History Around the World 16 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Romania

Although the nation now known as Romania was founded only in the middle of the 19th century, the region boasts the earliest European evidence of humanity. Remains found near the city of Anina in the southwest of the country have been carbon-dated as some 40,000 years old, the earliest ever found in Europe.

More recently, the Romans arrived in the region early in the 2nd century A.D. Roman rule lasted 165 years and the name Romania literally means "citizen of Rome".

Following the Crimean War, voters in the Ottoman provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia both elected Alexandru Ioan Cuza to be their 'prince', effectively uniting the two provinces. Cuza was exiled following a coup in 1866 and the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen established with Carol I the first King of Romania.

Answer: 1901

The Swedish inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel, died in 1896 and his fortune was used posthumously to create the pries that now bear his name.

The first prizes in five of the six categories were awarded in 1901. The first winners were the German developer of X-rays Wilhelm Röntgen in Physics, Dutch organic chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff in Chemistry, the German physiologist who developed an antitoxin for diphtheria Emil von Behring in Physiology or Medicine, French poet Sully Prudhomme in Literature, and the Swiss founder of the Red Cross Henry Dunant and French economist Frederic Passy jointly in Peace.

The sixth prize category, Economics, was introduced in 1969.

Answer: George I

Sir Robert Walpole was born in 1676 in the small village of Houghton in north Norfolk. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1715 and in 1721 he was named as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons and in effect became the country's first "Prime Minister". He (and not the king) presided at Cabinet meetings. The appointment was made during the reign of King George I, who reigned from 1714 until 1727.

Walpole spent more than 20 years as Prime Minister, from April 1721 until February 1742. He was succeeded by Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, who thus became the first Prime Minister appointed by King George II.

On his retirement from front-line politics, Walpole was created 1st Earl of Orford and elevated to the Upper Chamber. He died shortly afterwards, though, at the age of 68 in 1745.

Answer: Libya

Libya became independent from Italy in 1947 and on Christmas Eve 1951 it was released from British and French oversight and declared itself the "United Kingdom of Libya" with King Idris as its first and, as it would turn out, only monarch.

Idris ruled Libya for almost 18 years, during which time the discovery of substantial reserves of oil transformed the country from an extremely poor nation into one of the world's wealthiest.

In August 1969, Idris traveled to Turkey for medical treatment. On September 1, he was deposed in his absence by a group of Libyan Army officers. The commander of the "Free Officers Movement" was a 27-year old by the name of Muammar Gaddafi.

The former King Idris went into exile in Egypt and two years later he was sentenced to death 'in absentia' by the Libyan People's Court. The sentence was never carried out and Idris eventually died at the age of 93 in Cairo in 1983.

Answer: 3rd century B.C.

Known as an Ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer, physicist and inventor, Archimedes of Syracuse was born in 287 B.C. in the city on the southeastern coast of Sicily.

Widely acknowledged as the greatest mathematician of the antiquarian period, he developed the basic principles of what would alter become calculus. By applying mathematical theories to practical problems, he developed the Archimedes' Screw, a method of moving low-lying water upwards into irrigation ditches.

At the age of around 75, Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier during the Siege of Syracuse, despite specific orders that he should not be harmed.

Answer: Jimmy Carter

Born in 1924 in the small town of Plains in southwestern Georgia, James Earl Carter Jr. became the first U.S. President born in that state when he took office in January 1977. Carter's ancestors can be traced back to English immigrants who settled in Virginia in 1635.

Carter's college career began at Georgia Southwestern College in the city of Americus, not far from Plains. He then moved to Georgia Tech in Atlanta in order to gain the mathematics credits he needed to gain a place at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1943. In 1946, he graduated 60th out of his class of 820 and was commissioned as an ensign. After seven years in the Navy, Carter resigned his commission in 1953 and was granted an honorable discharge.

Of the alternatives, Herbert Hoover was the first (and still the only) graduate of Stanford University in California to become President. Woodrow Wilson was the first graduate of North Carolina's liberal arts college Davidson College to attain the country's highest office, although he later transferred to Princeton, also the alma mater of James Madison and, later, John F Kennedy. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first US President to have attended the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle PA, the U.S. Army Industrial College and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Leavenworth KS. Eisenhower was also a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point NY, which had also sent Ulysses S. Grant to the White House.

