Leaders of the Guild Quiz | World Leaders

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What long time reigning leader of Britain disliked children but eventually gave birth to nine of them?

Answer: Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria was born in Kensington Palace London on 24 May 1819 and died on 22 January 1901. After her uncle William IV died in 1837 she became the Queen of England and reigned for 63 years until her death in 1901. Victoria disliked children but had nine of her own who went on to produce 37 great-grandchildren. Even though Victoria was a strong and stubborn woman, she was dependent on the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne to help her with her decisions. When she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg in 1840 he became her main advisor on decision making.

This question has been crafted by Soozy_Woozy.

2. After serving his people for over 30 years, Mao Zedong is considered one of the most controversial figures to ever rule a country. His methods were often seen as inhumane, but yet strategic. One such strategy was to turn the agricultural sector of mainland China into a booming industrialized communist society. What was this period in China's history known as?

Answer: Great Leap Forward

The Great Leap Forward was scheduled to be a "five-year plan" to try and improve China's industrial sector. It is generally referred to as the period from 1958-1963 in China's history. By many humanitarian organizations, this period is seen as one of the most disastrous in world history. Two key industries, grain production and steel production, were used as the basis for this industrial improvement. Steel production particularly, was expected to double within 15 years of the Great Leap Forward and surpass that of western societies such as Great Britain.

Communal kitchens were set up all over China for equality purposes. Unfortunately, climatic conditions did not cooperate and agricultural production became a disaster. Families were unable to make a profit through the use of "agricultural cooperative". As a result, the communal kitchens failed and famine spread out in various parts of China leading the outside world to refer to this period as the "Giant Step Back". It is estimated that anywhere from 15-40 million people perished during the famine.

This question has been brought to you by apathy100.

3. Long regimes are not confined to monarchies and dictatorships; modern Western democracies can have them too. Which Canadian province had only one change of ruling party between 1935 and the end of the twentieth century (and well into the twenty-first)?

Answer: Alberta

I guess Albertans just know what they like!

The Social Credit Party gained power in 1935, and kept a firm hold, mostly under the leadership of Ernest Manning, who became party leader in 1943. After his retirement in 1968, the party started slipping, and in 1971 the Progressive Conservatives stormed into the Legislature.

The Tories have been firmly in charge, ever since. On March 3, 2008, they won their eleventh consecutive majority government, after 37 years in power.

This interesting tidbit has been researched and presented by agony.

4. By the time he died at 87 years old. he had become the longest-ruling leader of his country. He stood only 5' 5" tall and was interested in Marine Biology. Who was this leader, who ruled his country for over 60 years?

Answer: Emperor Hirohito

Hirohito was the first Japanese Crown Price to travel to the West, during which time he met King George V in Britain. Following Japan's surrender in 1945, Hirohito relinquished his God-King status. He published works on his great love, marine biology. Something else you may not know about Hirohito is that, following a visit to the USA in 1975, he wore a Mickey Mouse watch!

Quiz_Beagle has presented you with this interesting historical fact.

5. It's easy to think that an unusually long reign should correspond to an unusually stable time, but this is not always the case. Pepi II Neferkare, a Sixth Dynasty Egyptian pharaoh, is said to have ruled for an incredible 94 years -- but the length of his reign may have contributed to the downfall of the Old Kingdom. Which of these problems characterized his reign?

Answer: The Egyptian government became less centralized, with power devolving to regional nomarchs.

Pepi II ruled the Old Kingdom of Egypt from about 2278 BC until about 2184 BC (although some scholars put his death at a somewhat less exceptional 30 years earlier). The son of Merenre I, he became pharaoh at the age of six.

A reign of such length can be destructive to politics and to culture. Given the lack of state funerals and pyramids during Pepi II's reign, some Egyptologists believe that the skills of Egypt's artisans and engineers were lost to future generations. There was also little turnover in the central bureaucracy, and few chances for fresh ideas. Power and privileges were increasingly given to regional governors called nomarchs. Pepi even split the central administration into separate branches for Upper and Lower Egypt -- beginning to undo the unification that had been his ancestors' crowning achievement a thousand years before. Though this process had begun before Pepi's succession, his actions -- and the lack of a strong successor after 94 years of rule by one man -- hastened the demise of Egypt's Old Kingdom.

This step back into history has been selected and crafted by CellarDoor.

6. He was the longest running monarch of Judea - 55 years (est. 697BC-642BC). No king of Israel reigned longer either. He went astray from his father's good ways, allowing paganism in the Temple. He is said to have repented after being taken captive by the Assyrians. Who was he?

Answer: Menashe (son of Hezekiah)

Although his reign was the longest, relatively little is told or known about Menashe. At the age of 12, he inherited his father's (Hezekiah) throne, and reversed his religious reforms: "For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal..." (2 Kings 21:3). 2 Chronicles 33 tells the story of his capture by Assyrians, his release, and attempted repentance.

gentlegiant17 has provided you with this interesting insight into our historical past.

