Where Was That? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Ethiopia

The name Abyssinia has been in use all the way from the early times until the 1930s. Another thing to notice is that slavery remained present in Abyssinia remarkably long. Only in 1931 did emperor Haile Selassie formally abolish it.

Answer: Northern Africa

The Barbary pirates were feared by western sailors for centuries, capturing them to be sold as slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Most of it was formally part of the Ottoman Empire, but the local governors, such as the pasha of Algiers and the beys of Tripoli and Tunis, were often de facto almost independent. Nowadays the region is divided between Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.

Answer: Czech Republic

More precisely it's the western two thirds of contemporary Czech Republic, the remainder being Moravia. It was an independent country from the ninth century until the sixteenth, when archduke Ferdinand of Austria took over the crown of king of Bohemia as well.

Answer: China

Cathay was the name that Marco Polo gave to the China he visited, then under the Mongolian Yüan dynasty. When later European explorers sailed the seas to Asia, Cathay was one of their main goals. However, when they did find China, they did not realize that this was Cathay - some thought it was, but others thought Cathay was another country, probably further north.

To resolve the issue, a Jesuit called Bento de Goes travelled from India through Central Asia to Cathay. He died of illness in Suzhou, but that was far enough to positively decide the equality of Cathay and China.

Answer: Romania

Dacia was the last main conquest of the Romans, by emperor Trajan in 101-106. Before that, it was an independent kingdom, stretching from the Tisza to the Danube, and thus including modern-day Romania and Moldova, as well as smaller parts of the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Hungary. Roman Dacia was somewhat smaller, with Moldavia and a number of border regions remaining independent.

Roman Dacia was thoroughly romanized, which can still be seen from the fact that Romanian is a Roman language, unlike other languages from the South-East of Europe. Around 260 the Romans left Dacia, withdrawing their troops to Pannonia (Hungary) or the Danube border.

Answer: Tanzania

As the name says, German East Africa was a German colony. After World War I, Germany lost all its colonies. The bigger part of the colony became a British protectorate under the name of Tanganyika. Tanganyika got its independence in 1961, and in 1964 joined with Zanzibar to form Tanzania.

The remainder of German East Africa became the Belgian protectorate of Ruanda-Urundi, and in 1962 got independence as the two countries of Rwanda and Burundi.

Answer: Ghana

The coast of Guinea in the 16th to early 18th centuries was divided in a number of coasts, named after their main products. The Ivory Coast is still known as Cote d'Ivoire, the Pepper Coast is now Liberia and the Slave Coast contained Togo, Benin and southwestern Nigeria.

At various times there were Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish and even Brandenburg colonies on the Gold Coast, but from 1871 the whole region was British. In 1957 the area gained independence as the state of Ghana, the first of a long row of African countries to gain independence in the following years.

Answer: Greenland

Gunnbjörn Ulfsson around 930 during a voyage from Norway to Iceland was blown off course, and found some skerries (rocky islands) off the coast of Greenland. Greenland, up to then unknown, was therefore known as Gunnbjörn's Skerries until Eric the Red named it Greenland around 980.

Answer: Marianas

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese sailor, who in Spanish service organized the first voyage around the world, in 1519-1522 (although he himself died on the Philippines in 1521). He landed on the southernmost island, Guam, and named the islands "Islas de los Ladrones" (Spanish for "islands of the thieves") because the inhabitants stole many objects from his ships. Still, he must have been happy to arrive there, because he could get fresh food and drinking water for the first time after several months at sea crossing the Pacific.

Answer: Portugal

Lusitania was a Roman province, comprising most of present-day Portugal (the northern part around Braga formed the province of Tarragonensis together with the greater part of present-day Spain) as well as the Spanish autonomous community of Extremadura. The Lusitanians had fought against Rome with the Carthaginians, but later were forced to sign a peace treaty. In 155 BC they revolted, and it cost the Romans a long and bloody war to subdue the Lusitanians, who used guerilla tactics. Only in 139 BC the area was pacified again. It was emperor Augustus who created a province Lusitania, which remained until 298 AD, when it was united with the Spanish provinces into a single province.

The name Lusitania later returned to the forefront of history in 1915, when the ocean liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat (submarine). The action caused a large anti-German sentiment in the United States, setting the country on the path to take part in World War I.

Answer: Southern Italy

For many centuries the Greeks had established colonies in various places around the Mediterranean and Black Sea, but in the seventh and sixth centuries BC so many colonies were established in Sicily and southern Italy that the area can be said to have become a Greek area, and was therefore called Megale Hellas (Greater Greece) in Greek; Magna Graecia is the Latin translation of this.

Italian cities that started out as Greek colonies include Naples, Syracuse, Taranto and Bari.

Answer: Labrador

Around 986, viking Bjarni Herjólfsson travelled back to his native Iceland for the Winter from Norway. Arriving in Iceland, he found that his parents had left to colonize Greenland with Eric the Red. Bjarni followed them, but got off course and saw North America.

Some time later (circa 1001) Leif Ericsson, the son of Eric the Red, decided to colonize the area. He first found a land he called Helluland (land of the flat stones), then farther south Markland (woodland) and yet farther south Vinland (Wineland). He attempted to colonize the latter, but soon decided to return to Greenland. Vinland is currently believed to have been Newfoundland (although there are also still experts who believe it was farther south, in Nova Scotia or New England), Markland must have been Labrador, and Helluland Baffinland and northern Labrador. Markland remained a source of wood for the Greenland settlers for a significant period of time even after the attempts to colonize Vinland had ceased, because no wood could be found in Greenland itself.

