Five Years Later Trivia Quiz

Answer: Vasco da Gama

In July of 1497 da Gama's expedition sailed south down the coast of Africa, then veering into the Atlantic and swinging back in an arc to arrive off the southern African coast. The expedition rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the Indian coast at Calicut (now known as Kozhikode) in May 1498. The voyage launched the all-water route from Europe to Asia.

Answer: Hereward the Wake

Hereward was a hot-headed young man who was exiled to Europe after a dispute with Edward the Confessor. Later the death of Edward left England in a disarray with various claims to the throne and open to invasion from Normans and Vikings.

After the defeat of King Harold the feudal system was based on an Oath of Fealty and military support in exchange for a reward of lands. English lands were given to supporters of William.

The news of Harold's defeat brought Hereward back to England. The Normans had seized his father's estates, murdered his brother and nailed his head above the doorway! Hereward exacted revenge on as many Normans as he could and fled to the Fens (then an area of wetlands in the counties of Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk) and was harbored by Abbot Thurstan of Ely.

He joined a party of Danes who appeared in England, attacked Peterborough and sacked the Abbey. Fearing for his Abbey, Thurstan later betrayed Hereward. Although conflicting accounts exist for the fall of Ely, Hereward was eventually forced to yield to the Norman king.

Answer: Endeavour

NASA's youngest orbiter Endeavour made its debut on April 25, 1991, as it was rolled out from Rockwell's construction hangar in Palmdale, California. It was the fifth and last of the U.S. Space Agency's reusable winged spacecraft to enter the shuttle fleet. Endeavour arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida a month later. Largely assembled from spare parts pre-fabricated during the development of Discovery and Atlantis its construction cost was $1.7 billion!

In the two decades since, Endeavour has left its mark on history, saving the Hubble Space Telescope, giving birth to the International Space Station (ISS), and completing a mission begun by the fallen shuttle it was built to replace.

Answer: support of the death penalty

Kennedy pledged his strong willingness to support a bill under consideration for the abolition of the death penalty but it was not part of his policy objectives outlined in his campaign.

Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination on March 16, 1968, declaring, "I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man, but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what must be done, and I feel that I'm obliged to do all I can."

On June 5, 1968, shortly after delivering a speech to celebrate his win in the California primary, Kennedy was shot in a kitchen corridor outside the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died the next day at age 42.

Answer: the California Gold Rush

With ships, merchandise and equipment, and thousands of sea-route argonauts pouring into California through the Golden Gate, San Francisco instantly became the hub of the gold rush. No city grew bigger or faster, or with more hustle and bustle. Its population in January 1848 was approximately 800. By 1853 it had mushroomed to over 30,000, with tens of thousands more passing through, en route to and from the mines each year.

Answer: False

On September 14, 1901 Theodore Roosevelt became President after McKinley was assassinated. In the November 1904 Presidential election Roosevelt won in a landslide victory against Alton Brooks Parker.

The Japanese asked President Roosevelt to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia, and representatives of the two nations met in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1905. For the sake of maintaining the balance of power and equal economic opportunity in the region, Roosevelt preferred that the war end on terms that left both Russia and Japan with a role to play in Northeast China.

Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his successful efforts securing the Treaty of Portsmouth.

Answer: Mary I

Mary challenged and successfully deposed Lady Jane Grey in 1553. She took the throne as the queen regent. Mary immediately began repealing many of Henry VIII's religious edicts and replacing them with her own, which included a strict heresy law. The enforcement of this law resulted in the burning of over 300 Protestants as heretics. Mary's religious persecutions made her extremely unpopular and earned her the nickname "Bloody Mary."

The public response to Mary's marriage to Philip of Spain was also unsuccessful and extremely unpopular. The marriage produced no children. Philip spent little time in England and did not provide England with any part of his vast New World trade network.

The alliance with Spain dragged England into military conflict with France. In March 1556, Philip persuaded Mary to support Spain in a war against France. The Privy Council knew that England could not afford a foreign war but reluctantly agreed to declare war on France.

French forces defeated the English garrison at Calais in January of 1558, and in May Mary fell ill. Suffering from an ailment that may have been uterine or ovarian cancer, she died at St. James's Palace in London on November 17, 1558.

Answer: Fifteenth

During Reconstruction, three amendments to the Constitution (known collectively as the Reconstruction Amendments) were adopted in an effort to establish equality for black Americans.

The Thirteenth Amendment, adopted in 1865, abolished slavery or involuntary servitude except in punishment for a crime. The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, defines all people born in the United States as citizens, requires due process of law, and requires equal protection to all people. The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, prevents the denial of a citizen's vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Answer: Confederation

Following the Declaration of Independence, the members of the Continental Congress realized that it would be necessary to set up a national government.

The Articles were signed by Congress and sent to the individual states for ratification on November 15, 1777, after 16 months of debate. Bickering over land claims between Virginia and Maryland delayed final ratification for almost four more years.

Maryland finally approved the Articles on March 1, 1781, affirming the Articles as the outline of the official government of the United States. The nation was guided by the Articles of Confederation until the implementation of the current U.S. Constitution in 1789.

Answer: Dwight David Eisenhower

Eisenhower commanded the Allied forces in the Normandy invasion. In December 1944 he was promoted to five-star rank. After Germany's surrender in 1945, he was made Military Governor of the U.S. Zone of Occupation.

A few months after returning home to a hero's welcome he was appointed U.S. Army Chief of Staff.

In 1948, he was elected President of Columbia University. Officially his term as President was 1948 to 1953 although he was frequently absent from the University for long stretches of time during his tenure. In 1950 he took leave of absence to become the first Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Eisenhower's Presidency saw a number of developments at the University, including the founding of the Columbia Center for Oral History (1948), as well as the Lamont Geological Observatory (1949), later known as the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Following his election as the 34th president of the United States, Eisenhower resigned as Columbia University President effective January 1953.