History Around the World 17 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Zambia

Originally the home of the Khoisan peoples, the region became the British protectorate of Northern Rhodesia at the end of the nineteenth century. It became the Republic of Zambia with Kenneth Kaunda as its first Prime Minister on October 24, 1864. Although English is still the official language of the country, eight other languages are also recognized.

The country's motto is "One Zambia, One Nation".

Answer: Richard II

The second son of Edward the Black Prince and Joan of Kent, the future King Richard II of England was born in 1367 in Bordeaux, France. When Richard was four years old, his older brother died and five years later so did his father, leaving him as next in line to the English throne occupied by his ageing grandfather, Edward III. A year later, Edward died and Richard became king at the age of just 10.

Richard's early reign was blighted by the Peasants' Revolt of 1381 and the continued presence of the Black Death. In 1382, Richard married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, but she died of plague two years later. The Hundred Years' War was ongoing, and between 1386 and 1388 Richard had to deal with French invasions.

The main threat to Richard's kingship, though, came from Lancastrian Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby, son of Richard's uncle, John of Gaunt. In 1399, Henry returned to England from France and began gathering an army. The official version is that in September 1399 Richard agreed to abdicate and Henry was crowned king in October. Richard was imprisoned in the Tower or London and then moved to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire, where he starved to death in February 1400.

Answer: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Andrew Jackson almost made the cut, his 8-year term in office ending just eleven days before his 70th birthday in 1837. Harry S. Truman was 60 when he took over as President following the death of F.D. Roosevelt in 1945, and was 15 months shy of his 70th birthday when he relinquished office. John Adams was 61 when he took over from George Washington as the nation's second President, but he served only one term and was thus only 65 when he left office. He did, though, enjoy a long retirement, living a further 9,253 days after leaving office -- He is the only one of the pre-20th century Presidents to live into his 90s.

Dwight Eisenhower was the only President prior to Reagan who served beyond his 70th birthday. Born in October 1890, he became President in January 1953. His term ended in January 1961, 98 days after his 70th birthday, when he was succeeded by the youngest President ever elected, the 43-year old John F Kennedy.

Answer: Thailand

Officially called 'Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya', this city located some 40 miles north of Bangkok in the valley of the Chao Phraya River became the second capital of Siam in the 1580s, taking over from Sukhothai. Ayutthaya itself was destroyed by the invading Burmese army in 1767, and it is now a national historic park and an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Answer: Gough Whitlam

Edward Gough Whitlam was born in 1916 in the Melbourne suburb of Kew. He became the leader of the Australian Labor Party in 1967 and spent almost six years as Leader of the Opposition before become Prime Minister in December 1972. His tenure in the top job lasted just a month short of three years. He remained leader of the Labor Party for a further two years after leaving office.

Just over a year before his death, Whitlam claimed another Australian record, that of the longest retirement of any Prime Minister. He lived for 38 years and 11 months after leaving office, surpassing the previous record of 37 years 10 months held by Stanley Bruce.

Malcolm Fraser, who succeeded Whitlam as Prime Minister in 1975, also died in 2015, but he was born only in 1930.

Answer: Philippe I

King of Belgium since the death of his older brother, Baudouin, in August 1993, Albert II abdicated in July 2013, shortly after his 79th birthday. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Philippe I.

53 years old at the time of his ascension, Philippe was born in 1960 in Brussels. Philippe's eldest daughter, Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, born in 2001, simultaneously took over the role of heir apparent to the throne.

Answer: Libya

Marmarica was also known as Libya Inferior whilst Cyrenaica was Libya Superior.

The region known as Marmarica now forms the border region between Libya and Egypt. The largest city was the ancient settlement of Antipyrgus, now the modern-day Mediterranean port of Tobruk.

Cyrenaica, sometimes also known as Pentapolis in ancient times, covers about half of what is now Libya, to the east of Tripolitania and Fezzan. The major city here is Benghazi.

Answer: Afghanistan

Muhammad Ismail Mirwas Khan Hotak was born in 1673 in the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. In 1709, he led a successful rebellion against the Georgian monarch who ruled the Kingdom of Kartli for much of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

In so doing, he founded the Hotak dynasty and declared independence for what is now southern Afghanistan. He was acknowledged as the Emir of Afghanistan until his death in 1715.

Answer: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Located in central Ethiopia, at the time of the 2007 Census Addis Ababa was home to more than 3.3 million, about 5% of the country's people. The city stands on the south side of Moutn Entoto at an altitude of more than a mile above sea level (from around 7,600 feet in the southern suburbs to more than 9,800 on the north side of the city).

Addis Ababa is sometimes referred to as the "political capital of Africa", since it is home to the headquarters of both the African Union and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

Answer: Argentina

Cristina Elisabet Fernández was born in 1953 in the city of La Plata on the east coast of Argentina. The widow of former president Néstor Kirchner (in office 2003-2007), she became the second woman to hold the office of Argentine President (after Isabel Martínez de Perón in the mid-1970s), but Kitchner was the first female directly elected to the office.

In the 2011 general election, she was re-elected with a huge majority.