The Great White Part 3: Milky Milestones Quiz

Answer: Sophie Scholl

The "White Rose" (in German: "Die Weisse Rose") was a small movement involved in passive resistance against the Nazi doctrine. Hans Scholl (born 1918) founded the group with some friends in 1940, and Hans' sister Sophie (born 1921) soon joined the group. After having distributed several pamphlets demanding social justice and an end to the war, the group members were arrested in February 1943. After a brief and biased trial, Hans and Sophie were condemned for treason and beheaded on February 22, 1943.

Question submitted by JanIQ.

Answer: China, 1794 to 1804

The White Lotus society, a secret religious group, traced its roots back to the 14th century, having been most active in the Sichuan province. The 1794 uprising was not the first instigated by them, but the largest one. It began as a tax revolt and led to ten years of bloody guerrilla warfare that, in spite of vast inferiority in material and numbers, managed to score several significant victories against the Qing dynasty troops. The revolt was finally crushed in 1804, but certainly contributed to the gradual decline of the Qing dynasty's power in the 19th century.

Question submitted by WesleyCrusher.

Answer: Provide regular employment opportunities for the young Indian men

The Treaty of 1868 between the United States and the Ute Indians established a reservation for the Indians in Colorado. The Indians were to give up their claim to all other lands. In return, the US government was to set up two Indian agencies to provide food, clothing and other supplies to supply the Indians' needs for a period of thirty years. The government was also supposed to provide for schools, sawmills and other infrastructure to make it possible for the Indians to be self-sustaining. Nathan Meeker, who was appointed to White River in 1878, failed to provide the promised supplies and tried both to convert the Utes to Christianity and to force them to take up fixed farming. He also ploughed some of the lands the Utes used for grazing their horses. Tensions rose and the last straw was when he brought in troops. The Ute attacked the agency killing all the employees and taking some of the women hostages. They also wiped out the troops at Milk Creek. As a result, the remaining Ute Indians were forced to leave the reservation and move to reservations in another territory.

Question submitted by pitegny.

Answer: The Italian Front

The events of "White Friday" actually occurred on Wednesday, December 13, 1916 on Mount Marmolada in the Dolomites mountain range of northern Italy. The mountains formed the front line between Italy (an Allied power) and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (a Central power and ally of Germany). The Italian Front was one of the deadliest places to spend the war as the freezing temperatures and inhospitable terrain proved as much of an enemy as the opposing forces. On White Friday, a massive avalanche killed nearly 300 Austrian troops in their mountain barracks. A series of other avalanches across the area in the following days are believed to have resulted in the deaths of up to 10,000 soldiers.

Question submitted by Fifiona81.

Answer: Apollo 1

Apollo 1 was planned to be the first mission to land humans on the moon. The crew consisted of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee. However, an electrical fire broke out during a test run and killed all men aboard. The subsequent investigations were controversial and NASA developed a reputation for being careless and unprepared for a flight to the moon. Proper safety precautions and a safe escape route where not planned ahead of time as the test run was not considered dangerous. NASA stopped manned space missions for over a year until Apollo 7 in October 1968.

Question submitted by Joepetz.

Answer: Nancy Wake

Nancy Wake was born in Wellington, New Zealand, but raised by her mother with five siblings in Sydney. She taught herself journalism in London, married a wealthy French industrialist, and was living in Marseilles when the Germans invaded France. She was an ambulance driver till France fell, then became a member of the French Resistance. With 5 million francs offered for her capture and her network betrayed to the Germans, she fled to England where she joined the Special Operations Executive. Her husband was tortured and executed because he would not speak about her. In 1944 she was parachuted into France and joined a group of 7,000 Maquis, the French Resistance, as liaison with London. She helped organise operations against the Germans, fighting alongside the men. After the war, she was awarded the George Medal, the US Medal of Freedom, the Croix de Guerre, and the Medaille de la Résistance.

Question submitted by Windrush

Answer: Russia

After the Russian October Revolution, Russia was plunged into a civil war that lasted for five years from 1917 to 1921/2. The two main parties involved in the civil war were the Bolsheviks, known as the Red Army or the Reds, and the Anti-Bolsheviks called the Whites. The Reds were the Communist faction while the Whites were a coalition of an assortment of parties whose binding force was anti-communism. Ultimately the Red Army was victorious and Russia embraced communism under the leadership of first Lenin and then Stalin.

Question submitted by em1958.

Answer: South Africa

Apartheid encouraged the repression of non-white South Africans for the benefit of whites, who were a minority in the country at the time. Policies during this period determined many areas, from what type of job or house a person could have, to where a person could go to the bathroom in public spaces. Apartheid legislation was repealed in 1991.

Question submitted by Lones78.

Answer: Murder

Whitechapel was the site of the murders of at least eleven women in the period from 1888 to 1891. Most of the victims were prostitutes. The bodies of the women were also found to be mutilated. The murders were attributed to a serial killer who has come to be known as Jack the Ripper. Early police accounts also tag him as the Whitechapel Murderer. Despite significant public interest in this case, the murders were never solved and the identity of the killer remains a mystery. This event continues to evoke interest in historians and amateur sleuths who have unsuccessfully tried to piece together the identity of the killer from the evidence recorded at the time of the murders. The continuing public interest in this case has spawned movies, books and television shows on the Ripper.

Question submitted by zorba_scank.

Answer: Russia

Sergei Witte was born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia) in 1849, into a family with Dutch ancestors. He studied mathematics and an administrative career, climbing the railway administration up to Minister of Transportation (1892). Then he was appointed as Minister of Finance (1892-1903) and became subsequently Chairman of the Ministers (1903-1905), which post was renamed Prime Minister in 1905.
Witte worked hard to improve the economic situation of Tsarist Russia, but it was a vast task in a harsh time: revolting peasants and sailors, first successes of the left-wing parties (including the Bolsheviks), the Tsar and his family stubbornly trying to retain absolute power... Witte resigned in 1906 and did never got back into the government. Witte died in Petrograd (nowadays St-Petersburg) in 1915.

Question submitted by JanIQ.