7. Sometimes, countries are ruled in fact by someone who does not have the title. Such a power behind the throne was this lady, who was first a royal concubine, then came to be the power behind the thrones of her son and her nephew. Who was this lady, known as the West Dowager Empress?

Answer: Cixi Taihou

The Dowager Empress Cixi was the real ruler of China from 1835 to 1908. She ruled with an iron fist, and may have been one of the causes of the downfall of Imperial China.

This question has been selected and designed by ertrum.

8. The longest reigning monarch in European history was King Louis XIV of France, who occupied the throne for 72 years from 1643 to 1715. He was succeeded by Louis XV. What was Louis XV's relationship to his predecessor?

Answer: great-grandson

Louis XIV was born in 1638, in the twenty-third year of his father Louis XIII's marriage to Anne of Austria. He succeeded to the throne before he was five years old. Officially he came of age on his thirteenth birthday, but the kingdom continued to be effectively governed for some years by his mother and her chief minister Cardinal Mazarin.

Louis XIV's eldest son, known as the Grand Dauphin, was born in 1661 and died in his fiftieth year. The Grand Dauphin's eldest son. Louis Duke of Burgundy, died less than a year later at the age of thirty, with one of his three sons outliving him. So, when the King died in 1714, the throne passed to his four-year-old great-grandson, who became Louis XV.

Louis XV also managed to outlive his eldest son, dying at the age of 64 and leaving the throne to his grandson. Thus these two successive kings of France had reigns spanning a total of 131 years (all but four days).

TabbyTom has time warped into the past to provide you with a little bit of French history.

9. Teodoro Obiang has been president of Equatorial Guinea since August 1979 when he deposed Francisco Macias in a coup d'etat. In 2004, Obiang became the target of a coup himself when he announced that a group of foreign nationals were conspiring to overthrow him. Which son of a former foreign political leader was arrested in connection with this coup?

Answer: Mark Thatcher

Despite having stated that he was a god and had the right "to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell", Obiang is considered to be significantly more benign as a dictator than his predecessor.

The recent discovery of oil in Equatorial Guinea was reckoned to have been a prime motivation for the attempted coup. Obiang claimed that it was sponsored by the intelligence services of the UK, US and Spain with the purpose of installing the exiled leader of the opposition, Severo Moto Nsa, as president in return for preferential oil rights in the country.

Thatcher, the only son of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was arrested in South Africa under the Foreign Military Assistance Act on the charge of providing financial and logistical assistance to the coup. Whilst proclaiming his innocence of the charges brought against him - he stated that he was merely funding an air ambulance project - he ultimately accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to the charge of investing in an aircraft without investigation into what its future use would be. He received a considerable fine and a four-year suspended jail sentence.

Despite the attempted coup, at the beginning of 2008, Obiang was still President of Equatorial Guinea. It is reported however that he is suffering from terminal cancer and has already paved the way for the presidency to be taken over by his son.

Snowman has provided you with this terrifying bit of information.

10. The Mutiny on the Bounty, as you may know, was led by Fletcher Christian against Captain William Bligh. The survivors settled on tiny Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific and set up a tiny micronation. Though Fletcher Christian was the first leader of this island nation, he died young. His son and grandson both turned out to be very influential leaders, one of which ran for mayor several different times. What unusual name did they share?

Answer: Thursday October Christian

Thursday October Christian, the son of Fletcher, was the first child born on Pitcairn Island. He was given the name because he was born on a Thursday in October and supposedly because Fletcher wanted a name that would in no way remind him of England.

When British soldiers finally discovered the island while searching for the mutineers, only one mutineer was still alive (John Adams). Thursday, then twenty-four years old, rowed out to the ships and met the sailors, who were so struck by how well-spoken and literate he was that it was decided to allow the society to continue to develop on its own rather than to prosecute the one surviving mutineer. He led the island from Adams' death in 1829 until his own death in 1831 in Tahiti while trying to find a less isolated location for the population to relocate.

His son, Thursday II, was the magistrate (mayor) of Pitcairn seven times. Like his father, he also attempted to find a less isolated place for the Pitcairners to live. Unlike his father, he succeeded, as the entire colony relocated to Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia in 1856. Pitcairn remained uninhabited until he returned with several others in 1864. Both locations today are inhabited primarily by descendants of Bounty mutineers.

This final guild question has been carefully selected by Eauhomme.

Source: Author apathy100

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor trident before going online.
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Leaders of the Guild Trivia Quiz

Years and years in power. Good and bad regimes. The Quiz Maker's Guild has created an interesting look into the world of long-time political reigns. Step into the realm of the good, the bad, and the ugly!

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