On Such a Day as This Trivia Quiz

Answer: December 17th

From 1899, Wilbur and Orville Wright experimented with flight, which included over a thousand glider flights from Big Kill Devil Hill in North Carolina before finally moving on to efforts with powered flight. After winning the coin toss, Wilbur made the first attempt on December 14th, but it was unsuccessful, and the flyer required repairs.

Orville took his turn three days later on Thursday, December 17th, 1903, managing to keep the flyer aloft for 120 feet. Three more flights (with the brothers taking turns) were completed over the course of the day, with the longest being 852 feet and 59 seconds in the air.

Answer: June 28th

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated along with his wife, Sophie, the Duchess of Hohenberg, on June 28th, 1914, as they were being driven through Sarajevo (in annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina). The assassin was a Bosnian Serb by the name of Gavrilo Princip, who was part of a student revolutionary group with the goal to free Bosnia and Herzegovina from the Austro-Hungarian rule.

That action was one of the key events that led to the onset of World War I, as Austria-Hungary wanted to strike back at the Serbs, and demanded support from their allies. But the multiple levels and layers of political and military alliances amongst the many European nations eventually resulted in war.

Answer: January 26th

Basing his 'televisor' on the work of German scientist Paul Nipkow, who patented his idea for a television system back in 1884, John Logie Baird became the first to demonstrate a working television on January 26th, 1926. Within two years, Baird had managed to send a broadcast overseas (using telephone lines) from London to New York, and also to demonstrate colour television!

Answer: September 1st

One week after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, German forces began their invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939. This began what would bloom into World War II, as the Soviet Union also invaded Poland on September 17th, with the intent of dividing Poland between the two invading forces.

By October 6th, the campaign was complete, and the two invaders had complete control of Poland, even though the defeated Second Polish Republic never actually surrendered. In the aftermath of the war, Poland remained under Soviet occupation, and did not regain independent status until 1989 with the dissolution of the communist government. With free elections in 1990, the Third Polish Republic was born.

Answer: December 7th

A crucial point in the Second World War was the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. With this declaration of war by the Japanese Empire, the United States joined the conflict, which ultimately helped turn the tide against the aggressors.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered his "date which will live in infamy" speech to a joint session of Congress the next day. And with more than 2,400 military and civilian casualties in the unexpected attack, it truly was a date that would live in infamy.

Answer: August 6th

After the Allied victory in Europe (VE Day May 8th), the Japanese Empire continued to fight. It would take the combination of the first use of atomic weapons (August 6th and 9th) plus the declaration of war by the Soviets (August 8th) to force Japan's surrender on August 15th. This was followed by the signing of the instruments of surrender on September 2nd, officially ending World War II.

The terrible toll of the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, with roughly half of that number dying in the initial blast, and the rest succumbing over the following few months.

Answer: February 6th

At the moment of King George VI's death on February 6th, 1952, his eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, officially took on the mantle of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom as Queen Elizabeth II. Her official coronation would not take place until over a year later on June 2nd, 1953.

Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years and 214 days, passing away on September 8th, 2022, at the age of 96.

Answer: October 4th

The launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviets on October 4th, 1957, was a shock to the American public and their scientific community, which had been planning a similar launch for over two years. This accomplishment began a race for technological dominance as the two superpowers fought outdo each other.

The Soviets managed to maintain an edge to their competition, but the ultimate goal of putting feet on the moon was first accomplished by the Americans a dozen years later with the Apollo 11 mission.

Answer: March 22nd

The Beatles signed with EMI in 1962, and, with their first song released in October ("Love Me Do"), they immediately received attention. Their second single came out in the UK in January of 1963 (and was their first US single in February), carrying the same title of what would become their first album a couple of months later. Their debut studio album "Please Please Me" was released on March 22nd, 1963, and spent more than a year in the top ten (in the UK) after its release.

Answer: July 20th

After 12 years of vying with the Soviet Union (and mostly falling short) for supremacy in the space race, the American space program (through NASA) got a real boost when they became the first to land a spacecraft (and two men) on the moon.

Apollo 11 launched on July 16th, 1969, and spent four days en route to landing the lunar module in the Sea of Tranquility on July 20th, televised for all the world to see. The successful mission returned to Earth with splashdown in the Pacific Ocean on July 24th.

Answer: April 4th

While Bill Gates and Paul Allen did not invent the computer, they were instrumental in bringing the computer to the general public and individual home use. Microsoft was founded on April 4th, 1975, after Allen saw a magazine article about the release of the Altair 8800 microcomputer. He and Gates took their version of BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) and married it with Altair, beginning the home computer revolution.

Microsoft continues to be a leader in software development around the world, with the multinational company's annual revenue over $200 billion.

Answer: November 9th

After the end of the Second World War, Berlin (and the whole country) was divided into four quarters, each under the control of occupying forces of the Soviets, the UK, France, and the United States. This ultimately resulted in the dividing lines between East and West Germany, and East and West Berlin (as an exclave within East Germany).

In 1961, the East German government began construction of a concrete wall and 'death strip' zone that completely surrounded West Berlin, preventing or severely limiting access through a small number of checkpoints. After nearly 30 years, the counter-communist revolutions in the Eastern Bloc countries included the beginning of the end of the division between East and West Germany. The wall fell after weeks of civil unrest on November 9th, 1989, and just under a year later, on October 3rd, 1990, Germany was reunified as one country.

Answer: February 7th

"A new stage in European integration" was established with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty between twelve countries on February 7th, 1992. These were the founding nations of the European Union, which included Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Germany.

Since then, many more nations have joined the Union (along with a very public "Brexit"). At the time of the UK's withdrawal, the EU had reached 28 member nations.

While the terms of the original treaty - primarily an economic union - have changed with various amendments over the years, the basic tenets of the union include policy areas that touch on climate, environment and health to external relations and security, justice and migration.

Answer: April 30th

After Tim Berners-Lee did the groundwork developing the necessary code to create the World Wide Web, such as HTML and early web browser platforms in the late 1980s, other models and operating systems began to appear. The original work by Berners-Lee had been done through CERN, and once other, perhaps even better, platforms began to circulate - but would require licensing for proprietary reasons - CERN decided to gift the code to the world, giving a true birth to the information age.

After CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free for everyone on April 30th, 1993, they released their code into the public domain, and it was not long before the internet was expanded beyond the purely academic world and became a resource for all.

Answer: May 10th

On June 12th, 1964, Nelson Mandela (along with seven others) was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island, off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa.

Nearly 36 years later, on February 11th, 1990, Mandela was finally released from prison, after President F.W. de Klerk lifted the ban on the African National Congress (ANC) and other liberation movements. With his release, Mandela quickly returned to political prominence, becoming the President of the ANC in 1991. Together, Mandela and de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts in ending the apartheid regime.

Free all-race elections were held between April 27th and 29th, 1994, and after the results were tallied, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president on May 10th.