Remember September Trivia Quiz

Answer: September 2, 1945

There are two dates celebrated as VJ (Victory over Japan) Day. The first is 15 August, 1945 when US President Truman proclaimed to the crowd gathered outside the White House: "This is the day we have been waiting for since Pearl Harbor". This came about as a result of Japan fully agreeing to comply with the Potsdam Declaration and agreeing to an unconditional surrender. Across the Atlantic, British Prime Minister Clement Atlee confirmed that "the last of our enemies has been laid low". In Japan, Emperor Hirohito blamed their surrender on the use of "a new and most cruel bomb".

The second VJ Day is September 2, 1945, when the Japanese administration, under General Koiso Kuniacki, signed the "Instrument of Surrender", prepared by the War Department and approved by President Harry S. Truman, to officially end hostilities. This signing took place on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Answer: September 5-6, 1972

It was the attack that shook the world. After the propaganda fueled Games of Berlin in 1936, the Munich Games of 1972 were meant to shine a new and positive light on Germany. They were labelled the "Cheerful Games", but at 4:00 am on September 5, in the city calling itself "Radiant Munich", eight members of the Black September terrorist group, dressed in track suits, bearing machine guns and grenades, jumped the fence of the Olympic Village. Their mission was to hold the Israeli athletes hostage while demanding the release of 234 prisoners being held in Israel, along with two Baader-Meinhof terror cell leaders.

Twenty hours later, their mission was a failure and five of their members were dead. Sadly, so too were eleven Israeli athletes and a West German police officer. If the western world had not been awake to the threat of terrorism prior to Munich... it certainly was after this event.

Answer: September 25, 1513

By the end of 1511 Vasco Nunez de Balboa was in Panama and had worked his way into being named the governor of Darien. With this authority he organized a series of slave and gold hunting expeditions within the area, however, he wasn't exactly the nicest of people in these events. If he didn't get his way with simple bartering, he resorted to torture, employed divide and conquer tactics and would set his terrible war dogs loose among the locals in his bid to win bargains or extract information.

The pearl that he'd gleaned from this was that "to the south" lay a sea with untold riches, however, it would take a force of a thousand men for this conquest to be achieved. An excited Balboa sent word to King Ferdinand II who agreed to send an armada but informed Balboa that he, Balboa, would not be allowed to lead the expedition. This put Balboa's nose out of joint, so he didn't wait for the armada and set off to cross the Isthmus of Panama with a force of 190 men. On September 25, 1513 he found himself standing on a peak in Darien from which he first laid eyes on the Pacific Ocean. He named it the Mar del Sur and claimed it and the surrounding lands for Spain.

Answer: September 12, 1990

The Berlin Wall was torn down on November 9, 1989 and, whilst it is seen as the event that signified the end of the Cold War, it provided no guarantee that it would lead to a unified Germany. In the words of Stephen J. Hadley, the Chairperson of the US Institute of Peace Board, "Reunification took a tremendous amount of diplomacy, strong international partnerships and deft political maneuvering. To many of the people closest to the process, it was nothing short of a miracle".

Here's a simplistic chain of events that ultimately led to the reunification:
- 28 November, 1989, a little over two weeks after the Berlin Wall came down, West German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, outlined his Ten Point Program to expand co-operation toward reunification.
- 18 May, 1990, a treaty agreeing on monetary, economic and social reunification was signed.
- 12 September, 1990, the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (the focus of this question), better known as the Two and Four Agreement was executed.
- 3 October, 1990, The Unification Treaty came into force.

Answer: September 3, 1783

The Revolutionary War was fought between Great Britain and the American colonies. The signing of the treaty would formally recognize the United States of America as an independent nation. The American Revolution, which is also known as the American War of Independence, had run from 1775 through to 1783.

Whilst the US and Britain were the main belligerents, the conflict could almost be seen as a World War as the conflict was also attended by some of the most powerful nations on Earth at the time. Those included France, Spain and the Netherlands.

