One Year, Two Events Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1610 - Galileo reveals his findings about the heavens

Not all the great explorers were European. A Moroccan named Ibn Battutah travelled from Morocco across Africa, toured the Middle East and India, and even visited China. Chinese Admiral Cheng-Ho explored most of the Indian Ocean in seven voyages. Leading a fleet of 62 ships, he visited Africa, Saudi Arabia, India, and the East Indies. Marco Polo you've probably heard about. And Galileo explored the heavens.

Answer: 1189 - Last recorded Norse visit to North America

Most people know about Polo's trip to China. Few know about the Chinese Admiral Zheng's trip to the West. He had a fleet of 300 ships, served by 28,000 men, and sailed at least as far as the Cape of Good Hope - and maybe as far as Brazil! Read "1421", by Gavin Menzies, for the story of what happened next.

On the Field of Cloth of Gold, two Renaissance kings met in the most magnificent pageant of chivalry ever.

And in 1189, the year the Third Crusade began, the last of the Viking settlers in America called it a day, and sailed back to Greenland.

Answer: 751 - Arabs defeat Chinese at Samarkand

All four of the events are battles that stopped (or significantly delayed) invasions. The Arab victory at Samarkand kept the Chinese out until Ghengis Khan came through 400 years later. The Franks, under Charles Martel, stopped the Muslim armies that would have otherwise conquered Europe and exterminated Christianity. Alfred the Great stopped the Danes from conquering all of England, and Arthur stopped the Saxons from doing so - for a generation, anyway.

Answer: 1704 - Isaac Newton publishes "Optics"

Ideas are sometimes more important than events. Isaac Newton's work was. Campanella wrote a story about an imaginary land where property was shared, and the state paid for education - a precursor of Communism. Adam Smith's book is the "bible" of free market economics.

The British captured Gibraltar in the War of the Spanish Succession - along with Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Minorca.

Answer: 1756 - Start of the Seven Years' War

The Seven Years' War actually began as a struggle between two alliances - Austria, France, Russia, and Sweden on one side, Britain Prussia, and Hanover on the other. In North America, Britain got Canada and the U.S. east of the Mississippi (with special arrangements for New Orleans area).
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The Hundred Years War started because the King of England had a claim to be King of France, too - via William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy. Eventually, the French won out - thanks, in part, to Joan of Arc. No wonder the British burned her.

The Thirty Years' War was the last European ostensibly "religious" war: Catholics vs. Protestants to see who would be the next Holy Roman Emperor. Hard-headed politics changed that, however, and soon Catholics were fighting Catholics, and Protestants Protestants. It all ended with much of Central Europe devasted, having lost up to half its population.

Answer: 1240 - Mongols capture Moscow

For some reason, few history courses mention that there were three great empires in North Africa during the Middle Ages. Ghana, Mali, and Songhay were all rich and powerful kingdoms.

The Great Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, of Mansa Musa, King of Mali, was especially impressive at the time. Musa spent so much that the Middle Eastern gold markets were still depressed 12 years after the trip.

Moscow had been founded by Vikings - the "men of Rus" who later became Russians. However, they were nowhere near the world power they would someday become when Genghis Khan came calling.

Most people know England as a great naval power, but their first victory was at Sluys.

Answer: 1670 - Hudson's Bay Company formed

Known as "Bushell's Case", the trial of William Penn revolutionized the courts. The judge had been adamant about Penn being found guilty, but the jury, under foreman Edward Bushell, refused to return a guilty verdict - even after the judge threatened them, fined them, and even imprisoned them! Penn went free - and the rights of an independent jury were upheld.

Answer: 1000 - Bjarni Herjulfson *doesn't* discover America

Here we have a few bad decisions on display. The Archduke was on his way to visit a man in hospital, when his driver made a wrong turn. He stopped to turn around - right in front of an assassin. The Archduke's death triggered a series of events that led to the outbreak of World War I.

Barbier was the inventor of "night writing" - a code of raised dots on paper that was used to pass messages on the front lines, where having a light would be dangerous. He also suggested it be used by the blind. It was, however, very complicated. A young blind boy offered some suggestions, but Barbier haughtily turned him down. So the boy invented a simpler system - and it is Louis Braille we remember today for raised dot communication.

Ethelred, faced with Viking invaders, came up with a novel approach - he BRIBED them! He gave them 10,000 pounds of silver to go away. They then came back in 994 for more money - and again in 1007 and 1012. Hence the saying "Once you pay Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane!"

Bjarni was a mariner on his way to Greenland, who was swept by storm winds to the shores of Canada. However, he wanted to go home, not be an explorer. He didn't even leave his ship, just sailed north to Greenland. A few years later, he mentioned his discovery to a friend - and Leif Eriksson discovered the New World.

Answer: 1558 - England loses last Continental European possession

A bunch of endings, here. When William the Conqueror became King of England, he kept his lands in Normandy, as well. In 1558, the French retook Calais, a port that England had owned since the Hundred Years' War, and the last thing England would own on the mainland until Gibraltar.

In 1571, the last battle between galleys (ships with oars) was fought near Lepanto. The Venetians and their allies crushed the Turkish navy, ending their domination of the Mediterranean.

In 1453, the Roman Empire finally came to an end when Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, was finally taken by the Ottoman Turks.

Answer: 1346 - Battle of Crecy

The answers relate to innovations in warfare.

The Mayans, who had previously used warfare as a means of proving personal valor and gathering sacrifices, in 562 began wars designed to conquer opposing states. It is believed that the reason the Mayans would leave one of their cities is because a war had removed their city's connection to the gods - the reason the city existed in the first place.

Oliver Cromwell introduced discipline and organization into his New Model Army - something lacking in European armies since the Romans - and destroyed the traditional armies supporting Charles I. He then destroyed Charles, the only English King ever executed following a trial. (Many others had been murdered in the Middle Ages - by aristocrats).

And, of course, most of you have heard about the Battle of Crecy, where a few English longbows showed the French knights who really ruled the battlefield.