Where Did It Happen? 1900s Edition Quiz

Answer: China

"The Righteous and Harmonious Fists" was the almost official name of the nationalist group Yihequan, better known in western history as the "Boxers". Countries such as Great Britain, Russia and the USA tried to establish colonies in China, which provoked the rise of a prominent nationalist group.

The Boxers approached Beijing and threatened to drive all foreign legations out of the city and country by force. The British General Seymour decided to take some 2,000 troops from the UK, the German Empire, Russia, France, the USA, Japan, Italy and Austria-Hungary to Beijing in support of the legations.

But a force of about 2,000 Boxers and about 3,000 Chinese Muslim troops (known as the Kansu Braves) fought them off, and meanwhile the legations endured a fifty-five days siege.

Answer: Australia

Australia was formerly a set of colonies to the UK. Gradually the different colonies took over governmental duties in the second half of the nineteenth century, and since 1890 plans were made to achieve independence - although the British sovereign would remain the head of state, as was the case with several Commonwealth states (such as Canada).
January 1, 1901 saw the founding of the Federation of Australia, consisting of the mainland states Northern Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, as well as the island state of Tasmania. (Various smaller islands or island groups were included, but not as states). Melbourne was chosen as the capital city, but a few years later the development of a brand new capital city (Canberra) started.
Edmund Barton (1849-1920) was Prime Minister of Australia until 1903, when he left the executive and took up a seat in the High Court of Australia. His appointment as one of the supreme judges may cause surprise to some quiz takers: after all Barton never studied law at university, his major was classical literature. 

Answer: South Africa

The Boer Wars were two separate conflicts between the British colonial powers and the settlers (many of Dutch descent) in what is now known as the Republic of South Africa. The Frist Boer War was fought in 1880-1881, but 18 years later a second (and more tragic) conflict arose.

At the turn of the century, the British Empire controlled the western half of southern Africa, while the eastern half was divided between the South African Republic (also known as Transvaal), Orange Free State and Natal. Natal was a British colony with its own governor, but the South African Republic and Orange Free State both were ruled by people of Dutch descent - the Boers (Dutch for farmers), who spoke their own variant of Dutch.

In 1899 the British started efforts to unite these four regions under one sole (British) governor and administration.

But the Boers offered tough resistance. Many atrocities were committed on both sides, but in the end Britain prevailed.

Answer: France

Maurice Garin was the first winner of the Tour de France in 1903. This cycling event was organized by a sports newspaper that specialized in automobile events. The Tour de France 1903 consisted of six very long stages: Paris-Lyon, Lyon-Marseille (containing one mountain), Marseille-Toulouse, Toulouse-Bordeaux, Bordeaux-Nantes and Nantes-Paris. Garin won the first, fifth and final stage, and his compatriot Hippolyte Aucouturier won the second and third stage. Only the fourth stage was won by someone who did not have French nationality: it was the Swiss Charles Laeser, who did not finish all stages. 21 cyclists did finish this monster course: 16 French, one Italian, one German and three Belgians.

Answer: Colombia

When the Spanish colonies gained their independency around 1820, one of the new countries was Gran Colombia (independent since 1819): a large part of the North of South-America and a significant part of the South of Central America. After Venezuela and Ecuador seceded, the remaining provinces of Gran Colombia formed the Republic of New Granada.

This Republic then turned into the Granadine Confederation and later into the United States of Colombia. In 1886 the United States of Colombia lost Panama and all Central-American territories. From 1899 to 1901 a civil war was fought in the country (not the first civil war, and not the last either: like most South-American countries Colombia has a troubled history). Finally General Rafael Reyes took the Presidency in 1904, and stayed in command for five years. Reyes was named a dictator by later historians because he governed without an elected parliament, but in fact the representatives were not eager to congregate. Reyes ordered several public works, and he signed a peace treaty with neighbouring Venezuela.

