Weekly History Quiz No.238

Announced in late 1862 the proclamation was that 'all persons held as slaves within [the Confederate states]... shall be free.' It applied to around 88% of the enslaved people in the USA, as it did not apply to slaves held in Union states.

The 1217 Charter of the Forest restored many of the ancient rights enjoyed by common people prior to 1066, such as the right to gather firewood and forage for food in Royal Forests.
It remained in force until 1971 when it was superseded by the Wild Creatures and Forest Laws Act.

Built by William I, The Conqueror as part of 'the most extensive and concentrated programme of castle-building in the whole history of feudal Europe', construction was started on the Tower in 1078 by Gundulf, Bishop of Rochester.

Operation Pedestal was a British operation to resupply Malta in August 1942, that involved an epic naval battle to break the siege of the island.

One of the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance, Bruegel was a painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes.

The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in central Europe that was founded by the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800.

The Crimean War was fought from October 1853 to March 1856. The Russian Empire lost to an alliance of France, Britain, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia.

Described as “the largest surrealistic object in the world” Salvador Dalí built the museum in the city of his birth after being asked to donate a piece of artwork to a local exhibition. He instead decided to gift the city a museum that not only displayed his work but was also a work of art in itself.

A key revolutionary, Trotsky was de facto second-in-command during the early years of the Russian Soviet Republic.  He was a critic of Joseph Stalin, who outmaneuvered him, expelling him from the Politburo in 1926 and deporting him in 1929. In 1940 he was assassinated at his home in Mexico City by Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader.

A villa rustica was a Roman grand house in the countryside that housed the owner and their family as well as accommodation for the workers of the estate and spaces for storage and farm animals. The name for these houses distinguished them from the villas located in or on the outskirts of Roman cities. Remains of villa rustica buildings have been discovered in Germany, Serbia, Portugal, Britain, Switzerland and of course, Italy.