On This Day in January Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1st January 45 BC

The Julian calender was instituted by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and came into force in 45 BC. The word "calender" comes from the Latin word "Kalendae" which in ancient Rome was the first day of each month.

Answer: 2nd January 1839

Louis Daguerre along with Joseph Niepce is credited with the invention of photography. Daguerre invented in 1838 the "daguerreotype" which was a single image process using iodine-sensitized silver plates and mercury vapour. Like polaroid photos, it is not reproducible. (There was no negative).

Answer: 3rd January 1959

Alaska was a Russian colony from 1744 until purchased by the USA for $7,200,000 in 1867. It is nicknamed the "Last Frontier" and has Juneau as its capital.

Answer: 4t January 1967

While attempting on Coniston Water to break the world water-speed record in BluebirdK7, Campbell achieved over 300 mph. Unfortunately due to a number of factors Bluebird flipped over and disintegrated. He had already set the record at 276.33mph in 1964, and the same year also achieved the land-speed record in Bluebird Proteus CN7 at 403.10mph, making him the first person to achieve both records in the same year.

Although personal items of his were found at the scene of the accident, his body was not recovered until 28th May 2001.

Answer: 5th January 1971

This was due to an England v Australia 5-day Test Match at Melbourne Cricket Ground being abandoned after 3 days due to rain. The captains of both teams agreed to a One Day match on the 5th day. The first ball was bowled by Australian Graham McKenzie to England's batsman Geoffrey Boycott. It consisted of 40 eight-ball overs per side. Australia won by 5 wickets.

Answer: Louis Braille

Louis Braille was himself blind. He was sent to a school for blind students in Paris where he was taught to read by feeling raised letters. In 1821 at the age of 12 he was introduced to "Night writing". This was used by soldiers on the battlefield to pass secret information without speaking.

It consisted of 12 raised dots and a number of dashes. Within three years Louis simplified the system to six raised dots, the system that became known as "braille".

Answer: Leaning Tower of Pisa

Building began in 1173 but due to poor foundations and unstable subsoil, it very quickly began to lean, and construction was halted in 1178. For almost a century, due to wars, it was left alone, by which time the soil had begun to settle. Construction resumed in 1272 and then stopped again in 1284 due to another battle. Finally in 1319, the seventh floor was finished and a bell chamber was added in 1372.

In 1990 extensive work began to stabilize the Tower, which was declared open again in 2001.

Answer: Queen Elizabeth

RMS Queen Elizabeth was built in the 1930s by John Brown and Company in Clydebank Scotland. She was named after Queen Elizabeth, the consort of King George VI, who was reigning in 1938 when she was launched. Her maiden voyage was made in secret on the 3rd March 1940 was to New York, after which she was refitted as a troopship carrier during World War 2.

In 1946 she was refitted as an ocean passenger liner, although the growth of air travel meant she was eventually decommissioned in 1968. She was bought by a Hong Kong businessman to be used as a university, but in 1972 arsonists started many fires on her and she eventually rolled over in Hong Kong harbour and was later scrapped.

Answer: 10th January 1920

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, suggested the League in 1918 in his "Fourteen Points" speech to the United States Congress, suggesting terms for a just peace settlement.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed on the 28th June 1919 between the Allies and Germany. It also established the League of Nations in Geneva Switzerland. The League included representatives from countries throughout the world, but the U.S.A decided not to join it and made a separate peace treaty with Germany and Austria in 1921.

Answer: Mount Etna

Erebus is in Antarctica, Vesuvius in mainland Italy and Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

Mount Etna is one of the world's most active volcanoes. It killed up to 60,000 people including 2/3rds of the population of Catania when it erupted in 1693. The earthquake was followed by a tsunami that struck the Ionian coast of Sicily and the Messina Strait.

Answer: Agatha Christie

Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (nee Miller) was born 15th September 1890 in Torquay, England. As well as crime novels, plays and short stories she wrote romance novels under the name Mary Westmacott. Her fictional characters of Miss Jane Marple and Hercule Poirot are known throughout the world.

She wrote more than 70 books and her play "The Mousetrap" which opened in London in 1952 was still running in 2008 after more than 23,000 performances.

Answer: Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I was born on the 7th September 1533 to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. She succeeded her half-sister Mary I after the deaths of her father and half-brother Edward VI. She was the last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. She was crowned in Westminster Abbey by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Carlisle, Owen Oglethorpe. No other Bishop would take on the duty as they believed her birth to be illegitimate.

Answer: Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on the 15th February 1874 in County Kildare, Ireland. His first expedition was with Robert Scott's Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic which left in 1901. In 1908, he set sail on the "Nimrod" as commander of the British expedition which later claimed to have located the magnetic South Pole on their way scaling the 13,120ft Mount Erebus. Shackleton was not one of the three men who claimed to have found the wandering point.

They were Douglas Mawson, Edgeworth David and Alistair Mackay. Shackleton died on board the ship "Quest" on his 4th expedition to the Antarctic in 1922.

