It Happened on October 24 Multiple Choice Quiz | Famous Dates

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The date: October 24, 1260. The location: Chartres Cathedral. King Louis IX has just dedicated the cathedral. Of which nation was Louis IX king?

Answer: France

King Louis IX (born 1214, reigned 1226-1270) is also known as St. Louis. Chartres Cathedral is located about 60 miles southwest of Paris. The cathedral was built over several decades in the 12th and 13th centuries first in the Romanesque and then Gothic style. The cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

2. The date: October 24, 1590. The place: England. John White has just returned from the site of the colony in the "New World" where he had been governor. Which colony was this?

Answer: Roanoke

John White (c. 1540-1593) had left the colony to fetch additional supplies. What happened next was a mystery. Were the colonists attacked? Did they succumb to a disease? Did they choose to move somewhere else? We may never know for sure. One legacy of John White is the large number of water color paintings he made of flora and fauna and inhabitants of the part of North Carolina where Roanoke Island is located.

In my living room I have prints of two of these pictures hanging on the wall. Since I live in Maryland, I chose a picture of a terrapin and one of a crab.

3. The date: October 24, 1644. The place: London England. A new baby--the son of Margaret Jasper and a British admiral--has just been born. Later he will join a religious sect known for plain dress and plain manners and pacifism. Which colony--named in part after his father--will he found in North America?

Answer: Pennsylvania

The man is William Penn (1644-1718), a member of the Society of Friends or Quakers. King Charles II of England owed substantial debts to Penn's father, the Admiral. He paid back the son by granting him territory in North America. Penn had originally planned to name the colony "Sylvania" but the king had him add the Penn name to the name of the colony. Penn founded the city of Philadelphia ('City of Brotherly Love') in 1682-- and through most of the 18th century it was the largest city it the British colonies and the second largest English-speaking city in the world.

4. The date: October 24, 1851. The place: a suburb of Liverpool, England. William Lassell, looking through his telescope, has just discovered the moons of Umbriel and Ariel. Which planet do these moons orbit?

Answer: Uranus

Unlike most of the other planets in our solar system which have moons named after mythological figures, the moons of Uranus are named after characters from works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. Lassell (1799-1880) was a wealthy brewer who used some of his money to pursue his avocation of astronomy.

In addition to the two Uranian moons, he also discovered Triton, a moon of Neptune and co-discovered Hyperion, a moon of Saturn.

5. The date: October 24, 1901. The place: Niagara Falls. Annie Edson Taylor (with or without a monkey) is the first person to do this at Niagara Falls. What is it?

Answer: The first person to go over the falls in a barrel

Annie Edson Taylor (1838-1921) actually did this feat on her 63rd birthday. She had worked during her life as a teacher among her other professions. She hoped to use her trip in a barrel as an opportunity to become "rich and famous". She ended up making relatively little from her stunt as her business manager stole much of the money from her.

6. The date: October 24, 1926. The place: Garrick Theater in Detroit, Michigan. A famous magician has just received several punches to his stomach which may or may not contribute to his death a week later at the age of 52. Who was this magician who at the last could not escape?

Answer: Harry Houdini

Harry Houdini (1874-1926) was born Erik Weisz in Hungary and emigrated with his family to the US as a child. Becoming a magician, he was best known for his "escape" using an encyclopedic knowledge of locks and amazing control over his physical body. (I don't want to say too much more just in case I decide to write a quiz about Houdini's magic one day--there's enough there.) He was punched in the stomach by a student who asked about Houdini's control over his own body. Houdini was caught off guard and was not able to tense himself or ready his body for the blows.

He died of a ruptured appendix a week later--on Halloween!--and it is still unclear to what degree the punches aggravated the situation.

7. The date: October 24, 1929. The place: New York, NY. "Black Thursday"--often described as the start of the Great Depression--has just occurred. What has happened?

Answer: The stock market has begun to crash

During the day on the New York Stock Exchange, the stock market lost about 11% of its value. Attempts to prop up the market by buying up stock temporarily boosted the price so the cumulative loss for the day was only 6.38 points. Over the next few days the drop in stock prices continued.

It is amazing how small the Dow Jones average was in the 1920s and 1930s. At the height of the stock market boom of the late 1920s, the Dow Jones was only in the hundreds as opposed to the 10,000 plus it has been throughout much of the 2010s.

8. The date: October 24, 1945. The place: Earth. This international organization has just gone into effect after the approval of its charter. Which organization is it?

Answer: United Nations

The term "United Nations" was first used by US President Franklin Roosevelt and UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1941. The first organizational meeting took place in San Francisco, CA in April 1945. The "birthdate" of the United Nations represents when the five "permanent member"--the US, USSR, UK, France and Republic of China and a majority of the the other 46 members approved the UN charter. 70 years later, the United Nations has close to 200 member nations.

9. The date: October 24, 1964. The place: Southern Africa. A former African colony has just gained independence as Zambia. Which European nation had controlled Zambia when it was a colony?

Answer: Great Britain

Zambia was formerly the colony of Northern Rhodesia. Zambia is about 291,000 square miles and (in 2015) has about 16.2 million people. The capital his Lusaka. The name Zambia may be derived from the Zambezi river (or river of God).

10. The date: October 24, 1992. The place: at a baseball stadium. The Toronto Blue Jays became the first Major League Baseball team from outside the United States to win the World Series. Which team did they "chop" on their way to victory?

Answer: Atlanta Braves

The Toronto Blue Jays began play in MLB in 1977. Since 1989, they have played their home games in the Sky Dome/Rogers Center. They won the World Series 4 games to 2 with the clinching Game 6 occurring in Atlanta. While the Braves, Mets and Dodgers have all won World Series, the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals (the other team that spent time in Canada) have as of 2015 never advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs.

In 1993, the Blue Jays would win a second World Series, this time over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Source: Author bernie73

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

It Happened on October 24 Trivia Quiz

October 24 is my birthday. Let's see what happened before and after I was born.

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>

NEXT>