Fire When Ready, Gridley Trivia Quiz

Answer: Spanish-American War

Dewey, the only person ever to have risen to the US Navy's highest rank of Admiral of the Navy, commanded the American fleet from aboard the USS Olympia during the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. Charles Vernon Gridley was the captain of the Olympia, Dewey's flagship. Dewey's order to attack at first light led to the swift destruction of the Spanish fleet and the capture of Manila during the Spanish-American War. Only one life was lost on the American side. Of the alternatives, the Second Barbary War (or the Algerian War) was a conflict between American and the Ottoman Empire in 1815.

The Boxer Rebellion (or Yihetuan Movement) was a conflict between the imperialists of China's Qing Empire and the Western Powers between 1899 and 1901. The Border War (1910-19) was part of the Mexican Revolution.

Answer: 1830s

Open conflict between the Texan colonists and the Mexican government began with the Battle of Gonzales on October 2, 1835. Established in 1825, the small town of Gonzales was the first Anglo-American settlement to the west of the Colorado River in Texas.

The war ended a little more than six months later, with the decisive Battle of San Jacinto, fought on the outskirts of what is now Houston TX. The 900-strong Texian Army, led by General Sam Houston, defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican Army even though they were outnumbered by almost 3:2.

Some 630 Mexicans were killed whilst only nine of the Texians died. Houston himself was shot in the ankle and badly injured. Santa Anna, who was captured the next day, signed the Treaties of Velasco on May 14, 1836.

The first of these two treaties dealt with prisoner exchange and the second, and more significant, promised that Mexico would never fight the Texans again. Mexico, though, never did ratify the treaties, hence the Mexican-American War (1846-48) a decade later. By that time, though, (on December 29, 1845) Texas had been admitted to the Union as the 28th state.

Answer: Herefordshire

The Lancastrian army was commanded by Sir Owen Tudor and Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, nobles loyal to King Henry VI, his Queen Margaret of Anjou and the 7-year old Edward, Prince of Wales. Fought on the outskirts of the village of Wigmore in northern Herefordshire, the Battle of Mortimer's Cross resulted in a decisive victory for the Yorkists led by Edward, Earl of March.

Answer: 335 years

Also sometimes called the Sicilian Wars, the Greek-Punic Wars began in 600 BC and ended in 265 BC, a span of 335 years. They were fought across an area stretching from southern Italy to North Africa and encompassing the Mediterranean islands in between. The combatants were the Carthaginians from Tunisia on one side, and the Greek city states of Magna Graecia led by Syracuse on the other.
Despite more than three centuries of fighting, the wars ended in a virtual stalemate, with Carthage retaining the western third of Sicily and the Greeks keeping the eastern two-thirds is the island.

Answer: The Evacuation of Norway

The success of the Nazis' 'Operation Weserübung' launched on April 9, 1940 saw German troops sweep through Denmark and into Norway. Allied forces (British, Polish and French) were driven north to the town of Narvik on the western coast. Operation Alphabet was the evacuation of Allied troops from Narvik Harbor.

The operation was successfully completed by June 8, marking the end of Allied attempts to hold any part of Scandinavia. Of the alternatives: Operation Claymore was a 1941 British raid on the Lofoten Islands in Norway; Operation Carthage was the 1945 RAF bombing of the Gestapo headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark; and Operation Fork was the 1940 British invasion of Iceland.

Answer: Henry V

Henry IV died in 1413 and was replaced by his eldest son, Henry V. The war resumed two years later with the Battle of Agincourt (1415). Henry's army captured Caen in 1417 and Rouen in 1419, meaning that for the first time in more than 200 years Normandy was completely controlled by the English. An alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, who had captured Paris in 1419, left the new French King, Charles IV in a weak position.

The 1420 Treaty of Troyes declared the Dauphin (Charles VII) illegitimate and established that Henry's heirs (through his marriage to Catherine) would inherit the French throne as well as the English one.

Answer: Venice

The War of Chioggia was a major conflict in the Venetian-Genoese Wars. The Republic of Venice was supported by Milan, whilst the combined forces of Padua, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Patriarchate of Aquileia and the Duchy of Austria sided with the Genoan Republic. Although fought across the Adriatic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea as well as on the island of Cyprus, the War of Chioggia takes its name from a fishing port near Venice.

Answer: Battle of Five Forks

Fought in Dinwiddie County in southeastern Virginia, the Battle of Five Forks is often referred to as "The Waterloo of the Confederacy". Commanding a force twice the size of his Confederate enemy, Major General Philip Sheridan scored a decisive victory for the Union. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, with Major General George Pickett commanding, suffered major casualties, losing almost one third of its original 10,600 men compared to the casualty rate of less than 5% inflicted on the Unionists.
Lee withdrew from the Five Forks battlefield to nearby Appomattox Court House, where he surrendered eight days later, on April 9, 1865.
Of the alternatives: the Battle of Wilson's Creek (aka the Battle of Oak Hills) was one of the earliest battles in the Civil War, fought in Greene County MO in August 1861; the Battle of Pea Ridge (aka the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern) was fought in March 1862 in northwestern Arkansas; and the Battle of Cold Harbor was a Confederate victory in Hanover County VA during the summer of 1864.

Answer: Australia

The massacre of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia began with the arrival of the British in the late 1700s. The last incidents in the so-called "Frontier Wars" took place, perhaps remarkably, as late as the 1920s. The Bedford Down and Forrest River massacres occurred in Western Australia in 1924 and 1926 respectively.

The final act began in 1928 on the grounds of the Coniston cattle station in Northern Territory, although reprisals lasted well into the 1930s. It is estimated that some 20,000 indigenous peoples died in the ongoing conflict.

The settlers suffered losses of around 10% of that number.

Answer: Turkey

The Romans first invaded the Pontic Empire in 83 B.C. Twenty years later, after the third Mithridatic War, the Kingdom of Pontus collapsed and was conquered by Pompey. The Empire was finally annexed under the Emperor Nero in 62 A.D. At its height, the Pontic Empire covered parts of modern-day Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia, Greece, Russia and Turkey.

The Turkish city of Amasya, home to 100,000 overlooking the southern coast of the Black Sea, stands on the site of the ancient city of Amaseia. Sinope, in the ancient region of Paphlagonia, is now the city of Sinop, home to 35,000 on the Black Sea coast in central Turkey.