History Never Repeats... Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Ides of March

History never repeats.. on the Ides of March, as this is no longer a valid denomination for a date.

The Ides were holidays consecrated to Jupiter, the supreme god. Caesar was born in what we now call 100 BC. After the conquest of Gaul, Caesar returned to Rome and engaged in a civil war against his former ally Pompey the Great. Gradually Caesar took hold of all the major offices in Rome (including the title of "dictator", supreme commander in dangerous times, for ten years). But on the Ides of March 44 BC, a group of senators murdered Caesar, feeling that he had gathered too much power. As they used to say: they felt Caesar was almost a King, and the Romans had poor memories of the Kingdom (not that the Roman Republic was less violent). The aftermath of the assassination of Caesar brought with it another civil war, at the end of which Caesar's great-nephew and appointed heir, Octavian, emerged as the sole ruler.

All these days happen to be on the Roman calendar that was used in Caesar's time. The Kalends were the first day of any month, the Ides were the middle day (the 15th in the months of March, May, July and October, or the 13th in the other months), and the Nones were right in the middle between the Kalends and the Ides. Terminalia was an important holiday: the last day of the religious year, set at the end of February (usually the 23rd). The Nones were market days, and the Kalends were the days at which debtors should have paid their dues.

Answer: We don't know for sure

History never repeats... in the same way. Several world religions claim to exist since times unknown (for instance Judaism, Hinduism or Shinto), while a few world religions started with a certain event. Buddhism, for instance, started when Siddhartha Gautama claimed "I am awake", and Islam was founded when an archangel revealed to the prophet Mohammed (Muslim believers add "Praise Be Upon Him") the text of the Quran.

Christianity started with the death on the cross of Jesus Christ, who, according to Christian belief, came back from the dead after three days. Many texts give ample details on this event. For instance, all four gospels indicate that it happened just before the Sabbath (thus on a Friday) that was especially hallowed because it was also Passover - one of the most important Jewish holidays, always at the start of spring. Furthermore the gospels and texts by historians indicate that Jesus Christ was crucified during the time that Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor to Judea. Historians add that Tiberius was the Roman Emperor at the time. But what year was it? Well, we don't know for sure. Pontius Pilate was governor to Judea from 26 to 36 or 37 AD, and Tiberius was the Roman Emperor from 14 AD until 37 AD. Christian church officials claim that Jesus was 33 years old when He was crucified, but this does not necessarily mean that the most famous crucifixion happened in the year 33 AD. Jesus Christ was not born in 0 AD (a year that does not exist, by the way), but probably during the last years of the kingdom of Herod the Great - perhaps in 6 BC. Different calculations come up with two probable dates for the crucifixion: 7th of April 30 AD or 3rd of April 33 AD.

64 AD is the year of the Great Fire of Rome, and also the start of a first violent persecution of Christians. Emperor Nero blamed them to have set Rome on fire. 313 AD was the year of the Edict of Milan, by which Emperor Constantine the Great granted the Christians religious tolerance.

Answer: East Sussex

History never repeats... with a king dying on the battlefield, probably pierced by an arrow in the eye.

Indeed: there are few kings who have died on the battlefield, and a quick internet search gives only Harald as a victim of an arrow wound to the eye. But contemporary evidence to the cause of death is scarce. The Bayeux Tapestry (made a few years after the fact) contains an inscription over two English noble men dying - one shot in the eye, the other trampled by a horse. But it is not clear which of these was King Harold. And the first written chronicle dates over a dozen years after the event occurred.

When King Edward the Confessor died without children on the 5th of January 1066, three noblemen claimed the English throne: Harold Godwinson (crowned the day after), Harald Hardrada of Norway and William of Normandy. Hardrada sailed to East Yorkshire but was defeated by Godwinson's army near Stamford Bridge. Meanwhile, William landed on the shores of Hastings in East Sussex. Godwinson's army marched against the invading forces and the two armies clashed at Battle, a small town most remembered for its abbey - built in remembrance of the Battle that took place on October 14th, 1066. The Battle of Hastings went on for several hours, but when Harold Godwinson was killed, the English army fled disorderly. William then took the tile of King of England and was crowned on Christmas Day following the Battle.

What happened to the red herrings in 1066? East Sussex was the landing site of Hardrada's army, and the Earl of Kent died in the Battle of Hastings. Cadoc of Cornwall, the last of the local ruling nobles, may have been appointed by William the Conqueror as Earl of Cornwall, but this information was first recorded a few centuries after the Battle of Hastings.

