Weekly History Quiz No.240

Formed around 697, Venice was a maritime power that controlled much of North Eastern Italy and the Adriatic coast until it's fall at the hands of the French in 1797.

Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and was declared illegitimate after Boleyn's execution. Henry restored her to the line of succession when she was 10, she took power when her sister, Mary I, died in 1558.

Jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) the project began in 1962, and a prototype flew in 1969. A market was predicted for 350 aircraft, but delays, cost overruns and increasing fuel costs saw Air France and British Airways remain the sole customers, with only 20 aircraft ever built.

Initially working in the style of Caravaggio, Gentileschi was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. Her work was overshadowed by her rape by fellow painter Agostino Tassi as they worked to decorate the vaults of Casino delle Muse in Rome. At his trial she was tortured using thumb screws in order to verify her testimony.

The ship’s entry into service in 1906 represented such an advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the “dreadnoughts”, as well as the class of ships named after her. Dreadnought was the first battleship of her era to have a uniform main battery, rather than having a few large guns complemented by a heavy secondary armament of smaller guns. She was also the first capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time of her completion.

British soldiers from 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march, killing 13. Bloody Sunday came to be regarded as one of the most significant events of the Troubles, it was the highest number of people killed in a shooting incident during the conflict.

He served as a Colonel in the ‘Rough riders’ a US irregular cavalry unit, and took part in the Battle of San Juan Hill. He campaigned to be awarded the Medal of Honour and although he didn’t receive it at the time, he was subsequently awarded it in 2001. He used his fame from the conflict to gain the Presidency only three years later.

Entering he war opportunistically when it was evident that the German invasion of France was successful in June 1940, the Italians occupied a key strategic position in the Mediterranean. Their large and professional navy was a serious threat to Britain, although it wasn’t employed with sufficient aggression to have a decisive impact. Their land forces suffered from poor leadership, training and equipment and generally performed badly. They agreed to an armistice as the Allied armies prepared for a full scale invasion of Italy and it came into effect on 8th September 1943.

Introduced in 46 BCE, the Julian calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar, championed by Pope Gregory XIII, in 1582.

Born Heinz Kissinger in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany, he came to the USA as a Jewish refugee in 1938. He worked for a number of US Presidential administrations but is best known for his role as National Security Adviser to Richard Nixon and his successor, Gerald Ford. He has a conflicted legacy, contributing to escalating the Vietnam war as well as negotiating its end, supporting the coup in Chile that saw Pinochet come to power and negotiating the diplomatic relations between the Peoples Republic of China and the USA.