Historical Js Multiple Choice Quiz | Difficult History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Joseph of Arimathea was a follower of Jesus who, according to medieval legend, brought the Holy Grail to the British Isles. But where did he supposedly settle?

Answer: Glastonbury

Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy disciple of Jesus who, according to Matthew, asked Pontius Pilate for permission to prepare the dead Jesus's body for burial and provided the tomb. Apocryphal legends go on to say that Joseph accompanied the Apostle Philip and others on a preaching mission to France, from where he went on with a few followers to Britain, the most far-flung outpost of the Roman Empire.

He is supposed to have gone first to Glastonbury, because he is supposed to have made his money in mining and Glastonbury was one of the chief towns of the British mining region. Canterbury was where St Augustine, officially thought to have been the first Christian missionary to Britain, first went; Lindisfarne was the site of an important monastery; and Cadbury is heavily tied in to Arthurian legends.

2. In medieval times it was widely believed that somewhere in Asia or perhaps Africa there existed the perfect Christian kingdom, ruled over by a wise and good king who would ride westwards with his forces to help the Crusader knights recapture the Holy Land. What was the name of this king?

Answer: Prester John

An odd sort of legend, which draws on confused medieval views of India, Ethiopia, and the wishful thinking of the Crusaders. The first authentic mention of Prester John seems to come in 1145 in the chronicle of Otto of Freising. In 1165 a letter began circulating in Europe apparently from Prester John, in which he was described as the ruler of the Three Indias, a realm that extended from the Tower of Babel to the rising of the sun.

This kingdom was never found, though it took Europeans a good few centuries before they gave up searching.

3. Jupiter, named after the Roman god, is the largest planet in our solar system. But which scientist discovered its four largest moons?

Answer: Galileo

Jupiter has about 60 known moons (though more could be discovered!) but the largest - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto - were discovered by Galileo in 1610. He called them the Medicean stars, after his patron, Cosimo de Medici.

4. When Elizabeth I died without any children, King James of Scotland was asked to take the throne of England. He thus became James I of England - but by which number was he known in Scotland?

Answer: James VI

The sixth James to be King of Scotland, he was crowned in 1567 aged just thirteen months. He became James I of England as well when he was crowned in London in 1603.

5. The vicious Judge Jeffreys hanged many people for their role in the Monmouth rebellion. The Duke of Monmouth led an uprising in the South-West of England in an attempt to claim the throne. Against which king was the uprising aimed?

Answer: James II

Known as the Hanging Judge, George Jeffreys became James II's Lord Chancellor and was noted for his ruthless loyalty to the king. When James II was deposed in 1688 Jeffreys attempted to flee but was caught. He died in the Tower of London.

6. The Jacobites in eighteenth-century Britain supported the restoration of the Stuart line and the overthrow of the Hanoverians. In 1745, Jacobitism's shining light, Bonnie Prince Charlie, led a Scottish invasion of England. How far south did he get?

Answer: Derby

Charles Edward Stuart, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie, aka The Young Pretender, sailed from France for Scotland, raised the clans and defeated the Hanoverian forces at Prestonpans. They marched south but at Derby (within 130 miles of London) internal dissension began to break out, crippling their efforts.

They began to retreat and were brutally defeated at Culloden by the Duke Of Cumberland. Charlie managed to escape to Skye (as told in the famous song) but died in Rome an alcoholic, his dreams of the throne over.

7. Which President of the United States was known by the nickname 'Old Hickory'?

Answer: Andrew Jackson

Jackson, the seventh President of the United States (1829-1837) saw himself as a 'populist' President, a man of the people unlike aristocratic predecessors such as John Quincy Adams. He believed in a strong Union and a strong executive, but his period in office is also remembered for harsh treatment of Native Americans.

He got his nickname during the war of 1812 because of his robustness.

8. Author Jerome K. Jerome is best remembered for the comic novel 'Three Men in a Boat'. The K stood for 'Klapka'. But where did this astonishing name come from?

Answer: A Hungarian military hero

Jerome's father, also called Jerome Jerome, had the equally unusual middle name of Clapp. But Klapka was not a derivation of it - it came from General George Klapka, a hero of the Hungarian War for Independence of 1849. To muddle matters still further, Jerome K. Jerome was apparently always known to his family as 'Luther' to avoid confusion with his father!

9. The naval battle of Jutland was fought between which two countries?

Answer: Great Britain and Germany

Fought in 1916, this World War I clash was the last great battleship engagement in history. It was not the most decisive naval battle of history, but the British navy - despite suffering greater losses - were able to blockade the German High Seas Fleet in port afterwards and ensure that they played no further part in the war.

10. The 1930s were hard times economically for much of America and Europe. In Britain, two hundred men from the town of Jarrow marched to London to protest against high unemployment. But where was Jarrow?

Answer: Just outside Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

The town of Jarrow, in the Tyne and Wear area of north-east England, was suffering from 70% unemployment because of the closure of Palmer's shipyard. The 200 Jarrow men marched the 300 miles to London to protest, accompanied some of the way by local MP 'Red' Ellen Wilkinson.

Source: Author bolan1

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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Historical Js Trivia Quiz

Here's a quiz about some people, events and details of history with one connecting factor - the letter J!

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