Every Hundred Years Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1800

Although the acts came into effect on 1 January 1801, the date the Acts of Union were formally approved is 1 August 1800. The acts remain in force in the United Kingdom, but they have been repealed by the Republic of Ireland. The flag that the United Kingdom still uses today was created in 1800 thanks to this union, with the previous Flag of Great Britain adding the Saint Patrick's Saltire (a red cross on a white field) to create its present design.

Amongst the fascinating people born in the year 1800 are: Ányos Jedlik, Hungarian engineer who invented the dynamo; James Black, American bladesmith known for his improvements on the Bowie knife; and Charles Goodyear, American inventor who developed vulcanized rubber.

Answer: 1300

The Turku Cathedral was built in the late 13th century when the Bishop's see of the Diocese of Finland was transferred to Turku thanks to the town's becoming a major center of trade. It was dedicated as Finland's main cathedral on 17 June 1300. Expansions to the cathedral in the 1300s and 1400s mainly involved stone as the material of construction. The reliquary tomb of Bishop Hemming of Turku, who died in 1366, is located in one such expansionary side-chapel. Karin Mansdotter, Queen consort to King Eric XIV of Sweden, is also buried in the Turku Cathedral.

Some famous and/or interesting people born in the year 1300 include: Swiss historian John of Winterthur, Italian painter and architect Taddeo Gaddi, and Jeanne de Clisson, a Breton noblewoman who resorted to privateering to avenge her executed husband.

Answer: 2000

Slobodan Miloseviæ was president of Serbia from 1991 until 1997, and president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 until 2000. In 1999, Miloseviæ achieved the ignominious distinction of becoming the first sitting head of state to be charged with war crimes. The indictment against Miloseviæ included 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes that were committed in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo in the 1990s. Slobodan Miloseviæ died of a heart attack in his prison cell at the UN war crimes detention center in The Hague, Netherlands, before the trial finished.

2000 happened to be the birth year of: Willow Smith, American singer/actress and daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith; Gunay Mammadzada, Azerbaijani chess International Master and Woman's Grandmaster; and Noah Cyrus, American singer, younger sister of Miley Cyrus.

Answer: 1200

The Plaquemine culture, a Mississippian culture variant located around the Mississippi River valley, is responsible for beginning construction of the village complex circa 1200 CE. The Natchez people, for whom the historic site is named, are the Native American people who used the site in the 17th and 18th centuries. Researchers named the group of mounds after the Fatherland Plantation, but French colonial records gave it the "Grand Village of the Natchez" name that honors the Natchez people.

Amongst the notable births in the year 1200 are: Japanese Buddhist priest Dogen Zenji, who founded the Soto Zen school; Alix, Duchess of Brittany, who ruled from 1203 until her death in 1221; and Dutch mystic/Flemish nun Beatrice of Nazareth.

Answer: 1400

Geoffrey Chaucer died on 25 October 1400 of unknown causes. He is buried in Westminster Abbey in London, the first writer to be buried in an area called Poets' Corner. Though unfinished, Geoffrey Chaucer's most famous work, "The Canterbury Tales", is a collection of 24 stories written mostly in verse, comprised of more than 17,000 lines. Chaucer's magnum opus was written in Middle English.

Other figures in history who shared Geoffrey Chaucer's year of death, 1400, include: Indian mathematician Narayana Pandit, who wrote a 1356 text anticipating future developments in combinatorics; Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey, 3rd Earl of Kent, who was executed on 7 January 1400; and John Montagu, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, executed for the same misfortune as Thomas Holland of being King Richard II's former councillor.

Answer: 1700

Charles XII assumed power as the King of Sweden at the young age of 15, and in 1700, three years into his reign, the alliance of Denmark-Norway, Saxony-Poland-Lithuania, and Russia launched an attack in an effort to take advantage of his youth and inexperience. Sweden was able to defend attacks on from all three adversaries at the start of the Great Northern War, leading to the Treaty of Altranstädt that forced Augustus the Strong to renounce his claim to the Polish throne and severed Poland's alliance with Russia. The coalition of Sweden's adversaries managed to revive their efforts, with Denmark-Norway invading Sweden from the west and Russia, having occupied Finland, invading from the east. Sweden was eventually defeated, and each of the three treaties Sweden signed to end the Great Northern War resulted in territory being ceded to the victors.

1700 was the birth year for: Daniel Bernoulli, the Dutch-born, Swiss mathematician who has a principle in fluid dynamics named after him; Stephen Bayard, the 39th Mayor of New York City; and Leopold II Maximilian, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau.

Answer: 1600

The East India Company was an English (later British) joint-stock company founded by John Watts and George White in the year 1600. In addition to ruling over areas of India, The Company also managed to colonize parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War. Although the East India Company exercised military and administrative control of India, it had frequent problems with its finances. Dissolution of the East India Company ensued in 1874, when the British Raj assumed control of its armies and government responsibilities.

A few people with 1600 as their birth year: Pope Clement IX, whose 2.5-year papacy began in 1667; Francis Bacon, an English politician who sat in the House of Commons (the Elizabethan philosopher Francis Bacon was born in 1561); and Maria Celeste, daughter of Galileo Galilei, who became a nun and chose her name in honor of the Virgin Mary and her father's adoration of astronomy.

Answer: 1500

Pedro Cabral's fleet of 13 ships made landfall in Brazil in April of 1500, believing at first they had landed on an island. Anchoring on 22 April, the week of Easter, Cabral christened the spot 'Easter Mount'. Cabral was able to claim this new land for the Portuguese Crown because it fell within the region demarcated by the Treaty of Tordesillas between Spain and Portugal in 1494.

Three people born in 1500 are: Portuguese mystic Solomon Molcho, who claimed to be a messiah and was burned at the stake; German scholar Joachim Camerarius, who translated several Greek writers into Latin and published more than 150 works; and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Answer: 1100

Henry I was born around 1068, and reigned as King of England from 1100 until his death in 1135. The fourth son of William the Conqueror, Henry I was left without land upon his father's death in 1087, his two elder brothers William Rufus and Robert Curthose inheriting land in England and Normandy. Henry was able to take the English throne when his brother William died in a hunting accident in the year 1100. Henry I married Matilda of Scotland and had two surviving children with her, as well as more than a dozen illegitimate children with several of his mistresses. Henry I famously died in 1135 after suffering from an illness undoubtedly caused by feasting on "a surfeit of lampreys" - a luxury he was known to enjoy.

Some noteworthy people born in the year 1100 include: Qin Zong (personal name Zhao Huan), the ninth emperor of the Song dynasty in China; Jabir ibn Aflah, an Arab astronomer and mathematician who invented an observational device called a torquetum that transferred between spherical coordinate systems; and Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst, conjoined twins known as the Biddenden Maids who died together when Mary passed away suddenly at the age of 34 and Eliza refused to be separated from her sister.

Answer: 1900

All normal matter emits electromagnetic radiation, and German theoretical physicist Max Planck described his thermal radiation formula that could measure it. Before Planck's contributions, physicists could not explain why observed spectrums of black-body defied their predicted theories. Planck's law resolved the prediction of classical physicists at the time called 'ultraviolet catastrophe', which involved a body at thermal equilibrium emitting more energy as frequency ranges increase.

Of those born in the year 1900, three of note include: Chinese animator Wan Laiming, American politician Adlai Stevenson, and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.