Historical Snippets 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Whisky

Although Scotch Whisky had undoubtedly been around earlier than 1494, the first recorded mention of it can be found in the Exchequer Rolls of 1494, when a consignment of malt was sent to one Friar John Cor from King James IV to make 500 bottles of the aquavitae. James IV (1473-1513), suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of the English during the 1513 Battle of Flodden.

Moving along to 1707 with the merging of the two nations, and the subsequent very hefty rise of taxes on Scotch Whisky, the Scots weren't going to be as easily defeated in this regard, hoot no, mon. Most of the existing distilleries were forced to close, but took their manufacturing underground by constructing illegal stills and making the drink at night, so that the smoke from the stills could not be detected. Whisky was hidden from the tax collectors in the most devious of places, including under altars and even in coffins. Hopefully, unoccupied ones.

Answer: Resurrection gates

Dating back at least to the 15th century, and possibly earlier, these quaint, rather lovely looking structure are each shaped like a small porch over which a roof has been erected and, particularly in the older ones, with benches placed on either side. The purposes of those seats was for people keeping vigil over deceased loved ones, who were often deposited there for one or two days before the funeral service took place. Bodysnatching was quite a profitable trade in the days before mortuaries and an unattended corpse, wrapped only in a shroud, would have proved irresistible. The word "lych" is an old Saxon one for a corpse, and from it were other derivatives, such as lychbell (the bell rung before a body being carried to its final resting place) along a lychpath, and the lych owl with a cry thought to signify approaching death.

Ridiculously so, there was an old folk belief all those centuries ago, that the spirit of the last person buried on any given day had to stand guard at the lychgate until the next burial took place. This led then, on days of more than one burial, to brawls among mourners taking place as to which body should be buried first.

Answer: Hot air balloon

One John Pierre Bllanchard (1753-1809) was a French inventor who is most remembered for his achievements in hot air ballooning. While living for a time in London, he met an American, Dr John Jeffries, a military surgeon working for the British army in North America. Together the pair would take the first hot air balloon flight over the English Channel to France on 7 January, 1785. This flight took two and a half hours and was in danger of failing the entire distance because the balloon was flying too low with the weight aboard.

The two men jettisoned everything they could - their food, oars, rudder, a propeller that had to be cranked by hand, ropes, grapnels, their coats - and even urinated (look out, below!) to lighten the load, but the basket of the balloon was dipping in the sea until a stiff breeze suddenly lifted it up over the hills of Calais into France. Whew! The only object that wasn't tossed overboard on that famous flight was a letter Dr Jeffries was carrying for Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Temple, who was in France for a short while before returning to the States. It was safely delivered into his hands by Jeffries, making it the first airmail letter in history.

Answer: 1

Sark lies just twenty miles off the coast of France and eighty miles away from the UK. It became been part of the Crown of England when William the Conqueror invaded that nation in 1066. Over time, but particularly so in the 16th century, this island became a place of refuge for the pirates that so plagued English seafarers. This resulted in Queen Elizabeth I granting Sark as fief in perpetuity to one Helier de Carteret in 1565, provided he kept a force of 40 men to defend the island and keep it free of pirates. And so the centuries passed.

In August 1990, however, a somewhat disturbed unemployed nuclear French physicist by the name of Andres Gardes, who had come to believe that he was the rightful heir to Sark, landed on the island in an attempt to capture it and take it over for himself. He set out about this very politely and placed several posters around the settlement announcing that the takeover would take place the following day at noon. Then, armed with a semi-automatic weapon, he settled down to prepare for battle. The volunteer constable of the island approached the villainous Gardes on the following morning, pretended to admire his weapon and talked him into showing him how to change the gun's magazine. Gardes most obligingly removed the magazine - at which time the constable punched him on the nose and wrestled him to the ground. The disgraceful attempt to rub the British crown of a possession was over, and Gardes spent seven days in the cooler for his audacity. He should have paid more attention to what occurred in the Falkland Islands in 1982. The Brits get a mite tetchy over trespassers.

Answer: Cemeteries

London's Magnificent Seven describes seven large cemeteries established in the 19th century to alleviate burials in overcrowded churchyards throughout the city that were posing a threat to the very health of the city's populace. This threat was caused by leakage of decaying body matter that made its way down into the city's drinking waters, causing assorted epidemics.

In 1832, British parliament passed an act allowing the establishment of suburban cemeteries, with the first of its kind, Kensal Green opening the followed year.