Answer: Members of the English House of Lords

History never repeats ... in the rooms beneath the House of Lords. Since 1605 the parliament is thoroughly searched for explosive devices before the opening of the parliamentary year.

The Gunpowder Plot was basically a Roman-Catholic conspiracy to blow the English House of Lords to smithereens, at the day of the opening of the parliamentary year - so that not only members of the House of Lords would attend, but also King James I and his closest advisors, as well as the highest judges in the country and the bishops of the Church of England. Robert Catesby was the chief engineer of this plot, but the best known conspirator was Guy Fawkes - the man who guarded the gunpowder and was to ignite the fuse. Some conspirators worried that friends of theirs would be killed by the explosion, and one of the conspirators even sent an anonymous letter to Lord Monteagle trying to convince him to stay away from the House of Lords on the faithful day. Monteagle informed the authorities, and a search of the premises led to the discovery of 36 barrels of gunpowder and the arrest of Guy Fawkes. Catesby was shot dead in a siege near Staffordshire, and Guy Fawkes, along with some other conspirators, was hung, drawn and quartered - the usual method of execution for traitors.

As for the other options: the Greek Royal family did not exist in 1605. Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire and thus had no royal family of its own. The Spanish Inquisition and the French military staff will inevitably have had some enemies, but a quick internet search showed no attempt to kill them using gunpowder in 1605.

Answer: Thomas Farriner

History never repeats ... for Thomas Farriner. He survived the Great Fire of London, but no notable incidents have been recorded between 1666 and his death in 1670.

Thomas Farriner (born in 1637) owned a fine bakery on Pudding Lane, a small alley near London Bridge. On September 2, 1666 fire broke out in his bakery and raged through the city, destroying over two thirds of the area enclosed between the city walls. The fire even spread outside the city walls and demolished a vast area along Fleet Street. As most buildings were made of wood, fire was a major hazard in cities up till late in the Nineteenth Century. The Great Fire of London thus is only one in a long list of tragedies, including also the burning of Rome (64 AD), the fire in the Borgo (Rome) in 847 AD, the great fire in Hangzhou (China) in 1137, the 1547 fire in Moscow, and of course the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Angelo Motta from Milan (1890-1957) is praised for the traditional Christmas treat known as panettone. Wu Pao Chan (born 1970) is a Taiwan baker, who in 2010 won the bread baking competition in the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie (the French name for a world championship in bakery). Nadya Hussain (born 1984) won the televised Great British Bake Off in 2015.

Answer: Maximilien Robespierre

History never repeats ... on 10 Thermidor An II. This date was the local calendar date for the death of Robespierre. In most other European countries this date was known as July 28, 1794 according to the Gregorian calendar.
Robespierre was born in Arras (the northern part of France) in 1758 and studied law. When the French Revolution took place in 1789, Robespierre soon rose to the highest offices: member of the Committee of Public Safety (a group of five people, comparable to the core of the government), president of the National Convention (comparable to the extended government), and so on. In an attempt to restore order and to quell political unrest, Robespierre sentenced thousands of people and sent them to the guillotine. But on 9 Thermidor An II, several members of parliament revolted and arrested Robespierre. He tried to commit suicide, but was guillotined nevertheless the day after.

Marat (1743-1793) was another French revolutionary leader. He was killed in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday (1768-1793), one of the many condemned to the guillotine. David (1748-1825) briefly was President of the National Convention in January 1794, but is best known as the prolific painter of Revolutionary and Napoleonic events. Arouet (1694-1778) is better known under his nom de plume Voltaire. He was a philosopher and author, one of the figureheads of the Enlightenment that influenced the French Revolution.

Answer: Gebhard von Blucher

History never repeats ... for Napoleon, whom Wellington "gave the boot", so to say.

In 1815 Napoleon escaped from the island of Elba, amassed once more a large army and once again went out to confront the other European armies. The coalition he confronted at that time consisted of the English army, reinforced with smaller armies fielded by the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick and Nassau on the one hand, and the Prussian army on the other hand. Although the English and Prussian forces together vastly outnumbered the French army, they were separated - and Napoleon's only chance was to take on the English army (slightly less troops than the French) and then to confront the advancing Prussians.
The battlefield and the weather conditions were favourable for Wellington's army: he used a valley behind a ridge to hide most of his troops. The soil was very wet after several days of heavy rain, which favoured the defenders and diminished the effectiveness of the French artillery. The Prussian army reached the battlefield late in the afternoon, and their arrival caused the remainder of the French army to fall apart and flee without any coordination. Blucher (1742-1819) was the aging commander of the Prussian army. Born in Rostock; Blucher first was enlisted in the Swedish army but joined the Prussian forces in 1760. King Frederick the Great made him resign in 1773, but after Frederick's death Blucher took up military service once again and rose rapidly through the ranks. In 1813 he was named field marshal, and at Waterloo he finally crushed the Napoleonic troops whom he had fought during several years.

