History Around the World 8 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sir Francis Chichester

The ketch 'Gipsy Moth IV' was moored at Greenwich alongside the 'Cutty Sark' for many years following its historic voyage around the world. Francis Chichester left from Plymouth on August 27 1966 and returned 226 days later having made just a single stop, in Sydney Australia. He thus became the first person to sail solo from west to east around the world via the 'clipper route' (ie via the great capes). He also established a new record for the fastest circumnavigation.
When Chichester was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II the following year, she used the same sword used by Elizabeth I when she knighted the first Englishman to sail around the world, Sir Francis Drake. That same year, another precedent was broken when Chichester's image appeared on a British postage stamp -- he was the first living non-Royal to be so honored.
The alternatives are three more British round-the-world sailors... In 1968-69, Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail single-handed non-stop around the world. He did so aboard 'Suhaili'. Two years later, Scotsman Chay Blyth's 292-day voyage made him the first person to sail non-stop, single-handed westward (ie against the prevailing winds) around the world. His yacht was a 59-footer named 'British Steel'.
Ellen MacArthur first set new single-handed sailing records when she crossed from Plymouth UK to Newport, Rhode Island in just under 15 days. Four years later, she established a record for the eastward crossing of less than half that time. In 2005, MacArthur set a new speed record for a single-handed circumnavigation of the globe when she covered the 27,354 miles in less than 72 days aboard her trimaran 'B&Q/Castorama'.

Answer: Victoria Gold Rush, Australia

The 1851 'Victoria Gold Rush' was Australia's most significant. It was the single most important event in the economic and political development of the state that eventually led to Melbourne becoming the nation's first capital. The construction of the country's first railroads and telegraph lines soon followed, as did the end of penal transportation. A decade later, many of the prospectors who had flocked to Victoria headed east to New Zealand, where the 1861 Central Otega Gold Rush brought about the development of Dunedin as New Zealand's first major city.
Of the alternatives, the great California Gold Rush began with the discovery at Sutter's Mill in January 1848. It was another year before most of the more than a quarter of a million fortune-seekers flooded west, hence the name 'forty-niners' which survives today in San Francisco's NFL franchise.
The 1886 Witwatersrand Gold Rush in Transvaal, South Africa quickly led to the establishment of the city of Johannesburg. Within ten years, it was larger than Cape Town, which had been developing for more than two centuries. The other consequence of the huge influx of people into the region was the Second Boer War, which began in 1899.
Gold was discovered along the Klondike River, near Dawson City in Canada's remote Yukon territory in 1896. Word slowly spread south and within two years more than 40,000 prospectors had stampeded north to the frozen wastes. The consequences here were more immediate -- famine, in a region lacking the natural resources to feed this many people. The eventual outcome as people slowly dispersed, though, was the economic and cultural development of the Canadian Pacific Coast region, southern Alaska, and the northwestern United States.

Answer: Norwegian

Trygve Halvdan Lie was born in Oslo, Norway in 1896. His background was in journalism and law, and he was Norway's Minister of Justice in the pre-War years. Following the 1940 Nazi invasion of Norway, Lie became Foreign Minister for the 'Norwegian Government in Exile'.
When the United Nations was founded in 1946, Lie was elected as its first Secretary-General, a post he held until November 1952.
Lie was succeeded by another Scandinavian, Sweden's Dag Hammarskjöld, but the post has since become a truly international one. When South Korea's Ban Ki-Moon was elected as Secretary-General at the start of the organization's 61st year, he became the eighth person to hold that position. The holders of the Secretary-General post in the intervening years have come from Burma, Austria, Peru, Egypt and Ghana. So, we had three Europeans, one South American, and two each from Africa and Asia.

