A Is for Abbas, Ferhat Trivia Quiz

Answer: Augustus

Gaius Octavius was born in 63 BC. His great-uncle Julius Caesar adopted him as his heir, for Caesar had no living legal progeny. (Caesar's only daughter died when giving birth to a child for her husband Pompey). From the time of his adoption, the later Augustus named himself Gaius Julius Caesar. Legally he could have added the name Octavian, which his contemporaries usually did, and historians used this cognomen (nickname). Likewise I'll name him Octavian until he prominently rose to power.

During the following years (44 BC - 27 BC) Octavian engaged in several civil wars, not only against the murderers of Caesar, but also against Octavian's former allies Sextus Pompeius (son of Pompey the Great), Lepidus and Mark Antony. During this period Octavian called himself Gaius Julius Caesar Divi Filius (son of the divine: the late Caesar had been declared a deity). After winning all these civil wars Octavian changed his name to Imperator (Emperor). Although this was an official title for the general commander of the Roman army, Octavian used it as a first name. In 27 BC the Senate granted Octavian the title of Augustus (translated: "He who has increased") and Princeps (translated: "The first and most important"). Augustus is since then the generally accepted name. Augustus died in 14 AD and was succeeded by Tiberius, his adopted son.

Answer: Agrippina, Julia

In 14 AD or 15 AD, Vipsania Agrippina (better known as Agrippina the Elder) gave birth to a daughter. This baby was called Julia Agrippina and is commonly known as Agrippina the Younger. Agrippina the Younger had three (elder) brothers and two (younger) sisters. In 28 she married Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, whom she gave in 37 their only child, Lucius. In 37, after the death of Emperor Tiberius, Julia Agrippina's only surviving sibling Gaius Caligula became Emperor. Agrippina (the Younger) was accused and condemned of a conspiracy to kill her brother the Emperor, and so she was exiled. When Caligula was indeed murdered, Agrippina's uncle Claudius became Emperor and Agrippina was allowed to return from exile. After Claudius' wife Messalina was executed for treason, Agrippina remarried her uncle Claudius. Then she struggled to have Claudius adopt her only child, Lucius, and appoint him as his successor. Lucius then took the name Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus.

When Claudius appeared to deplore having adopted Nero as his son and successor, Agrippina decided to take measures. Ancient sources state that she was responsible for having poisoned Claudius. So Agrippina saw her son Nero become Emperor in 54 AD. Behind the scenes, she tried to control the state's business. But after some incidents between mother and son, Nero decided to have Agrippina killed. Sources differ about the employed method and the reason, but fact is that Agrippina died a violent death in 58 AD.

Answer: Agincourt

Agincourt is the English spelling of the site known in modern French as Azincourt. This city in the north of France gave its name to one of the pivotal battles in the Hundred Years' War (1337 - 1453). A quite small English expedition force of armoured soldiers (heavy infantry or dismounted cavalry) and longbow archers awaited an attack from the French army. The French outnumbered the English, especially if one only takes into account the heavily armoured divisions. But the terrain was narrow and muddy, and so the French attack lacked manoeuvrability. The English archers fired at will, and the French attack was drowned in the mud.

The numbers of the colliding armies vary greatly according to different sources. There might have been about 1,000 to 1,500 English armoured soldiers and perhaps five times as many archers. Compared to this force of at most 9,000 - 10,000 English, there were at least 12,000 and maybe up to 36,000 French. The French armour bearers alone would have been as many as all the English soldiers (heavy infantry, cavalry and archers altogether). The outcome was clear: a few hundred English victims, many thousands of French victims, the remains of the French army fleeing wildly. But as the English King Henry V was keen upon returning home with his army, the Battle of Agincourt was not followed by English swift conquests.

Answer: Abelard, Pierre

Pierre Abelard was born near Nantes in 1079. He studied the liberal arts and soon began teaching philosophy and theology. In 1115 he fell in love with one of his pupils, Héloïse of Argenteuil. She bore him an illegitimate child, and the outcome of the affair was that Héloïse was forced to retreat in a nunnery, while Abelard was brutally attacked and castrated at the demand of Héloïse's father.

Abelard retired into a convent and died in 1142. One of his main teachings is that sin should be interpreted based upon the intention of the sinner, and not upon his concrete actions. So it is possible to sin by merely having sinful thoughts (for instance planning a crime, without taking the step to execution). Pope Innocent II found this to be too subjective, but later Popes have stressed the importance of Abelard's teachings.  

Answer: Atahualpa

Atahualpa was born around 1502. When his father Huayna Capac died in 1525, Atahualpa inherited the northern part of the great Inca Empire, and his brother Huascar inherited the south. Soon after Atahualpa and Huascar had an altercation, and a civil war broke out. Atahualpa defeated Huascar in 1531, and had him killed in 1533.