Answer: Haile Selassie of Ethiopia

Born in 1892 in the town of Ejersa Goro near the eastern border of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie reigned as the Emperor of Ethiopia from April 1930 until less than a year before his death in 1975.

The young Tafari Woldemikael had been designated as heir apparent and Crown Prince as part of the arrangement that saw the daughter of daughter of Menelik II become the Empress Zewditu in 1916. (Zewditu was the first Empress regnant of the Ethiopian Empire since the legendary Queen of Sheba more than 2,000 years before as well as the first female leader of an African state in the 19th and 20th centuries.) When Zewditu died suddenly in 1930 there was some suggestion that she had been poisoned on the instruction of the Crown Prince, although she also had diabetes and was ill with typhoid at the time.

Answer: Han

Founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, the Han dynasty succeeded the short-lived Qin rule in the last years of the 3rd century B.C. The first reign of the Han dynasty (now known as either the Western Han or Former Han), with its capital at Chang'an (now known as Xi'an) lasted more than two centuries, until 9 A.D.

Then there followed a brief, 14-year interruption whilst the Xin dynasty claimed power, but then the Hans returned (now known as the Eastern Han or Latter Han) in 23 A.D. The capital was moved further east, to the city of Luoyang, today a city with a metropolitan area of more than six million people in the western Henan province.

In 196 A.D., the dynasty moved its capital again, to the nearby city of Xuchang, today another bustling metropolis of more than four million. These, though, were the dying days of the Han dynasty, which had overseen an age of considerable economic prosperity. In 220 A.D., the period of the Three Kingdoms (which would last until 280 A.D.) began.

Of the alternatives, the Qin dynasty ruled briefly from 221-206 B.C.; the Tang dynasty rule for nearly three centuries, from 626-907 A.D.; and the Song dynasty lasted a similar period, from 960-1279.

Answer: Nauru

Formerly known as Pleasant Island, the Republic of Nauru gained full independence in 1968. Annexed by the German Empire in late 1800s, the Micronesian island in the South Pacific became a League of Nations mandate administered jointly by the UK, Australia and New Zealand following WWI.

Nearly 200 miles from its nearest neighbour, Banaba Island in Kiribati, around 10,000 people call Nauru home. With an area of just 8.1 square miles. Nauru would fit more than eighteen times into the Isle of Wight. Only two of the world's independent states are smaller, the Principality of Monaco and the Vatican City, neither of which are republics.

Weightlifting is the national sport of Nauru, although Australian Rules football is probably the most popular. Nauru has participated in both the Commonwealth Games and the Summer Olympics since gaining independence. Remarkably for a country of its size, Nauru also has a football league consisting of eight teams.

Of the alternatives, San Marino claims to be the world's oldest constitutional republic, having been founded in 301 -- it is also almost three times the size of Nauru; Monaco is smaller than Nauru and the world's smallest country with a coastline, but it is a constitutional monarchy and not a republic; and the South Pacific island of Niue is an associate state of New Zealand rather than an independent republic -- it is also more than ten times the size of Nauru.

Answer: John Adams

Born in Braintree, Massachusetts on October 30, 1735, John Adams was the first U.S. Vice-President. He succeeded George Washington as President on March 4, 1797 and served four years before relinquishing the office to Thomas Jefferson.

Curiously, both Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1826. Adams was 90 years and 247 days old.

Of the alternatives, Jefferson was 83 years old when he died on the same day as Adams. James K Polk died just 103 days after completing his only term in office in 1849. Dying at the age of just 53, he was at the time, and remained at the end of the 20th century, the youngest President to die who was not assassinated (only Kennedy and Garfield have died younger). Of the other pre-20th century Presidents, James Madison came closest to reaching 90 -- he dies at the age of 85 in 1836.

Numerous 20th-century Presidents have surpassed Adams' record. Herbert Hoover came close to doing so, living beyond 90 but falling 176 days short of Adams record when he died in 1964. Since then, Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford have all lived longer than Adams.