Answer: Crécy

The Battle of Crécy was one of the key encounters of the Hundred Year War between England and France. England's King Edward III's modest army of between 12-16,000 men scored a famous victory over Philip VI's much larger force (estimates vary from 35,000 to as many as 100,000). The key factor in the victory was the use of the longbow against the French cavalry.
Edward went on from Crécy to begin a siege of Calais. The French defenders held out for 11 months before succumbing and providing a base in northern France.
Of the alternatives, the Battle of Agincourt was another Hundred Years' War victory by a smaller English force against a much larger defender. This time, the monarchs were Henry V of England and Charles VI of France. The battle occurred on Saint Crispin's Day (October 25) 1415.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge took place in Yorkshire. The Anglo-Saxon defenders routed the invaders (a combination of Norwegians and Scots) on September 25, 1066. Unfortunately for the English, they had little time to enjoy their victory: they had to travel the length of the country in quick order to mount a defense against Norman invaders. The result was the Battle of Hastings, at which they were less successful.
The Battle of Bannockburn was the decisive encounter in the First War of Scottish Independence. The battle took place on June 24, 1314 near the Scottish town of Stirling. The outcome was a decisive victory for Robert the Bruce's relatively small Scottish force (about 6,500 men) over the 20,000-strong English army of King Edward II.

Answer: It ended Prohibition

Passed in February 1933 and ratified on December 5, the 21st Amendment ended the 14-year experiment known as 'Prohibition'. When it passed in 1919, the 18th Amendment had outlawed the 'the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages'. The effect, though, had proved to be the exact opposite of that which the temperance movement had sought. Instead of the people accepting that alcohol was a terrible thing, drinking actually increased during Prohibition as saloons were replaced by the speakeasy, and organized crime mushroomed. 'Respect for the law' was significantly diminished amongst the public at large.
Here was a clearcut message that politicians are elected to represent the views OF the people, rather than to impose their own opinions ON the people. Alas, though, it is a lesson that many politicians have still failed to learn.
Of the other alternatives, the 19th Amendment (1920) gave women the vote and the 13th Amendment (1865) abolished slavery.

Answer: German East Africa

The territory was known as German East Africa from the mid 1880s until the end of WWI, when it was taken over by Britain and Belgium. With an area of 384,170 sq miles, it was only marginally smaller than Egypt -- almost three times the size of Germany itself. In 1913, the population was an estimated 7.7 million (which is about the same as Switzerland in the early 2000s). The three constituent countries of German East Africa have a combined population in excess of 60 million today.

The alternatives are three more European colonies in southern Africa. The British colony of Bechuanaland Protectorate became the Republic of Botswana, Portuguese East Africa became the Republic of Mozambique, the British colony of Basutoland gained independence as the Kingdom of Lesotho.

Answer: 36

Diana Frances Spencer was born in Norfolk on July 1, 1961. She married Prince Charles and became the Princess of Wales shortly after her 20th birthday. The 15-year marriage formally ended in divorce on August 28 1996. Almost exactly a year later, on August 31 1997, she died in a car accident in Paris at the age of 36.

Answer: Jordan

The ancient border between the Israelites and the peoples of the Moabite kingdom was not that different from the modern Israel-Jordan border. The Moabites occupied the mountains to the east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan river and eastwards toward the Arabian Desert. The Moab capital was Dibon, located near to the present Jordanian town of Dhiban.

Answer: Atlantic Ocean

Amelia Mary Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas in 1897. Her historic flight began in Newfoundland early on May 20 1932. Her intended destination was Paris, thus following in Lindbergh's footsteps, but strong winds and mechanical problems forced her to land in Northern Ireland after a flight lasting almost 15 hours. Today there is a museum in Culmore, north of Derry, commemorating her landing place.
Earhart also established numerous other aviation firsts: she was the first to fly solo from Hawaii to California, from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and from Mexico City to New York.
In July 1937, Earhart and her co-pilot/navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific whilst attempting to circumnavigate the globe. They were officially declared dead 18 months later.

Answer: Queen Elizabeth II

Launched by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1967, there is still some debate about the actual naming of Cunard's flagship QE2. One version is that the Queen named the ship after herself. Another is that it was simply named after the company's former ship 'Queen Elizabeth' and the number added to differentiate them (although that was unnecessary since the original QE was already out of service by then).

The original had been named after Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later known as the Queen Mother), who was the consort to King George VI when she launched the ship in 1938. QE2's first captain was William Warwick whose son, Ron Warwick, also captained the ship in its later life.