Weekly History Quiz No.228

Construction of the walls started when Quebec City was the capital of New France. The British captured the city in 1759, and less than 20 years later were having to defend it from attacks by American revolutionary forces. The British completed a star fort to defend the city in 1831.

Good King Wenceslas was actually Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia. He was also known as Vaclac the Good, or Svatý Václav in Czech and lived from c. 907 to 935. His younger brother, Boleslaus the Cruel, probably killed him. However, there is a debate on whether his death was an accident or a murder. It was the result of a quarrel between the two brothers or their parties, probably after a night of drinking. Boleslaus’ men then killed Wenceslaus in the subsequent chaotic fight.

From 1400 to 1800 between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed after witchcraft trials in Europe. Over the 350 years that the Spanish Inquisition was operating around 3,000 people were executed. The Salem witchcraft trials lasted for just over a year and resulted in 19 executions. The American Revolutionary War saw ten executions by the Rebels and six by the British or their allies.

Made by fermenting fish in barrels of salt for up to four months garum was used to flavour many Roman dishes. Pasta, potatoes and chilli were all introduced to Italy well after the Roman period.

After three years of increasingly bloody warfare the French Poilus were finally tipped over the edge by a disastrous attack by the French in the Reims sector that caused around 100,000 French casualties. The mutinies were only ended when Marshal Pétain intervened with a combination of carrot (more home leave and better food) and stick (over 500 death sentences) to convince the French infantry to return to the front line.

John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company used economic threats against competitors and secret rebate deals with railroads to build a monopoly in the oil business  in the 1870s and 1880s.  Journalist Ida M. Tarbell worked diligently to expose Standard Oil and Rockefeller's brutal business practices, leading to prosecution under the Sherman Act and the company being broken up.

French scholar Jean-François Champollion deciphered the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs by analysing the texts inscribed on the Rosetta Stone, found in the Nile Delta.

Personally designed by Walt Disney, the theme park capitalised on the growing wealth of the American middle class.

Recruited in the 1930s at Cambridge University for ideological reasons, the spy ring was one of the most successful and long running espionage operations ever. It had the following members:

• Donald Maclean, Foreign Office, defected in 1951.
• Guy Burgess, MI6 and Foreign Office, defected in 1951.
• Kim Philby, MI6, defected in 1963.
• Anthony Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, confessed and was given immunity from prosecution in 1964.
• John Cairncross, MI6, confessed and was given immunity from prosecution in 1964.

The Siege of Malta lasted from June 1940 until November 1942, with bombing continuing with less frequency after this. Malta was a small dot on the map, but one of the most strategic locations of the war. Its airfields and naval facilities harassed Axis shipping in the Mediterranean and made it difficult to supply their North African armies. The island was subjected to two years of relentless Italian and German bombing, becoming the most bombed place of the war, and a symbol of defiance as a result.