Weekly History Quiz No.251

The term “Silk Road” wasn't coined until 1877, when German geographer and historian Ferdinand von Richthofen first used it to describe the trade routes to China.

A failure of weather forecasting saw the race surprised by a ‘low pressure bomb’ causing very severe winds that saw 75 of the 303 yachts capsize. 19 people died, and 125 were rescued.

Lucan is suspected of killing Sandra Rivett, the nanny of Lucan's children, and attacking his estranged wife, Lady Lucan. He fled the scene, and was initially thought to have committed suicide. However, in the following years speculation that he was living a secret life elsewhere in the world escalated, with 'sightings' reported across the globe.

Also known as Dihya, she united the Berber tribes to fight against the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, then known as Numidia. She decisively defeated Umayyad forces in the Battle of Meskiana, ruling the region for several years before she was killed at the Battle of Tabarka.

The storm caused 1,392 deaths and an estimated $125 billion in damages. 80% of New Orleans was flooded for weeks.

Pliny disapproved of the expensive luxuries flowing into Rome at great cost, significant amounts of Roman gold went to India in the early centuries of the Empire. This trade was so extensive that as much as a third of the entire Roman military budget was funded by customs charges at the Red Sea ports.

The last time the United States formally declared war was in 1942, when war was declared against Axis-aligned Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Since then, every American president has used military force without a declaration of war.

In March 1098, Baldwin of Bouillon became the Count of Edessa, ruler of the first Crusader state.

At its peak Angkor Wat was surrounded by an urban population of close to a million people. The Khmer empire reached its greatest extent in the late 1100s, then declined and was abandoned in the 1400s.

Mao was launching a campaign to eliminate sparrows, which he blamed for eating grain. He succeeded in this, but with dramatically fewer birds the insect population exploded, leading to devastating crop failures.