In 1909 Reyes abdicated, hoping to prevent another civil war because his position was quite controversial.

Answer: Russia

January 22 (according to western calendars, the local calendar showed January 9) saw a large crowd of unarmed citizens approaching the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. They hoped to present the Czar with a petition for democratic rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.

The Czar was not at home, but a strong army detachment guarded the bridges in the approaches to the Palace. As the unarmed crowd approached, the guards felt threatened by the sheer number of people and they opened fire. Official numbers mentioned 96 killed, but soon a number of almost 4,000 deadly victims was mentioned. Western historians dubbed the event "Bloody Sunday". In June the sailors of the battleship Potemkin started a mutiny, provoked by a serving of soup made of maggoty flesh.

They killed 18 of the officers and tried in vain to support the general strike in the city of Odessa (then in the Russian Empire, nowadays Ukraine). After an encounter with a flotilla commanded by royalist officers, the sailors of the Potemkin landed in Romania and surrendered to the local authorities, which granted them the status of political refugees.

Answer: USA

San Francisco, California (USA) was built near the San Andreas Fault: a geological discontinuity in the lower layers of the earth crust, located at the point where two tectonic plates meet. For many years before 1906, San Francisco and its suburbs were periodically struck by minor earthquakes.

But Wednesday 18 April 1906 was different: this time a major quake happened, and the death toll was estimated at some 3,000 people. The Richter scale to measure the intensity of earthquakes did not yet exist. Later estimates on average give an intensity of 7.9, which makes it one of the major earthquakes.

The centre of the earthquake was probably offshore, somewhere in San Francisco Bay. The fire that followed the earthquake caused at least half the deaths,

Answer: Austria-Hungary

Albert Apponyi (1846-1933) was a descendant of a very old noble family. His father had been the Hungarian Chancellor, and Albert himself was member of the Hungarian parliament for over forty years. Between 1906 and 1910, he was the Hungarian Minister of Religion and Education, and he held this same office again in 1917-1918.
Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the state of Hungary had a fair part of autonomy, especially where it concerned local interests such as education. German was the official language in all of Austria-Hungary, but Hungarian (in its own language Magyar), Serbian, Croatian, Romanian, Slovak and Ruthenian (a variant of Russian) were also recognized and used in various schools.
Apponyi intended to close down all schools that did not teach in Magyar. Furthermore, the Hungarian government urged people to adopt Magyar surnames, and renamed several cities and towns into Magyar.

Answer: Bolivia

Robert Leroy Parker was born in Utah in 1866. Harry Longabaugh was born in Pennsylvania in 1867. Both men became notorious gangsters, best known under their respective aliases Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. At the end of the nineteenth century, their gang robbed several banks and money transports. Parker and Longabaugh fled the USA when the American police came close to dismantling the gang, and found refuge in South-America.
Early November 1908 two men closely resembling Parker and Longabaugh robbed a money courier, and these men were tracked down to the small town of San Vicente in Bolivia. The local police force reinforced by three army men went out to apprehend the criminals. During the ensuing gunfight, one member of the military was killed, as well as both besieged men.
The dead criminals were identified as Parker and Longabaugh, but the identification was not without controversy. Later forensic tests have tried to prove that these two people were indeed Parker and Longabaugh, but these tests did not give conclusive evidence.

Answer: England

Bleriot (1872-1936) was a French engineer and inventor. He first founded a factory to produce headlamps for automobiles - after a design of his own. Soon he spent time and money developing airplanes, and his first flight in an airplane of his design was in 1907. In 1908 the English newspaper the "Daily Mail" offered a substantial prize for the first one to cross the English Channel by air - a stretch of over 50 km. No one engaged in such an adventure in 1908, but the next year saw two tries. On July 19 a Frenchmen of English descent, named Hubert Latham, took off.

But he experienced engine trouble on the final stretch and was forced to land on the Channel. Bleriot took off in Calais a few days later, and landed in Dover near Dover Castle.