Weekly History Quiz No.253

The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Eastern branch of the Roman Empire, which continued to rule Constantinople for a millennia after the fall of Rome.

Napoleon fought as the officer in charge of the artillery for the French Revolutionary Army, fighting against French Royalist forces, supported by British, Spanish and other allies.

The King’s School is believed to have been founded by Augustine of Canterbury in 597. The next oldest on this list is Gymnasium Carolinum, Osnabrück, Germany, which was founded by Charlemagne in 804.

The largest Mississippian chiefdom, Cahokia, may have had over 20,000 residents at its peak. They lived in settlements built on and around large earthen mounds, near modern St Louis. Corn could be dried, stored and traded as far as the cultures of the Southwest US.

The first report of the dodo was by Dutch sailors in 1598. In the following years, the flightless bird from Mauritius was hunted by sailors and killed by introduced dogs, pigs, cats, rats, and crab-eating macaques, while its habitat was also being destroyed. The last widely accepted sighting of a dodo was in 1662.

Ancient Rome’s greatest orator was killed on the orders of Mark Antony after criticising him in speeches in the Senate.

The Mary Celeste had originally set sail from New York City on 7th November, bound for Genoa, carrying 1,700 barrels of alcohol and 10 passengers. The last entry in its log was 25th November, it was found abandoned on 5th December. One lifeboat was missing, other than some damage to the rigging and minor flooding the ship was seaworthy. No trace of the passengers or crew was ever found.

Milton woke each morning with poetry in his head, itching for it to be recorded. By 1652 he had completely lost his sight and had to wait patiently for a scribe to arrive. Some days when it took longer than usual for someone to begin transcribing, the poet ‘would complain, saying he wanted to be milked’.

In 1943 a tiny handpicked crew of British and Australian special forces in an inconspicuous vessel would carry the fight back to the Japanese in occupied Singapore.

The Seikan Tunnel is a 53.85 km railway tunnel in Japan, with a 23.3 km portion under the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates the main Japanese island of Honshu from the northern island of Hokkaido.