General Historical Topics 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Shang Yang

Shang Yang, possibly more than anyone else, was responsible for the rapid rise of Qin, which ultimately conquered all of China, establishing its king as the first emperor in 221 BCE. Shang Yang, or Gongsun Yang (the Lord of Shang), was long dead by the time Ying Zheng conquered the other Six Kingdoms of China, but his legacy was what allowed Qin to function like a machine with the singular purpose of waging war. Of course the Qin are today thought of as being the most tyrannical of all China's imperial dynasties and this probably owes to the Legalist philosophy that Shang Yang instilled in the system of government.

Answer: Jimmu

Jimmu is said to have been a direct descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu. All the stories surrounding him, including the date given for his founding of Japan, are entirely mythical and his very existence is dubious. No historical evidence has yet been found to verify any of the myths.

The Japanese imperial line to this day is supposedly descended directly from Jimmu, thus the claim has been made in the past by Japanese nationalists that their emperors have the divine right to rule the world. It was this philosophy, sometimes referred to as "kokugaku", or national learning, that was used to justify much of Japan's expansionist drive in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Answer: Battle of Trebbia

Trebbia was not Hannibal's most famous victory, but is part of the triplet of major victories he won in Italy (the other two being Lake Trasimene and Cannae, which is often regarded as the greatest victory in military history and certainly Hannibal's greatest). Ancient sources put Roman losses at more than two-thirds of their strength at the start of the battle, whereas Hannibal's losses constituted less than 10% of his force.

Answer: Battle of the Catalaunian Fields

The Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, otherwise known as the Battle of Chalons, saved Rome. A Hunnic victory there would have allowed Attila to begin incursions into the Roman heartland of the Italian Peninsula. Attila was not, however, dealt a fatal blow in the battle.

He had recovered within a year and again turned his gaze towards conquest of Rome the next year. His sudden and unexpected death brought an end to this colossal threat to the Empire. Despite this the West eventually fell and by the end of the fifth century CE only the Eastern Empire remained (and would continue for another millennium until 1453).

Answer: Justinian I

Justinian I is also known as Justinian the Great and is considered to be a saint by the Orthodox Church. His achievements in reforming the legal system and expanding the empire make him not dissimilar to Napoleon I of the French. The only contemporary of Justinian to rival his fame was the great general, Belisarius, who almost single-handedly recovered the old imperial heartland of the Italian Peninsula as well as much of North Africa, despite the limited manpower and resources at his command.

Answer: Sui Yangdi

Yangdi was the second of the three Sui Emperors. His efforts to expand the empire and strengthen it ultimately shrunk and weakened it. His plans were far too ambitious and hasty. In addition his three invasions of Korea expended vast amounts of manpower (whether the figure of million-strong armies participating in each campaign is accurate or not is up to debate) and were failures.

His largest single project was the renovation of Luoyang, the empire's capital, which required some two million workers, according to contemporary sources.

It is worthwhile to note that one of the above options, Sui Gaozu, never actually existed. There were only three Sui emperors. However, the first emperor of the next imperial dynasty (the Tang) was named Gaozu.

Answer: Batu

Batu, ruler of the "Blue Horde", was the last foreigner in history to successfully invade and conquer Russia (since his time Charles XII of Sweden, Napoléon I of the French, and Adolf Hitler of Germany have all tried and failed). After subjugating Russia he began the invasion of Europe itself, defeating the Polish army of Henry II, Duke of Silesia, at the Battle of Liegnitz.

In the same year another Mongol army crossed the Carpathians and another marched along the Danube. The three armies united to crush the Magyars in modern-day Hungary before subjugating Austria and penetrating into southern Germany. Following the death of Ogedei, the Great Khan (overall ruler of the Mongol Empire), the "Blue Horde" turned back so that Batu could contest rule of the Mongol Empire, and thus effectively all of Eurasia. Batu's khanate was only one of five major Mongol states - the others being the "White Horde", the Ilkhanate of Persia, the Chagatai Khanate of Central Asia and, the most powerful, the Yuan Empire of China.

