Weekly History Quiz No.215

Known as Operation Jubilee, the raid was a disaster. The Canadians, who comprised the majority of the assaulting force, suffered a 68 percent casualty rate, with 3,367 killed, wounded or taken prisoner. The raid did however show that assaulting fortified ports was impossible, which informed the later Allied landings, which were generally beach assaults.

The Portuguese colony of Brazil was centered upon a series of commodity productions: first brazilwood extraction, then sugar production, and finally gold and diamond mining.

Around 10,000 years ago, as Europe was coming out of the last ice age, ancient hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic period inhabited Doggerland. The rich habitats of marshlands, valleys, rivers, and lakes drew groups from all over, looking for fish, birds, and a freshwater supply. Archaeologists believe Doggerland spanned from Britain’s East coast to the Netherlands – about a quarter the size of Europe itself.

A tiny motley unit of rejects, opportunists, and the occasional genuine fascist who chose to throw their lot in with the Third Reich. Attempting to recruit from British soldiers captured in the first years of the war, the Germans thought British POWs would jump at the chance for a respite, and to that end they founded two “holiday” camps near Berlin. Prisoners could come to the camps to relax, during which the Germans hoped they’d become receptive to the idea of treason. The British Free Corps was very unsuccessful in gaining recruits, and never achieved anything militarily.

The New Kingdom saw Egypt create a buffer against the Levant and attain its greatest territorial extent into Nubia and the Near East. It saw the rule of some of Egypt’s most famous pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Thutmose III, and Tutankhamun. Hatshepsut concentrated on expanding Egyptian trade, while Thutmose III consolidated power.

Greek traders had visited India as early as 600 BCE, so Alexander would have had some information about the subcontinent. In 326 BCE Alexander personally led a campaign into India, fighting down the length of the Indus river. After tough fighting Alexander's soldiers refused to go any further, what is now Northern India became the limit of Alexander's territorial expansion.

Born in what was then Prussia in 1769, Alexander von Humboldt travelled extensively in the Americas. He is known as 'the father of ecology' and 'the father of environmentalism'.

Growing out of Enlightenment ideals, it provided a check on monarchical power and guaranteed religious freedom.

Charles was leading an army that included over 14,000 German mercenaries, many of whom were owed months of wages. These soldiers ignored Charles’ orders to simply besiege the city, breaking in and unleashing an orgy of violence that led to the deaths of half Rome’s population.

This system resulted in the deaths of thousands of indigenous students. In 1906 Canadian chief medical officer Peter Bryce reported 'we have created a situation so dangerous to health that I was often surprised that the results were not even worse than they have been', with some schools reporting death rates of 6% per annum.