Historical Gossip Quiz | Difficult History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What was the REAL first name of Catherine the Great?

Answer: Sophia (of Anhalt-Zerbst)

In spite of her being German, she had good contacts with some of the top French writers of the times. And so had Frederick II of Prussia.

2. Where did Lord Nelson meet Lady Hamilton for the first time?

Answer: Naples

Emma Hamilton was married to Sir William Hamilton , the British envoy to the Kingdom of Naples. When she met Nelson in 1793, she was already a celebrity in Napolitan society. Nelson and Emma Hamilton became lovers after Nelson's Nile triumph. When Sir William was called back to England, the three of them returned to the homecountry...Happily together?

3. What was the name given by the Romans to what is now Paris?

Answer: Lutetia

Vindabona = Vienna. - Lugdunum = Lyon ('lug' is a typical Celtic element cp. Lugnasa) - Colonia Aggrippina = Cologne

4. Where did Peter the Great pick up the art of building ships?

Answer: Zaandam, Holland

The House of the Czar is now a tourist attraction.Well house..Let's say a log-cabin. Zaandam is close to Amsterdam.

5. Of which Central or South-American country did there exist till the mid-20th century, a Dutch , French and British version ?

Answer: Guyana

Dutch Guyana is now Surinam with Paramaribo as its capital.Sint-Martin exists in a French and a Dutch version.-Bonaire and Aruba just as Curacao are Dutch.

6. Which of these towns has NO historical link with Alexander the Great ?

Answer: Tel-el-Amarna

Tel-el-Amarna is Achnaton's sun-worshippers' city built near his previous capital Thebes.(about 1348 BC) - Alexandria and Iskandria are two different names for the same place in Egypt. - Iskenderun - also spelled Iskenderen - is not in Egypt , but in Turkey.

7. Which of these powerful guys is this quote from: 'One can conquer an empire on horseback, but one cannot rule it on horseback'?

Answer: Kublai Khan

The Great Mongol Ghengis Khan(1167?-1227) had his capital at Karakorum. Among his conquests was what is now Beijing.- His grandson Kublai Khan (1215-1294) had his court near what is now Beijing. And not at Kwangdu (or Coleridge's Xanadu) as has long been thought.

He decided not to continue expanding the territory , but to spend all his energies on ruling it well. He is the Mongol Emperor who received the Marco Polo brothers.- Alexander the Great(356BC-323BC) was King of Macedon. He had Aristotle as his tutor.

He successfully attacked Persia and built a world empire. He married the Persian Princess Roxana in an attempt to bridge the cultural gap between Greeks and Persians. He died young , at same age as Christ is reputed to have died : 33. Rather unheroically he caught a fever and did not recover from it. - Attila , King of the Huns (445 BC - 453 BC) Though others called him the Scourge of God , by his own people he was perceived as a nice King. Attila indeed means Daddy. (Well ..there was a time that also Joseph Stalin was given that qualification by the Russian masses). Attila's conquests in Western Europe were halted by Aetius at Maurica.

8. What did the first coins represent?

Answer: Cattle

As can be shown in the etymology of Latin pecunia (= money) (from pecus = cattle) there always has been a link between 'cattle' and 'economic transactions'. Historians claim that the oldest 'money' was not even in the shape of coins , but in the shape of statuettes representing cattle or heads of cattle. Cattle was the old way to make deals among primitive tribes is the background explanation. Effigies on one side of the coin , and numbers on the other are in fact a very late development.

9. Among which of these civilizations were westerners considered as inferior creatures and given the name 'white devils'?

Answer: Chinese

One of the 'eruptions' of those unfriendly feelings was the Boxers' Rising at the end of the nineteenth century.

10. Which of these four groups of heretics or 'lost souls' anyway , is characterised by the belief that God's First Born Son was not Jesus Christ , but Satanael , who after a punishing intervention by the Almighty himself, had to reduce his name to Satan?

Answer: Bogamils

Albigenses (from Albi, in southern France)and Cathari are the same group. They typically believed in a Manichean , dual world , where the powers of Devil were - to say the very least - at least as strong as those of God himself. Only those that turned their backs to the world, the Saints or Pure , had a chance to defeat the Devil.

As the Church felt this to be a little radical, a Crusade was organised against them. - Satanists : are a more recent hocuspocus with Black Masses and other weirdo stuff. - The Bulgarian Bogamils were just as the Cathari so extreme in their distrust of the 'world' that they did not want to have any dealings with it.They too were too zealous for a Church that had made of compromising its finest skill. - Note for the tourists among you: Albi is also the town of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Source: Author flem-ish

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Historical Gossip Trivia Quiz

All that news from the past...does it really teach us anything ..or is it just the equivalent of kaffeeklatsch middle-aged ladies tend to exchange at the coffeetable.I wouldn't know.But this is mostly about historic 'details'.

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