Bizarre British History Trivia Quiz

Answer: Use them as toilet paper

The Reformation has been compared to the Cultural Revolution in China. Almost every wall painting and statue in England's churches were destroyed. Not surprisingly, these arts took a long time to recover and is one reason why literature emerged as the country's greatest cultural achievement. Perhaps the terrible desecration of these manuscripts was all part of the general purging of the visual arts.

Answer: When they tried to squeeze him into the sarcophagous his body was too fat and burst

The corpulent monarch's funeral was on 9th September 1087.

Answer: Winston Churchill

He also had his own private underground bomb shelter and was a proficient bricklayer (he was a union member). The underwear was to give relief from a skin disease, he also suffered from depression. Apart from playing a not insignificant role in the defeat of Fascism in Europe he painted and was a gifted writer and orator.

Answer: Opium

Britain produced huge amounts of opium in India. Aggressive promotion by the British produced an enormous increase of addiction in India and then China. Britain fought two wars with China to protect its drug trafficking. Although initially used medicinally in the 19th century, the recreational use of opium rapidly spread through the population and was available without restriction.

The police apparently preferred opium addicts to drunkards as they were less troublesome. So opium was the opiate of the masses, after all ...

Heroin was also easily available from any chemist. Genteel ladies would often brighten up afternoon tea with this narcotic. Further information: BBC History website.

Answer: Richard Burton

The lost manuscipt ( "The Scented Garden, Men's Hearts to Gladden") was something he had been working on for the last 10 years of his life and apparently made his previous erotic publications (including his translation of the "Kama Sutra") look like "Mary Poppins" ... so her actions are perhaps understandable.

Answer: Charles Babbage

Street musicians were the human "ghetto-blasters" of their day. If you imagine a bad violinist scratching away every day outside your front door until you had to pay him to go away it could drive us all to Parliament ! His second mechanical "computer" was only partly finished as the British Government were too shocked at the amount of their money he spent making it and ceased further funding. Britain has a long history of frustrating its creative genius.

In the 1970's the (then) General Post Office built the world's first digital 'phone system.

It had problems and research was abandoned. It has been calculated that if a little more persistance had been shown Britain would be at least 50% wealthier than it is today...

Answer: She did not believe that women did such things

As a constitutional monarch, she had no power to refuse to give her royal consent. The fact of the matter is that it was MPs who refused to believe that some women 'do such things' - and many who did not found the subject just too embarrassing to discuss.

Answer: Arabic was not taught for another 150 years.

This was "The Adams Professorship of Arabic". The money was used to pay various "professors" to do whatever they liked, frequently nothing. Newton occupied a similar meaningless chair - "The Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics" - but his spare-time activities were a little more important.

Answer: They were used to line baking tins for pies

The carefree cook in question was employed by one John Warburton. Four unprinted plays by Richard Ford, including "A Bad Beginning Makes A Good End" (first performed around 1612) met a very bad end this way. Further details may be found in "The Bakings of Betsy" by Sir Walter Greg.

Answer: A third

Her namesake was very fond of watching bear-baiting.