Weekly History Quiz No.282

Polish-British Joseph Conrad wrote the novel as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, based on his own experiences in the Congo Free State, a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. In the book sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior, who must find Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native".

It provided the inspiration for Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now.

Crowned King of Mercia in 924, within just a few years he had consolidated power to become the first King of England.

One of the bloodiest and most destructive rebellions in the history of Western Asia, it saw enslaved Africans who had been forced to work draining Iraq's salt marshes rebel against their masters.

Around 84,000 T-34s were built. When introduced in 1940 its 76 mm gun was more powerful than many of its contemporaries, and its 60-degree sloped armour made it impervious to many German anti-tank weapons during the first phases of Operation Barbarossa.

American M4 Sherman - 49,200

German Panzer III - 5,800

British Valentine - 8,000

In 1661 the marriage treaty of Charles II of England and Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King John IV of Portugal, passed Bombay from the Portuguese to the British Empire, as part of Catherine's dowry to Charles. British Royal advisors didn't know where the territory was, initially believing it to be near Brazil!

Toussaint Louverture, a former slave, led the only successful slave revolt in the Americas, laying the groundwork for Haiti’s independence in 1804.

Churchill used the term 'Iron Curtain' in a 1946 speech to describe the ideological divide between Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe and the West during the Cold War.

The Peloponnesian War weakened and divided the Greek city-states, leaving them vulnerable to external threats. This fragmentation and exhaustion eventually allowed Macedon, under Philip II and later Alexander the Great, to dominate Greece in the mid-4th century BCE, reshaping the Greek world.

The Fourth Crusade was diverted from its original goal and instead captured Constantinople, leading to the temporary establishment of the Latin Empire.

Earlier Malcolm X had had very traditional views of women’s roles, seeing women as helpmates to men, and forbade his wife to work. However, after working with a number of black female activists he changed his views.

He was killed by Nation of Islam member Talmadge Hayer (also known as Thomas Hagan) in 1965. This followed a series of attempts on Malcolm X's life by the Nation of Islam, after he left the group.