A Potpourri of History Trivia Quiz

Answer: He drank poison

Socrates died by drinking hemlock which was his choice of death. Socrates died because of his unbelief in the Athenian gods.

Answer: French novelist

Marcel Proust was a French novelist in the twentieth century. His most famous work was "A la recherche du temps perdu" (now generally translated as "In Search of Lost Time", but previously as "A Remembrance of Things Past"). Proust was a member of the "Revisionists"*, a group of artists who supported Alfred Dreyfus during his imprisonment on Devil's Island for treason.

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*They called this because they wanted Dreyfus' conviction revised. In this context the word has nothing to do with what is called 'historical revisionism'.

Answer: Red Sunday

Bloody Sunday occurred on January 22, 1905 and began outside the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. A group of Russian workers gathered outside of the Winter Palace in what was at first a peaceful workers' demonstration. When the Russian workers were denied access to the main grounds of the Winter Palace, the Russian workers took on a mob mentality and the Russian soldiers at the Winter Palace felt forced to open fire on the crowd. Close to 150 men, women and children were found dead in the aftermath.

Answer: Pennsylvania

The nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania began on March 28, 1979. At 4 am, an overheated reactor shut down automatically. At 4:38, radiation released itself through a valve that was accidentally left open. At 6:50, the radiation that released itself entered the atmosphere and a general emergency was declared. On March 30, the governor of Pennsylvania called for an evacuation of 144,000 people as a hydrogen bubble grew larger inside the nuclear facility. On April 1, 1979, the hydrogen bubble that could have caused a massive explosion decreased in size just as President Carter visited the facility.

Answer: Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer who worked for the same Spanish company that built the ships for two of Christopher Columbus's voyages. Amerigo was able to go on several voyages of discovery. He is said to have been the first explorer who came to the conclusion that America was a continent in its own right and not the "Spice Islands" or some other remote part of Asia.

A geographer writing about his travels credited Vespucci with finding a "New World" and suggested the land be named after him.

Answer: The length of his rule after his return from exile in Elba

Having been defeated by his European enemies, Napoleon was sent into exile in 1814 on the island of Elba. He left Elba a short time later after hearing about the problems that were arising after his exile. For one hundred days Napoleon was again the ruler of France until he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. Upon this defeat Napoleon was sent to the remote island of St.

Helena until he died in 1821.

Answer: March

On March 15, 44 BC, Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Senate House at Rome. Caesar's killers believed that he was becoming more powerful in Rome than they were and that he needed to be eliminated. Marc Antony had Caesar's killers thrown out of Rome.

Answer: NBC

NBC was founded by David Sarnoff on November 11, 1926. The National Broadcasting Center was developed as a way to get people to buy radios. Sarnoff took NBC to the New York World's Fair in 1939. CBS was the second network created and ABC was the third network created.

Answer: King John

The Magna Carta was a sixty-three paragraph document drawn up by English barons because King John abused his power as king. The main purpose of the document was the preservation of the privileges of the aristocracy and the Church, but it also contained some clauses that guaranteed due process of law to free men, including the right to trial by jury.

It also established the principle that the king was subject to the laws. (It is these clauses that were stressed from c. 1600 onwards). King John was forced to accept Magna Carta on June 12, 1215 at Runnymede after he was forcibly stopped on his return from France. King John went to Pope Innocent III to appeal against the Magna Carta but died before the appeal process could go through.

Answer: Surgery

Ambroise Paré (1510-1590) was an apprentice to a barber-surgeon when he entered the Hotel Dieu in Paris at age 19 study surgery. After leaving the army as a surgeon, Ambroise Paré became personal physician to four French kings.