This was followed by West Norwood, Highgate, Abney Park, Brompton, Nunhead and Tower Hamlets cemeteries. By 2020, some still had a few burial spaces left, one is closed, one is a reserve and another is now a park.

Answer: Her full skeleton still exists

England has had many saints over time, but with few visible physical traces that they once existed. These include, but are not limited to, the hand of St Edmund Arrowsmith, the skull of St Ambrose Barlow, a small piece of the elbow of St Thomas Beckett, and the shoulder blade of St Alban. Eanswythe (630-650), the daughter of King Eadbald of Kent (ruled 616-640), was an Anglo-Saxon princess, who refused an offer of marriage from a pagan king, in order to set up the Benedictine Folkstone Abbey, the first nunnery in England.

She died young and was interred within the Abbey itself. When the sea began to erode the lands of the Abbey in the 10th century, one William de Abrincis donated lands for a new Folkstone Priory in 1137, and Eanswythe's relics were thought to be moved there moved there during construction, but with no trace of them later found. Today the Folkstone Priory is the Parish church of Folkstone, but in the intervening centuries, it has been destroyed by fire, rebuilt, extended and generally otherwise reshaped. During one of the modifications in 1885, a reliquary was found within the walls of the old building - containing the bones of a young woman.

When scientists tested and examined these bones in 2020, it was concluded that they were indeed the skeleton of St Eanswythe.

Answer: To protect the main structure if they fall

As is traditional in Islamic building, the Taj Mahal, India's great monument to the love Shah Jahan held for his favourite wife, has four perfectly symmetrical minarets flanking the four corners of the mausoleum. Viewing this structure from a distance, each minaret appears to be perfectly straight, but they all actually lean slightly away from the main building.

The purpose of this is that if any one of them starts to fall, through earthquake or some other disaster, they will fall away from the building, instead of falling onto it.

The Taj Mahal is not made completely from marble as many people believe, but from brick that has a white marble exterior superimposed upon it. That marble was transported into the country from China, Tibet, Afghanistan and even Sri Lanka by thousands of oxen and elephants. Mumtaz Mahal, the wife of Shah Jahan, had 14 children in 13 years.

Answer: Dog

Over time as the war lingered on, it became a common sight for members of Britain's Royal Air Force to be escorted out to their planes, and welcomed back home again, by their pet dogs. A couple of these canines in particular became quite famous. Fighter pilot George Unwin's dog, Flash, was so well recognised on the field, that even more than 70 years later, miniature cuddly toy dogs are still sold at the Imperial War Museum in his memory.

Then was Sally, a Labrador belong to Canadian Wing Commander J. Johnson. Sally became so jealous of his horse, that, whenever the Wing Commander had a chance to ride it, she always plopped down in front of it and pretended to go to sleep to try to stop it moving. And of course, the tale of Czech pilot, Robert Bozdech, who was based with the French air force, and his dog, Ant.

The pair were so attached to one another that, after Ant was almost killed in an air strike on an airfield, Bozdech refused to leave him behind again - and the dog consequently became his "co-pilot" on all future flying missions. One presumes Ant didn't suffer from air sickness.

Answer: The moon

Hard to believe, but true. This belief was based on a theory by the English educator, Charles Morton, and published in his massive volumes of work, "Compendium Physicae", written between 1627-1698. Morton argued that the birds flew at the rate of 125 miles per hour and it took two months to get there.

They were unaffected by gravity, and, while on the moon, were kept sustained by their excess body fat. When the lunar surface began to grow cold, it was then time to return to earth. Prior to this, other theories, by usually brilliant men, as to the whereabouts of the swallows, included the belief that they hibernated in trees in winter (Aristotle); or, from the Swedish archbishop, Olaus Magnus, that they plunged headlong into ponds and lakes when winter approached, sank to the bottom and stayed in the mud there, without ever having to breathe, until spring released them back to the skies again.

Answer: Allowed potential flyers to line up with the ground below

Some 535 years ago, the fertile mind of da Vinci (1452-1519), in his attempt to build a device that would enable man to fly like a bird, came up with the idea of the early inclinometer ca. 1485. This amazingly simple, but brilliant, device, consisted of a tiny ball suspended from the middle of an inverted small glass jar. Where the ball was positioned over the base from where it dangled, this would enable any would be pilot to gauge his position in relation to the ground below, and make adjustments as needed.

When hanging exactly in the middle of the jar, a pilot, who had perhaps become disoriented in flight, would know he was horizontal to the ground. The purpose of the glass jar around the ball, while allowing the pilot to see within, was designed to protect the ball from being blown out of alignment by the wind.