THE HISTORY, ETC SUMMER QUIZ

Forty questions all about history, which honestly I took a LOT of time over

Last month I hosted a History Quiz at the Groucho Club in London. It was sold out and great fun. Which was just as well, because I spent absolutely ages writing the questions (and then rewriting them when my pal Elizabeth Day sent me a text in BLOCK CAPS saying THIS IS WAY TOO DIFFICULT).

Anyway, it struck me that you, beloved History, Etc followers, might like to test yourselves against the questions as a sort of little midsummer treat.

So here is the quiz. There are three ‘regular’ rounds and a picture round, called Who Nose? (It’ll make sense.)

Two points for most answers, unless stated otherwise, gives a maximum total of 80 points.

The answers are at the bottom, for paid subscribers.

Post your score in the comments!

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ROUND 1: GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

A round about generals and generalities

1. In May 1926 1.7m British workers downed tools for nine days in solidarity with coal miners protesting bad conditions. What is the name given to this mass industrial walkout? (2 points)

2. In 1908 the transport tycoon Billy Crapo Durant founded a company to manage his horse drawn carriage business and his recently purchased Buick Motor Company. What was the name of this company? It is still going today and last year sold about 6 million cars worldwide. (2 points)

3. Which famous British general and politician was responsible (in 1831) for removing the royal menagerie from the Tower of London and taking the animals to Regent’s Park, where today we can find London Zoo? (2 points)

4. If you went out into Chinatown and ordered a sweet and spicy deep fried chicken dish, it might well be named after a nineteenth century Chinese statesman and general who served under the Qing dynasty.

   What is the name of this chicken dish? (2 points)

5. The Egyptian Queen Cleopatra famously conducted love affairs and political alliances with two famous Roman generals.

   Give me both their names. (1 point for each name)

6. Before the invention of general anaesthetic, a herbal concoction called hemlock was sometimes used to induce unconsciousness. In high doses, it was a fatal poison. For two points tell me the name of the Greek philosopher who was sentenced to death by drinking hemlock in 399BC. (2 points)

7. A question about UK general elections. The first woman to be elected to the British parliament was Constance Markiewicz, who was returned (but did not take up her seat) in the 1918 General Election. Which party did she stand for? (2 points)

8. Modern computer scientists fantasise about creating AGI – artificial general intelligence. But which medieval scientist allegedly got there first, inventing a BRAZEN HEAD (talking bronze skull) that answered any question you put to it?

   His nickname was Doctor Mirabilis and he was also the first European to write down the recipe for gunpowder. (2 points)

9. In 1915 Albert Einstein published a theory that proposed gravity to be a geometric property of spacetime. It was proved four years later by observations during a solar eclipse. What was the name of this theory? (2 points)

10. In the historical comedy series Blackadder Goes Forth, General Melchett, played by Stephen Fry, declares that there are only two great universities in England. What are they? (1 point for each)

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ROUND 2: KINGS AND QUEENS

A round that is slightly about monarchs but not only about monarchs. Some of the answers will involve the word king or queen…

1. Chess is a game that dates back around 1,500 years. Early sets include a piece called the Vizier, which could move one space at a time, vertically or horizontally.

   What did that piece evolve to become in modern chess? (2 points)

2. Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006) is a historical film set at the end of the Late Pleistocene era, roughly 12,000 years ago. It features a female woolly mammoth called Ellie, who thinks she is the last female mammoth left on Earth. Which actress and rapper voiced Ellie the Woolly Mammoth? (2 points)

3. A Balthazar is one of those massive champagne bottles named after Biblical kings which are beloved by oligarchs and finance people. Which group of Biblical kings was Balthazar part of? (2 points)

4. Complete this phrase, sometimes attributed to Voltaire but in fact written by philosopher and art critic Denis Diderot: ‘Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the guts of the last XXXXX’ (2 points)

5. In Memphis TN in 1968 James Earl Ray Jr shot and killed which American civil rights campaigner? (2 points)

6. In 1886 the London football teams St Jude’s and Christchurch Rangers merged to form a new team whose most significant honour since then has been to win the League Cup in 1967. What is that team called? (2 points)

7. According to stories in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions the ancient patriarch Solomon was once visited by the wealthiest monarch in the world, who brought him many fabulous gifts. She ruled a kingdom near modern Yemen, and was known to have extremely hairy legs. Who was she? (2 points)

8. Which London railway station was built in 1851-2 on a site earlier known as Battle Bridge, where Boudicca allegedly fought the Romans? Several platforms are said to be haunted by Boudicca’s ghost. (2 points)

9. In 1903 the Gillette Safety Razor Company began manufacturing safety razors in the United States. They featured a picture of their founder on the razor blade packets: K.C. Gillette. For two points, what did K.C. stand for? (1 point for each name)

10. The Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody mentions which Italian scientist who died in Florence in 1642? (2 points)

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ROUND 3: DATES

Not the efficiently calorific dried fruit, but ten questions loosely about romance and dating.

1. In Greek mythology, Leander and Hero were lovers who lived on either side of a famous stretch of water separating Europe from Asia. Leander used to swim across this waterway for his nightly bunk-ups, but was eventually drowned when he swam in a storm. What was the name of the waterway? (2 points)

2. The original ‘siblings or dating’ couple Adam and Eve were chucked out of the Garden of Eden after a snake convinced them to eat from the tree of knowledge.

   In some Islamic traditions, however, it was not a snake but which other animal? (2 points)

3. In 453AD the notorious barbarian warlord Attila the Hun died on the night of his wedding to a girl called Ilica. What was the cause of his death? (2 points)

4. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are famous lovers of the rival families Montague and Capulet. But Shakespeare wasn’t the first to write about them. The medieval Florentine poet Dante Alghieri mentioned the Montagues and Capulets in his famous epic poem about the afterlife. What is the poem? (2 points)

5. The great sixth century Eastern Roman emperor Justinian had a somewhat scandalous wife. She was said by the gossipy chronicler Procopius to have been the daughter of a bear trainer from the Hippodrome, and she had a sexy trick: she trained a goose to peck barley grains out of her knickers. Who was she? (2 points)

6. The English medieval king Edward II had a good pal, widely thought to his male lover, who was murdered in 1312 and subsequently gave his name to an Oxford University drinking society. (It was during a party given by this society that former Prime Minister David Cameron was said to have put his penis into a dead pig’s mouth.

   Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton strongly denies this.) Name Edward II’s friend/lover. (2 points)

7. Which female poet, born on the island of Lesbos around the sixth century BC, was famous for her love poetry, and has in modern times been claimed as a poster-girl for female same-sex love? (2 points)

8. My favourite musician, Kate Bush, has written a number of songs about historical figures (inc Joan of Arc and Elvis.) In her 1989 song ‘Heads We’re Dancing’, the protagonist dances all night long with a charming stranger, but realises the next day that it is which notorious twentieth-century leader? (2 points)

9. Which British king said this in 1936, on giving up the throne in order to marry?

   “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.” (2 points)

10. The greatest ever historical movie is Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, in which Bill and Ted collect historical personages to help them pass their history assignment and thereby save the world. Along the way they pick up girlfriends called Joanna and Elizabeth who are medieval princesses. Name any two of the other people they assemble. (One point for each.)

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ROUND 4: WHO NOSE?

Ten historical noses. For two points apiece, identify the owner of each.