However there were two rival claimants to the throne - Harald Hardrada or Harald II of Norway and William, Duke of Normandy.

Harald Hardrada set sail from Norway at the beginning of September. Having collected troops from Shetland, Orkney, and Dunfermline in Scotland en route, the force landed at the River Tees and started attacking the British. After Harald Hardrada burnt Scarborough in retaliation for resistance, many of the northern towns surrendered to him. Following the surrender of York, Harold Godwinson arrived and a battle took place at Stamford Bridge on 25 September. Harald Hardrada was killed and a victorious Harold Godwinson started to march south with some of his troops, leaving the rest in the north of England.

William, Duke of Normandy, had spent much of the summer preparing to invade England and claim the throne. He set sail at the end of September and landed in Pevensey Bay. News of William's arrival reached Harold Godwinson on his march south. After a week's rest in London, the weary troops marched on to the south coast where a battle took place near Hastings on 14 October. Harold Godwinson was killed, and William was victorious, although some of the English still resisted his claim. However he marched on towards London and was crowned in Westminster Abbey on 25 December by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

1162

Thomas Becket was born in London around 1120; he was the son of a merchant who later became a property owner. The young Thomas was educated at Merton Priory and a grammar school in London before spending a year in Paris. He was engaged as a clerk to Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1142. A year after the accession of Henry II to the throne in 1154, Becket was appointed as Chancellor. He embraced the extravagant lifestyle associated with the court, and became a favourite of the king.

Following the death of Theobald in 1162, Henry decided to appoint Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury. It is reported that Becket warned Henry that it would be the end of their friendship. Henry had been trying to reduce the influence of the Church and Rome on legal matters in England, and he thought that appointing his Chancellor to the highest ecclesiastical post in the land would expedite this. Becket, however, had other ideas. He resigned the post of Chancellor, and embraced the religious life.

In 1170 Henry is reported to have said 'Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?', although accounts of the actual words vary. In response, four of his knights traveled to Canterbury and murdered the Archbishop in the cathedral.

1260

The Mongol Empire covered large parts of Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. At its peak, it reached from the Indian sub-continent to the Arctic, and from the Sea of Japan to eastern Europe. The tile of Khagan was used in the Turkic and Mongolic languages; it is equivalent to an emperor. It can also be translated as Khan of Khans or King of Kings.

Ghenghis Khan was the first Khagan, who ruled from 1206 - 1227. Following Ghenghis' death, his third son, Ögedei Khan (1229 - 1241), became the second Khagan. The third Khagan was Güyük Khan (1246 - 1248), Ögedei's son. The fourth Khagan was Güyük's nephew, Möngke Khan (1251 - 1259). Kublai Khan, Möngke's younger brother, was the fifth Khagan, who ruled from 1260 to 1294.

The succession was never straightforward, and usually involved a certain amount of infighting each time, often with a regent ruling for a period between Khagans. After Kublai Khan's death, the empire began to break up, as different people ruled different parts of it.

1368

A fortress at the Louvre in Paris was established in the twelfth century. After Charles V came to power in 1363, he set about converting the building into a royal residence. Part of those conversions involved changing the falconry tower into a library in 1368. The king was a cultured man and a bibliophile. He wanted to promote the French language, and establish Paris as a city of learning.

The first librarian was the king's valet, Claude Mallet, who made a catalogue of the books - 'Inventoire des Livres du Roy nostre Seigneur estans au Chastel du Louvre'. Charles V commissioned new translations of various works, and employed people to produce copies of other works. These were laboriously written and illustrated by hand, since the printing press was yet to be invented. By 1380 the library held over 900 manuscripts and 2500 texts in French.

1461

Henry VI became king, at the age of nine months, following the death of his father, Henry V in 1422. Under the regency, a lot of his lands in France were lost, and there was dissatisfaction in England, too as he came to rule for himself. Henry suffered from mental instability, and there were disputes between his wife, Margaret of Anjou, and his cousin, Richard, Duke of York, which led to what became known as the Wars of the Roses.

In 1461 Henry was deposed in favour of Richard's son, who was crowned as Edward IV in June. In 1470, Edward IV was forced to go into exile in Flanders, and Henry VI was regarded as king again. However Henry was deposed once more in 1471, and he died in prison a few months later. Edward IV reigned again, from 1471 until he died in 1483.