Answer: Canada

New France consisted of the French colonies in North America. It comprised the area around the Saint Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and at its highpoint also the whole Mississippi basin. It came into being by the travels of Jacques Cartier, who discovered and explored the St. Lawrence in 1534.

The colonization of the area started in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, after which both fur traders and missionaries quickly expanded the French sphere of influence. New France ceased to exist in the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Canada and the area east of the Mississippi fell to the United Kingdom, the land west of that river to Spain.

Answer: Australia

From about 1615 Dutch sailors sailing to the East Indies (Indonesia) took a route going south from South Africa until they reached the 'roaring forties', a region with year long west winds, then turn west until they reached the latitude of Java, only then turning north to get to their destination. However, in those times latitude determinations at sea were still wildly imprecise at best, and so some ships sailed too far east, where they came upon an up to then unknown landmass - Australia. Throughout the seventeenth century the Dutch explored most of the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia, but found nothing of their interest, so made no attempts at colonization.

New York State, for those who gave that answer, was called New Netherlands, not New Holland.

Answer: Mexico

New Spain became a Spanish colony in 1521, through the conquest of the Aztec Empire by Hernan Cortes. In 1535 the governor of the colony was granted the title of viceroy. New Spain would remain a viceroyalty until 1821, when it declared its independence as the Empire of Mexico. Apart from Mexico itself, central America up to Nicaragua and the Spanish possessions in what is now the United States (Florida and New Mexico, later also California and Texas) were part of New Spain.

Answer: California

The British pirate Sir Francis Drake in 1577-1580 circumnavigated the world. During this exploit, in 1579, he landed on the west coast of North America (most likely in California) and claimed the land under the name of Nova Albion; Albion (the white) is a nickname for England, after the white rocks of Dover.

It is most often assumed that Drake's landing place was at what is now Drake's Bay, California, north of San Francisco, but other places in California and Oregon have also been suggested.

Answer: Sudan

Nubia comprises the northern part of Sudan and a piece of southern Egypt, roughly the region around the Nile River between Aswan and Khartoum. Here one of the oldest civilizations of black Africa sprang up. Various pharaohs are believed to have been fully or partly Nubian, and the twenty-fifth dynasty (760-656 BC) is even known as the 'Nubian dynasty'.

Answer: Iran

Parthia is originally the northeastern part of Iran, but in 247 BC the Arpacid dynasty was established, which went on to control all of Persia as well as surrounding areas. The Parthian Empire can be considered the main enemy of imperial Rome in its heyday, the main areas disputed between the two being Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Armenia.

In the early third century AD internal opposition got stronger, and the Parthian Empire was destroyed in 224, to be succeeded by the Sassanids as the ruling dynasty in Persia.

Answer: Canada

In 1670, the Hudson Bay Company was founded. King Charles II also granted it possession of all lands draining into the Hudson Bay. This is the area named Rupert's Land, after Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, the king's cousin and the Hudson Bay Company's first governor.

The area would remain in possession of the company for another 200 years, until in 1870 it was sold to the newly proclaimed Dominion of Canada.

Answer: China

To the Romans, China was known by two names: Seres as the end of the Silk Road, Sina as the end of the sea route. Although they used different names, they probably did know it was the same country.

Answer: Thailand

Thai history begins in the 12th century when the country liberated itself from the Khmer. It was governed by a dynasty from the city of Ayutthaya from the 14th century to 1767, when the empire was destroyed by the Burmese. In 1782 the Chakri Dynasty took power. In 1939 the country's name was changed from Siam to "Prathet thai", which means "the Thai nation" and was translated into English as "Thailand". The new name showed pride in the fact that Thailand was the only country in South East Asia that was not conquered by the colonial powers.

Answer: Moluccas

In the 15th and 16th centuries European sailors sought their way to Asia, and apart from Cathay, another important goal was the "Spice Islands". Spiceries were important in those days, because meat and other foods were often not kept well, but also very expensive, sometimes worth its weight in gold or war.

Although various spices came from different areas, pepper for example from India, the richest source of spices (in particular cloves and nutmeg) were the Moluccas and Banda Islands in Indonesia, and it is those that are considered to have been the Spice Islands.

Answer: Labrador

Gaspar and Miguel Corte-Real were two Portuguese brothers. Their father, João Vaz Corte-Real may have visited Greenland on a Danish expedition around 1474. Gaspar Corte-Real made a voyage to Greenland in 1500, and again in 1501. On this voyage, he changed course and reached the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland. From Newfoundland, Miguel returned to Portugal. Gaspar returned along the American coast, but did not return.

In 1502, Miguel went back to America to search for his brother, but he too did not return.

Answer: Cornwall

The people from Tartessos, a great trading city in southern Spain, and later those from Carthage, became rich by trading tin from the Tin Islands to the Mediterranean, where it was used for the production of bronze. The area denoted by this 'Tin Islands' has been theorized to have been Cornwall, although there is not a consensus among scholars.

Answer: Hokkaido

Hokkaido now is the northernmost island of Japan, but in the time the name Yeso (or Ezo) was used, it was not part of it or any other large country, being inhabited by the enigmatic Ainu. From the 15th century onward, Yeso came under Japanese feudal rule.