Answer: Mughal Empire

The Mughal Empire was the greatest power in all of India for centuries, until its final collapse in 1857. Babur is recognised as one of the greatest emperors - some going as far as to claim that he is the greatest of all the Mughal Emperors.

Answer: Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin

Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin are respected as being great rulers by most today. By many accounts they sought each other out on the field of battle at the Fourth Battle of Kawanakajima and duelled one on one. Both have the impressive distinction of having defeated one of the three great unifiers of Japan - Kenshin defeated Oda Nobunaga at the Battle of Tedorigawa in 1577 and Shingen defeated Tokugawa Ieyasu at the Battle of Mikatagahara in 1572.

Answer: Peace of Westphalia

The Peace of Westphalia was integral in shaping the Europe that would largely continue until the outbreak of the Great French War in 1792, although the earlier boundaries were largely restored following the conclusion of the Fourth Treaty of Paris and the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Although the Swiss Confederation was officially recognised as being a neutral nation, separate from the Holy Roman Empire by the Peace of Westphalia, the Swiss had long enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy for a number of centuries, already. Swiss neutrality would later be impinged upon by both French and Allied armies during the Great French War and Switzerland would briefly become the Helvetic Republic under Revolutionary administration.

The United Provinces were also removed from the Holy Roman Empire and recognized as a fully sovereign state.

Answer: 15 August 1769

The emperor was born in Ajaccio, Corsica as Napoleone Buonaparte, the son of Carlo-Maria Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino. He was the second of eight children and one of six of his siblings to become a monarch - although the only one to rise to imperial status. Amongst his siblings there were three kings (Joseph ruled Naples and later Spain; Louis ruled Holland; Jérôme ruled Westphalia), a queen (Caroline married Joachim Murat and thus became Queen of Naples) and a grand-duchess (Elisa ruled over Tuscany). Only Lucien, who was at one time a Jacobin, and Pauline never became monarchs (which is unusual, as Pauline was Napoleon's favourite sister).

Answer: Leipzig

Leipzig involved French forces numbering 177,000 and Allied forces numbering around 350,000 on the first day of the battle. The French received some 14,000 reinforcements whilst the Allies received around 140,000 - bringing the total number of combatants in the so-called Battle of Nations to almost 700,000.

This dwarfed other battles of the period - at Waterloo there were about 175,000 combatants, at Dresden there were about a quarter of a million. At Gettysburg some 150,000 or so fought, at Chancellorsville approximately 190,000 fought, at Sedan around 300,000 fought.

Indeed in all of the Western world only the Battle of Königgrätz could come close to comparing (around half a million fought at Königgrätz).

Answer: 1812

Simón Bolívar is perhaps, after Che Guevara, the most famous and renowned of all Latin American revolutionaries. Despite some time spent in Napoléon I's retinue he ultimately fought against Napoleonic Spain (which was ruled by the French emperor's brother, Joseph) in an attempt to liberate the Spanish colonies in Latin America from colonial rule.

His struggle went on long after the fall of Joseph and the First Venezuelan Republic. Following the collapse of the Republic, Bolívar wrote the 'Cartagena Manifesto' which, amongst other things, attacks the weakness inherent in the divided system of governance that was used in the First Republic.

His struggle would continue for many years and he would ultimately die in 1830.

Answer: Taiping Civil War

Zeng Guofan co-ordinated the vast Imperial war effort in the conflict with the Taiping rebels led by Hong Xiuquan. By the war's end he was renowned as China's greatest general and it was he who took the Taiping capital of Tianjing (now Nanjing) in a massive and bloody battle.

In the early 1860s through to the war's end he sustained the Imperial counterattack, which succeeded in pushing the Taiping forces back after they had threatened Shanghai and the other cities around the Yangtze delta for around two years.

Although there were many other important Imperial generals, none were quite as significant as Zeng.

Answer: John Hinckley Jr.

John Hinckley Jr. failed in his attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan. John Wilkes Booth shot and killed President Abraham Lincoln. Charles J. Guiteau shot President James Garfield, who later died of an infection in the wound. William McKinley was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz, on 6 September 1901 and passed away on 14 September 1901.