Metternich (1773-1859) was an Austrian diplomat and one of the most influential people after the Napoleonic Wars. Schlieffen (1833-1913) was the German general who designed the famous plan to fight on two fronts used in the First World War. Hindenburg (1847-1934) fought in the First World War on the Russian front, and later was President of the German Reich between 1925 and 1934.

Answer: Josef "Pips" Priller

History never repeats ... So thought Oberst (Colonel) Josef Priller when he started his plane for what he was certain would be his last mission. Nevertheless, he and his wingman Feldwebel (flight sergeant) Wodarczyk took off in their two planes and tried to hinder the invasion, firing their machine guns at the landing troops.

One of the most influential books about D-Day is Cornelius Ryan's "The Longest Day" (1959), which inspired the 1962 movie of the same name. The movie (and to a lesser extent maybe also the book) asserts that Priller and Wodarczyk were the only German pilots active on that day. Albeit that in reality other German pilots also took off, the Luftwaffe was greatly outnumbered by the allied air force and thus could not gain decisive success. Priller (1915-1961) did survive D-Day, and even shot down his hundredth enemy airplane a few days later. For this he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords - one of the highest medals of merit in the German Reich.

Major Pluskat (1912-2002) commanded one of the infantry battalions which defended the American landing zone designed as Omaha Beach. General von Blumentritt was chief of staff of the infantry divisions in Normandy, and Helmuth Lang was the personal aide to Field Marshall Erwin Rommel - the commander of two armies in France.

Answer: Jacob Beser

History never repeats ... except for Jacob Beser, who flew on the strike plane on both famous (or infamous) missions.

Jacob Beser (1921-1992) halted his studies as mechanical engineer and enlisted in the US Army Air Force as soon as the USA entered the war. He rose to the rank of First Lieutenant and specialised in the use of radar countermeasures.
On 6th August 1945 he was one of the twelve crew members of the B-29 bomber "Enola Gay", commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbetts. Six other planes accompanied the "Enola Gay" with missions of reconnaissance and observation, but only the "Enola Gay" was to drop a bomb - which caused eventually about 70,000 victims.
As the Japanese government was still debating whether or not to accept the unconditional surrender demanded by the allied forces, a new bombing mission took off on 9th August. The bombing plane was the "Bockscar" commanded by Major Charles Sweeney, and Jacob Beser once again flew on the crew, to enact radar countermeasures as in the previous mission.

As for the red herrings, I've already mentioned Paul Tibbets (1915-2007). He did not fly in the Nagasaki mission. Admiral Chester Nimitz (1885-1966) was CINCPAC (Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet) from 1942 until 1945, and Chief Naval Officer until his retirement in 1947. Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) was the US President who (as commander in chief) gave the final approval for the use of the atomic bombs.

Answer: Hirohito, Emperor of Japan

History never repeats... for Hirohito, who never celebrated his 65th year on the throne.

Hirohito (1901-1989) became the Japanese Emperor on 25 December 1926. After the Second World War many people (including members of his own family) insisted that Hirohito should abdicate, but the Americans proposed that he remain as a source of continuity, albeit in a role restricted by a constitution in western style. And so Hirohito continued his reign until his death, for a total of 62 years and 13 days. During his lifetime he was known as "the Emperor", and posthumously he was given the title of Emperor Showa.

Franz Joseph I (born 1830) became Emperor in 1848 after the abdication of his uncle Ferdinand I. He would remain on the throne until his death in 1916, reaching a total rule of 67 years and 355 days. Bhumibol Adulyadej was born in 1927. He ascended to the throne in 1946, renamed his country Thailand (the ancient name was Siam) and remained king until his death in 2016, ruling for 70 years and 126 days. Louis XIV of France was born in 1638. He became King of France on 14 May 1643, but was still a minor at that moment. His mother Queen Anne acted as a regent in his name until Louis came of age (September 1651). Afterwards Louis ruled as an absolute monarch until his death in 1715. Including the years that he was still a minor, Louis XIV was King of France during 72 years and 110 days. Elizabeth II was born 21 April 1926. When she was almost 26, her father died and so she ascended to the throne on 6 February 1952. She was the first British monarch to celebrate a sapphire jubilee.