International Quiz on Colonies and Colonialism

Answer: Indian Ocean

While the Austrian monarchy, the Habsburgs, reigned over a sizable land empire, they had almost no experience of sea exploration. The Nicobar Islands were colonized by Denmark in 1755, but in 1778 the Habsburgs - mistakenly under the impression that Denmark had abandoned its claims - attempted to colonize them in a bid to build a trade post between their Empire and Asia. They failed establish the facts of ownership, plan properly or equip the project, and after the leader of the expedition died in 1783, the project was abandoned.

(Question by cairnster)

Answer: Columbus, Ohio

The Romans never made it to Ohio, so Columbus is the correct answer.

Colonia Claudia Victricensis Camulodunum became Colchester, Lindum Colonia became Lincoln and Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium became Cologne.

Roman colonies originally were founded for military reasons, as a kind of garrison, but later Romans who retired as soldiers were granted land in the colonies and settled there. Basically this is how the Romance languages spread widely.

(Question by malama)

Answer: Scotland

Between 1698 and 1700, Scotland tried to set up a colony on the Isthmus of Darien, also known as the Isthmus of Panama. The intention was to give Scotland enhanced access to foreign trade, because of the supposed strategic importance of the Panamanian position. This ambitious scheme failed, due to sickness, lack of food and attacks by Spaniards.

The scheme had been backed by something between a quarter and a half of all the money in the country. The devastation to the Scottish economy is said to have been a major factor in the 1707 Act of Union.

(Question by Upstart3)

Answer: Alta California

New Spain was established in the sixteenth century after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec empire. It comprised Central America, Mexico, parts of what is now the Southwestern and Central United States, parts of Florida, the Spanish West Indies and later on the Philippines and other Pacific Islands.

The First Mexican Empire initially included Alta California. The Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico remained in Spanish possession.

Alta California seceded from Mexico in 1846 and became the Republic of California. During the Mexican-American War California was occupied by the US and was incorporated into the Union in 1850.

(Question by malama)

Answer: Sepoys believed were forced to use cartridges greased with pig and cow fat

In 1857, the Enfield rifle was introduced in India, and sepoys were expected to replace the former Smoothmore rifles with the Enfield. While the rifle itself wasn't the problem, gunpowder cartridges, which had to be torn open orally, were said to be greased with pig and cow fat. This caused major unrest as sepoys were mainly Hindu (for whom cows are sacred) and Muslim (for whom pigs are taboo). The mutiny aggravated declining relations between the British East India Company and several Indian princely states, and led to all out war. The Company quashed the rebellion and killed most of its leaders over the next few years, and exiled the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, to the city of Rangoon.

(Question by lordingtar)

Answer: Qingdao

The city of Qingdao was captured by Germany in 1898 and was renamed as "The Kiautschou Bay concession". The Germania brewery was established here in 1903 and later bought by the Japanese Dai-Nippon brewery. After World War 2, the Japanese withdrew from China and the brewery was renamed the Tsingtao brewery out of nationalistic pride.

Qingdao is a port city and housed the Western Pacific Fleet of the US Navy in 1945. The old town area of the city, while mostly Chinese, still houses several buildings of German architecture.

(Question by lordingtar)

Answer: Dutch

Jan van Riebeeck reached Table Bay with three ships (the Goede Hoop, Drommedaris and Reiger) on 6th April, 1652. It soon became apparent that expansion was a necessity in order to increase the production of goods required by the trading vessels.

(Question by Pam1239)

Answer: Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty

Legoland, Coney Island and Disneyland are of course all theme parks. Togoland, Namibia and Cameroon have been at one point or another in history all been German colonies.

Heligoland is a small island in the North Sea, which had originally belonged to Denmark and since 1814 had been a British possession. It had become of strategic importance to Germany to control the German Bight and the entrance to the Kiel Canal (then under construction). In exchange for this island - and a coastal strip in Namibia and around Dar es Salaam - Germany ceded some parts of East Africa, which the British needed to build a railway to Lake Victoria, and gave up the rights to Zanzibar. The British immediately set up a protectorate.

Ex-German Chancellor von Bismarck had arranged for this agreement, but it came to be signed under his successor Caprivi. Bismarck, who didn't like Caprivi, said that Germany had traded an African empire for a rock in the North Sea like "trousers for buttons".

(Question by malama)

Answer: Haiti

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture became known as the 'Black Napoleon'. The forces he brought together, mainly from slaves, starting in 1791, ultimately defeated the greatest army in the world and deprived France of a lucrative colony.

Toussaint Louverture was captured and died in France in 1803. The revolution continued under Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and independence for Haiti was declared in 1804.

(Question by Upstart3)

Answer: Roanoke Island

When the supply ships returned, after one of the Anglo-Spanish wars, the buildings had been dismantled, and the colonists were simply gone. Only the word Croatoan (a nearby island and also a Native American tribe who lived in the area)on a random board gave any clue as to what may have happened. Attack? Assimilation with the natives for a starving colony? Abductions? Spanish revenge for Sir Walter Raleigh's privateer ships?

A long-running outdoor drama called appropriately, "The Lost Colony" is performed on summer nights nearby and has many famed actors as alumni, including Andy Griffith, of Mayberry fame.

(Question by Ladyleo)