World History in Ten Objects Trivia Quiz

Answer: China

The "terracotta army" is a collection of nearly 9,000 sculptures or statues which were found in 1974 in the Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province in China. They represent the army of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is believed that they were buried with the emperor around 210-209 BCE and were created to protect him in his after-life.

The site is an important archaeological find and is now a protected area of over 20 square miles or 50 square kilometres.

Answer: The Dead Sea Scrolls

The document illustrated is entitled "The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness", commonly known as the "War Scroll". It was one of the seven original Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Qumran in 1947. It deals with military strategy and prophesied a "final war", possibly Armageddon.

Answer: 3

There were two languages on the Rosetta Stone - Greek and Egyptian - but the Egyptian language was in the form of two scripts - hieroglyphs and Demotic script. Therefore, there are three scripts - Greek, Egyptian Demotic and hieroglyphs. The Rosetta stone was carved in 196 BCE and found in 1799 in Egypt at Rashid (Rosetta).

Although incomplete, it provided the key that scholars needed to decipher Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Answer: Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.

The Liberty Bell was originally cast in England in 1752. It is now located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the Independence National Historical Park. Its inscription, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof", which is a quote from the Old Testament (Leviticus, Chapter 25, Verse 10).

The bell was originally called the State House Bell or the Province Bell, but was renamed the Liberty Bell in about 1839 by abolitionists who, because of the bell's inscription, adopted it as a symbol of the campaign to abolish slavery.

Answer: Edward (Ned) Kelly

All of the answers are famous Australian bushrangers but Ned Kelly is the most famous of all. His date of birth is unknown but estimated to be around 1854. He became an outlaw as a result of extreme poverty and the social injustices that he experienced as a youth.

When it became obvious that his criminal activities were leading to a showdown with the local constabulary, he and his gang decided to fashion bullet-proof suits of armour. They tried a variety of materials before achieving some success with the thick iron mould-boards from plough-shares which they stole from local farmers.

Despite the armour, Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan was unsuccessful and he was subsequently hanged for his crimes in 1880.

Answer: The Magna Carta

English King John (also known as John Lackland) signed* the Magna Carta (Great Charter) at Runnymede in 1215. He was forced by his barons, by threat of war, to sign the charter which provided a number of rights and protections for the barons, the clergy and the people, and established the principle that everyone, even the king, had to obey the law.
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*Editor Note: Please do NOT send correction notices to the effect that actually Magna Carta was sealed, not signed. It is accepted usage in England to talk about 'signing Magna Carta'.

Answer: Guillotine

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a French doctor after whom the guillotine was named. Many people mistakenly believe he invented it. However, the device was actually invented by Antoine Louis (who was also a French doctor). Guillotin merely advocated the use of "a machine that beheads painlessly" to deal with criminals who were to be executed, in preference to clumsier devices such as the axe or the sword.

Answer: tulips

Tulips were introduced into Europe from Turkey at the end of the 16th century. They were highly prized and grew in popularity until the 1630s when people in the Netherlands began to speculate by buying and selling tulip bulbs. Prices soared to ridiculous heights.

At the peak of "tulip mania" or "tulipomania" (1636-1637), a single bulb could cost approximately ten times a skilled worker's annual salary. Inevitably, the bubble burst in 1637. Lesser tulipomanias also occurred in other European countries but nowhere near the extent that they did in the Netherlands.

Answer: Wilhelm Roentgen

Wilhelm Roentgen discovered and documented x-rays, a form of electromagnetic radiation, in 1895. He found them by accident when he was experimenting with vacuum tubes and called them x-rays or "x-strahlen" - "x" for the unknown (because they were an unknown type of radiation) and strahlen, the German word for rays.

He later took the first x-ray of his wife's hand showing her bones and her wedding ring. Needless to say, the ability to see inside the human body while the person was alive and well sparked considerable interest among scientists as well as the general public.

Answer: Spain

From the 1600s to the 1800s, the use of Spanish dollar spread to many countries as a result of Spain's political and commercial activities. It was widely accepted, partly because of its uniformity in composition and manufacture. Each coin was made up of 1 ounce of silver and the edges of the coins were milled so that dishonest people could not shave the edges.