1564

In February 1564 Galielo Galilei was born in Pisa in Italy. He was the eldest of six children. His father was a well-known composer and lutenist, and his mother was the daughter of a wood merchant. Although he considered the priesthood, Galileo enrolled at the university in Pisa to study medicine. However he changed his course of study to mathematics and natural philosophy which he found more interesting, and later taught mechanics, geometry, and astronomy at the university in Padua. He was an accomplished scientist, but it is his astronomical observations for which he is best remembered.

Two months after the birth of Galileo, in April 1564, William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in England. His father was a glover and his mother came from an affluent land-owning family. He was probably educated at the local grammar school, and married Anne Hathaway at the age of eighteen. Later he went to London, and became involved with the theatre. He worked as both an actor and a playwright, dividing his time between the family home in Stratford and his work in London. He wrote over thirty-six plays and also more than one hundred and fifty sonnets.

1666

The Great Fire of London began on Sunday 2 September1666 in a bakery in the aptly named Pudding Lane. At that time almost all the houses were made from wood, and were very tightly packed together. It was very easy for the fire to spread rapidly. Samuel Pepys, writing in his diary, reported that the whole city appeared to be on fire.

The Mayor ordered people to pull down houses in the path of the fire, to try and stop it spreading. Eventually the Navy used gunpowder to blow up buildings, and the fire was brought under control by Wednesday. But there were still smouldering fragments, and the ground was too hot to walk on.

There were only six deaths recorded from the fire, but St. Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Exchange, and the Guildhall were destroyed along with eighty-seven parish churches and over thirteen thousand houses.

1764

Inspired by St-Cyr, a girls' boarding school near Versailles in France, Catherine II of Russia founded the Society for the Upbringing of Noble Girls in 1764. It was commonly known as the Smolny Institute, because it was initially housed in the Smolny Convent on the banks of the River Neva in St. Petersburg.

It took girls from the ages of six to eighteen, divided into four classes, according to age, which were named for the colour of their dresses. The first class had coffee, the second blue, the third grey, and the fourth had white dresses. The main emphasis was on religious and moral education. However, other subjects taught included reading, writing, foreign languages, history, geography, mathematics, physics, chemistry, drawing, music and dancing. Physical exercise and outdoor games were also regarded as important, as was learning social manners. The girls were not allowed home, or even to have visits from their families during the twelve years they spent at the school; this was thought to be too corrupting.

By 1806 a new building was erected to house the institution. Changes were also made, so that the girls did not start until the age of nine, abolishing the coffee class. The Russian revolution of 1917 brought about an end to the school.

1861

In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the United States presidential election. Because of his anti-slavery policies, South Carolina seceded from the Union on 20 December. By early February 1861 Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas had joined South Carolina in secession. Later that month a congress in Montgomery, Alabama was held, and Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederate States of America.

On 26 December, Major Anderson and a small garrison of troops had quietly left their base at Fort Moultrie for nearby Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, but supplies were limited. An attempt to send an unarmed merchant ship with supplies for the fort was unsuccessful. General Beauregard, leader of the Confederate army, demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter. Major Anderson refused to do so. Early in the morning of 12 April, the Confederate forces began firing at Fort Sumter. By the afternoon of the following day, the besieged garrison was forced to surrender; Major Anderson and his troops left, by sea, for New York.

Fort Sumter was the first battle in what was to become a four year conflict. The Civil War ended in victory for the Unionists after the confederate General Lee surrendered following the Battle of Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865.

1961

On 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin, aboard Vostok 1, launched from the Kazakh Republic in the Soviet Union. Less than two hours later, he had circled the earth at a height of around 300km, and landed safely after parachuting from around 7km above the earth; the space craft also reached earth by parachute. This was a major milestone in the 'space race' between the two super powers, the USSR and the USA. Just over three weeks later, on 5 May, Alan Shepard in Freedom 7 made a suborbital flight, which lasted fifteen minutes. He landed, inside his space capsule, which parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean.

The USSR achieved the first manned space flight, so President Kennedy, of the USA, decreed that the USA would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. This feat was achieved by Apollo 11 in July 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the lunar module, Eagle, landed on the moon on 20 July, while their colleague, Mike Collins, continued to fly around the moon. All three astronauts returned to earth on 24 July.