Weekly History Quiz No.227

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE was one of the deadliest in history. The event released over 100,000 times the thermal energy of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying several Roman towns and settlements, including Pompeii and Herculaneum. It may have killed as many as 16,000 people, the remains of over 1,500 people have been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum during archaeological excavations.

The 1890s was a period in which Britain grappled with ideas around gender identity. Jones was strongly right wing, and was very critical of many well known authors on the left. in 1921 he published My Dear Wells: a Manual for Haters of England, which was vitriolic in its attacks on H. G. Wells. Antipathy towards him from the left was mutual, with Oscar Wilde writing 'There are three rules for writing plays. The first rule is not to write like Henry Arthur Jones; the second and third rules are the same.'

In 1909 Theresa Garnett accosted Winston Churchill with a dog whip at Temple Meads train station. This was part of the escalation of the Suffragette campaign, which included arson and bomb attacks.

A German inventor and mechanical engineer, he invented the first successful Diesel engine in 1897. The engine and the fuel are both named after him. He has a somewhat puzzling legacy. Just prior to WW1 he was working with both the German Navy and the British Royal Navy to develop diesel engines for submarines when he went missing from an ocean liner at sea. His body was discovered by a fishing vessel several weeks later, and there has been ongoing speculation as to whether he was murdered or committed suicide.

Captain Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish refugee from Alsace, who came to France when Germany occupied Alsace at the end of the Franco Prussian War. He was accused of spying, and although there was little evidence presented to substantiate this, the prevailing antisemitism in France saw him convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He maintained that he was innocent, and was vindicated 12 years later when his conviction was overturned.

In the 1900 Paris Olympics Women were only permitted to complete in five events; tennis, sailing, croquet, equestrian and golf. The early Olympic committee was very reluctant to allow Women to complete at all, and stated that they would have preferred a Male only competition. They were particularly opposed to Women competing in Athletics, only being swayed from this position after a group of Women established a separate and competing Women's Olympic games, and ran it successfully for over a decade.

An American author, she served as a nurse in the American Civil War. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and was active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. Little Women was loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters.

After the German occupation of the entirety of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, in violation of the Munich agreement, the Chamberlain government in Britain aimed to deter further German aggression by guaranteeing the independence of Poland and Romania. In the wake of the German invasion of Poland, Romania remained neutral, and allowed the Poles to execute their plan of establishing a defensive line that backed onto Romania, allowing for Polish resupply via the Mediterranean. Once the USSR invaded Poland this defensive line was compromised, and over 120,000 Polish troops evacuated via the 'Romanian Bridgehead' to France and Britain to continue fighting.

One of the most famous Dutch Golden Age paintings, Rembrandt portrays the Amsterdam city guard company energised by light and shadow.

Evidence was provided by the skeleton of a young adult from Borneo whose lower left leg was amputated in childhood by a prehistoric surgeon 31,000 years ago.