More than Just Hastings Trivia Quiz

Answer:

The earliest of these fights happened in 917, when some Anglo-Saxons led by Edward the Elder defeated a group of Vikings at Towcester, in what became Northamptonshire, but was then a frontier village on the border of Wessex and the Danelaw. This victory helped in the expansion of Wessex at the expense of the Danes (vikings).

Stamford Bridge came next, in 1066, a short time before the rather more famous Hastings. In September of that year, in what became East Yorkshire, the forces of Harold Godwinson defeated a Norwegian force led by Harald Hardrada, who was killed. Just three weeks later, in Sussex, Harold met a similar fate against the Normans of William the Conqueror.

To Scotland next, for the Scots' defeat of the English at Stirling Bridge, in September 1297 during the First Scottish War of Independence. The Scottish leadership included William Wallace.

Bannockburn, in the same region of Scotland and the same conflict, was a victory for the Scots led by Robert the Bruce, in June 1314, over the English forces of King Edward II.

Towton, in North Yorkshire, was the scene of a large and bloody battle during the Wars of the Roses, in March 1461 (Palm Sunday, in fact). The forces of the House of York were victorious, and as a result Edward IV was able to take the throne from Lancaster's Henry VI.

Still raging in 1485, the Wars of the Roses were finally brought to a close in August of that year in Leicestershire, at the Battle of Bosworth Field, when the Yorkist King Richard III became the last monarch to die in battle, and the victorious Henry Tudor took the throne as Henry VII.

The Spanish Armada was a naval force that sailed from the Iberian Peninsula in 1588, with the intention of landing in England, only to be met in the English Channel by elements of the British fleet, sailing from Plymouth in Devon. The engagement then expanded to include the action off Gravelines, and further into the North Sea. Suffice it to say that no Spaniards landed in England.

To Scotland, again, for the brief but bloody Battle of Culloden, near Inverness, in April 1746. The defeat of the Jacobite supporters of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, by forces led by the Duke of Cumberland, put an end to the Jacobite Rising of 1745.

Moving forward nearly two centuries, we reach the Battle of Britain, that played out in skies over (mostly) England in the summer of 1940. It can be seen as an early turning point in the Second World War, given that the RAF pilots, immortalised as "The Few" by Winston Churchill, turned back the daylight incursions by the Luftwaffe and denied them the air superiority deemed necessary to launch an invasion (which never came).

In February 1942, what came to be known as the Channel Dash took place in the English Channel. The German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisnau, with other craft, left their anchorage at Brest, France, to make a run for German ports, where they would not be under such heavy attack, and where necessary repairs could be made. Despite persistent attacks by the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, the German ships reached their destination. The only bright side for the British was that the large ships were no longer in a good position to attack Atlantic convoys.

The incorrect choices all involved English or British armed forces, but took place elsewhere in the world. Blenheim (1704) was in Bavaria. The Plains of Abraham (1759) was in what is now Canada. The Saratoga campaign of 1777 was part of the American Revolution and took place in what is now New York and Vermont. The siege of Lucknow in 1857 took place in India. Rorke's Drift (1879) and Colenso (1899) both were fought in what is now South Africa.