Answer: Popeye

Popeye the Sailor made his first appearance on 17th January 1929 in the newspaper comic strip "Thimble Theatre". He was created by Elzie Crisler Segar, an American cartoonist. Originally he was a minor character, hired by "Castor Oyl" and "Ham Gravy" to crew a ship for them. Due to his popularity he soon became a lead character.

Answer: Captain James Cook

Captain James Cook was born on the 27th October 1728 in Marton, North Yorkshire, England. He was an English explorer, cartographer and navigator, joining the Merchant Navy as a teen and then the Royal Navy in 1755. He was hired by the "Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge" three times in his career. On his 3rd and final voyage he commanded HMS Resolution, in an attempt to discover the Northwest Passage.

He was the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands, landing at Waimea harbour Kauai.

He named the islands the "Sandwich Islands" after the 1st Lord of the Admiralty, the 4th Earl of Sandwich.

Answer: Indira Gandhi

On 19th January 1966 Indira Gandhi at the age of 48 became India's first female Prime Minister. She was the daughter of India's fist ever Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Indira served four terms in total between 1966-1977 and 1980-1984. In 1984 she was assassinated by members of her own Sikh bodyguard.

Answer: John F Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born 29th May 1917 to financier Joseph Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard and served in the navy in the South Pacific during World War 11. After the war he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, and in 1953 he advanced to the Senate. On 12th September 1953 he married Jacqueline Bouvier.

In the 1960 USA presidential elections, he defeated Richard Nixon to become the 35th president. He was the youngest elected President and first Catholic to be elected.

Answer: 21st January 1976

Concorde was an Anglo-French product, costing the French and British taxpayers 2 billion pounds. It was almost 204ft long with a wing span of almost 84ft.
On 21st January 1976, two Concordes took off simultaneously. The British Airways plane from London Heathrow to Bahrain was captained by Captain Norman Todd. The Air France plane flew from Paris CDG to Rio de Janeiro. The final Concorde flight was on the 24th October 2003 from New York to London.

Answer: Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria was born on 24th May 1819 in Kensington Palace London, to Edward Duke of Kent and Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She was at birth the fifth in line for the crown, her father and three brothers being before her. The death of her father and then uncles, without any legitimate heirs meant that in time Victoria became Queen.
In 1840 she married Prince Albert, from the German duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
They had 9 children, several of whom married into other royal and noble families. Six monarchs in Europe excluding the UK are linked to Queen Victoria.

Answer: Robert Baden-Powell

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell was born in 1857 and died in 1941. He served in the British Army from 1875, joining the 13th Hussars in India and serving also in Africa where he helped to defend Mafeking. He also wrote handbooks for soldiers which became popular with young boys back in Britain. On the 24th January 1908, the Boy Scout movement started with the publication of the first installment of "Scouting for Boys", a book issued fortnightly for four pence each.

Answer: Robert Burns

Robert Burns was born in Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland. His father was William Burness, but Robert changed the spelling of his surname to Burns in 1786, when his first work was published. Most of his education came from his self educated father, and a local teacher John Murdock. He died at the early age of 37 at Dumfries, Scotland.

Answer: John L Baird

John Logie Baird was born in 1888 in Helensburgh, Argyll, Scotland. His education at the University of Glasgow was interrupted by World War I, and he never graduated. He gave the first public demonstration of his television system on January 26th 1926 at 22 Frith Street, Soho, London, in front of 40 members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from "The Times".

The BBC used his system from 1929-1935, then along with an alternative Baird system, used one from EMI-Marconi until early 1937, when they stopped using Baird's systems altogether for the preferred EMI-Marconi's electronic scanning system. In 1928 Baird also developed a primitive video recording device which he dubbed "Phonovision".

Answer: Challenger

On 28th January 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds after launch. It fell over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of central Florida, killing the crew of 7 astronauts. It was NASA's second Space Shuttle, Columbia being the first to be put into service. Challenger completed 9 missions before the fateful one in 1986.

It was replaced 6 years later by Endeavour. The Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial is in Arlington National Cemetery.

Answer: Hawaii

Liliuokalani was proclaimed Queen of Hawaii after the death of her brother on 29th January 1891. Prior to his death, her brother King Kalakaua had, in 1887, signed a constitution which stripped him of much of his sovereign power. When Liliuokalani ascended to the throne, she refused to recognize the constitution her brother had signed and tried to bring in a new one, restoring the monarchy's traditional role. United States investors and sugar planters along with USA troops overthrew the Hawaiian government and eventually on the 4th July 1894 Hawaii was proclaimed a Republic. To save her supporters from imprisonment and death Queen Liliuokalani eventually abdicated in 1895, living the rest of her life in the USA.

Answer: Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known throughout the world as Mahatma Gandhi, was shot three times by a Hindu extremist while he was walking to a prayer meeting.
Gandhi was the pioneer of "satyagrapha" a philosophy of non-violent resistance.
In 2007, the United General Assembly voted that October 2nd, which was Gandhi's birth-date, should be commemorated every year as International Day of Non-Violence in his honour.