Answer: September 15, 1890

Called the "Queen of Crime", a sobriquet that was trademarked by her estate, Agatha Christie was born to wealthy upper-middle class parents in Devon. She would endure a series of rejections before "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" (1920), which introduced her famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, was published, launching a career that spanned 66 novels and 14 collections of short stories.

She acquired extensive knowledge of poisons while working in dispensaries during both World Wars and gathered archeological experience whilst accompanying her second husband around the globe on digs. All of these found their way into a number of her stories. In all, Christie would sell in excess of 100 million copies of her works, would have over 30 feature films adapted from her novels and would become the inaugural recipient of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Masters Award (1955).

Answer: September 4, 1781

After setting out from the Mission San Gabriel, in what is present day Mexico, twenty two men and women, along with twenty two children, arrived at and founded the site christened El Pueblo de la Reyna de Los Angeles, alongside the Los Angeles River on the above date.

At that point in time this territory was not a part of the United States but belonged to Mexico. The territory was taken by US forces during the Mexican War in 1846 and incorporated as the City of Los Angeles in April of 1850.

Answer: September 8, 1900

The hurricane that hit Galveston, with devastating effect, on this day was registered as a category four event on the Saffir-Simpson scale. It was first detected in August as a front that developed into a tropical storm crossing Cuba, and it continued to intensify significantly as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico.

Warnings were issued but these seemed to have been ignored and the 40,000 that inhabited Galveston were smashed. Many homes and businesses were demolished but that wasn't the worst of it... it was officially estimated that in excess of 8,000 people lost their lives that day and that another estimated 4,000 may have died as a consequence later. For the record, a category four hurricane will have winds reaching speeds of 130 to 156 miles per hour.

Answer: September 16, 1620

The Mayflower was a three mast ship that originally set sail from Rotherhithe (London) mid July 1620 with 65 Puritans, Separatists and crew. It was traveling to Southampton where it would partner the ship the Speedwell, which was carrying further Separatists from Leiden in Holland. The Speedwell didn't live up to its name, springing a leak and forcing the expedition to stop at Dartmouth for repairs. The next attempt did not fare much better with the Speedwell starting to leak again, once the ships had passed Lands End, forcing them to stop at Plymouth.

By September 16 provisions were starting to run low so the decision was made to abandon the Speedwell and allow the Mayflower to set sail across the Atlantic, bearing all 102 passengers. On November 19 they sighted the land that is now known as Cape Cod and realized that they were a fair way north of their intended destination in Virginia. At this point, strong and high seas made that journey impossible, forcing the ship to land at Cape Cod. The journey from Plymouth would see two of the passengers pass away, but this was a far cry of what lay ahead. More than half the party would lose their lives in the harsh winter that was to follow.

Answer: September 19, 1893

In New Zealand, universal suffrage for Maori males was introduced in 1867 and all other men by the year 1879. Women remained excluded on the basis that only men were built for the "rough and tumble" world of politics.

The establishment of the WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union) in New Zealand gave women's suffrage the impetus that it badly needed. Led by Kate Sheppard, she presented the New Zealand parliament with a series of huge petitions to foster their cause. In 1891 this amounted to a petition of some 9,000 signatures. The following year they presented the assembly with another, this one bearing 20,000 signatures. However, it was their 1893 petition, bearing 32,000 signatories, almost a quarter of the adult European population in the country, that turned the tide.

Despite strong lobbying from the anti-suffrage campaigners, particularly those from the liquor industry, a bill was passed on September 8, 1893 by the small margin of 20 votes to 18. Eleven days later, on September 19, Lord Glasgow signed the bill into law, making New Zealand the first self-governing country to allow women to vote in parliamentary elections.

When you stop and consider that most other democracies, including the USA and Great Britain, did not cede to this right for women until after World War I, this proved to be an extremely progressive move from the small southern nation. The fight for women in New Zealand, however, did not end with the passing of the bill. It would take them another 26 years (1919) before they earned the right to stand for parliamentary election and it wouldn't be until 1933 that Elizabeth McCombs became the first female Member of Parliament in New Zealand.