A Spanish delegation of about 200 conquistadores captured Atahualpa. The Franciscan friar in the Spanish delegation tried to convert Atahualpa to Christianity, but succeeded only in doing so after Atahualpa was condemned for idolatry. Because of his last minute conversion, Atahualpa was not burnt at the stake (the fate of heretics) but strangled.

Answer: Adams, John

John Adams was born in 1735 in Massachusetts. He studied law at Harvard and started a law firm. Adams was one of the driving forces for the Declaration of Independence. When Washington was unanimously chosen as President in 1789, Adams became his Vice-President, but they did not confer much. Adams won the 1796 election by a narrow margin and thus succeeded Washington as President.
During the Presidency of John Adams, there were some diplomatic incidents with France. Adams could avoid a declaration of war only at the last minute.
In the 1800 election, Adams was beaten by Thomas Jefferson. Adams then retired and went back to Massachusetts. John Adams died in 1826, on the Fourth of July - exactly fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Answer: Austerlitz

In 1805 Napoleon faced a coalition of Britain, Russia and Austria. After keeping watch over the Atlantic coast to stave off a possible British landing, Napoleon sent his troops swiftly into the Moravian region - close to the road to Vienna. The Russian and Austrian forces (about 85,000 strong) met the French army (about 75,000 strong) near Austerlitz, a small town some ten kilometres from the Czech city of Brno.

Napoleon feigned some weaknesses in his army, and the Russian - Austrian coalition blindly acted upon these fictive weaknesses. Then the French charged in full strength, routing the coalition army.Although numbers of war casualties are always only rough estimates, the difference was astounding. The French army lost about 9,000 soldiers, while the Russian - Austrian coalition counted about 36,000 victims. The Battle of Austerlitz is also known as the "Battle of the Three Emperors": forces led by the French Emperor Napoleon soundly defeated forces led by the Austrian Emperor Franz II and by the Russian Emperor Alexander I.

Answer: Alexandra Feodorovna

Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova was born as Alix of Hesse and by Rhine in 1872. In 1894 she married Nicholas, who at that moment was the Czar of Russia for just a week. She was not known to mingle easily with the Russian aristocracy. She did adopt the Russian Orthodox religion, but would not get used to the other Russian traditions. Alexandra gave birth to five children: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei.

When the first World War broke out, Czar Nicholas went to the front to command his armies, and Alexandra stayed in Moscow as a Regent. Having no political experience at all, she hired and fired ministers at random, and not because of their gubernatorial abilities. All this meddling with the government during wartime led to a very unstable situation, to which the fact that Alexandra was German (the enemy!) did no good, either. Finally the situation exploded at the Russian Revolution. The Czar and his family were imprisoned and in July 1918, they were shot to death.

Answer: Abbas, Ferhat

Ferhat Abbas (1899-1985) studied pharmaceutics at the university of Algiers and served in the French medical corps. When he entered politics, he was very much pro-French - as long as the French would grant equal rights to Algerian Muslims. During the Second World War, Abbas was disappointed by the French general Giroud, and he began steering towards full independency. Abbas became President of the Provisional Government of Algeria in 1958 and held this function until 1961. Algeria became independent in July 1962, and in September 1962 Abbas became President of the National Constituent Assembly of Algeria (a function equal to head of state and thus commonly indicated as "President of Algeria").

In 1963 he resigned and was succeeded by Ahmed Ben Bella, the first to hold officially the title of President of Algeria.Ferhat Abbas always condemned violence and used only diplomatic means to try and get what he thought was best for his country.

Answer: Adenauer, Konrad

Konrad Adenauer was born in 1876. He studied law and politics at Freiburg, Munich and Bonn. When he was called upon for army service, he did not pass the medical tests because of chronic breathing problems. Between 1917 and 1933, Adenauer was Mayor of Cologne. His political views were incompatible with Nazism, so from 1933 until 1945 he had to abandon public life and hide with generous friends. His pension came only off after a long trial.
In May 1945 the Americans reinstated Adenauer as Mayor of Cologne, but the British fired him at the end of the year. Adenauer then founded the CDU (Christlich Democratische Union), a central-right party.

In 1949 the first post-war elections were held in Germany. The CDU won the elections, and Adenuaer was elected Chancellor (a function similar to Prime Minister). It was the newly elected Bundesrat (parliament) that chose the Chancellor, and it did choose Adenauer by one single vote difference. Adenauer was keen upon making (West-) Germany a true ally of the European democracies such as France. He is considered one of the founding fathers of the European Union (at that time counting six members: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Italy). Adenauer was also one of the driving forces for the entry of Germany in the NATO. Adenauer retired as Chancellor in 1963 and died in 1967.