Weekly History Quiz No.260

The fruit flies were launched into space by the United States on February 20th, 1947. Using a V-2 rocket, the U.S. Government was able to launch the fruit flies and aimed to study the impacts of space radiation on living organisms. The fruit flies were successfully retrieved on the same day at White Sands Proving Grounds, Mexico.

Nancy Wake was born in Wellington, New Zealand, but spent her youth living in Australia. At 16 years old she received an inheritance and travelled to London, then Paris. She helped Allied servicemen to escape from France after the German invasion in 1940, before herself escaping. She joined the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and worked as an agent in occupied France. She was parachuted into the Auvergne region and when she landed, her parachute left her hanging from a tree. A local resistance fighter rescued her from the tree and said, 'I hope that all the trees in France bear such beautiful fruit this year,' to which she replied, 'Don’t give me that French shit.'

The Committee of Public Safety was created in April 1793 by the French National Convention. It was charged with protecting the new republic against its foreign and domestic enemies and was given broad powers to achieve this. The committee’s power grew to dictatorial heights as it organised the Reign of Terror, under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre. Sentiment in the Convention eventually turned against Robespierre, who was executed in July 1794.

Read more about this slave revolt.

The office of the French satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo was attacked by two French-born Algerian Muslim brothers, armed with several firearms. The two Al Qaeda members murdered 12 people and injured 11 others.

When the director of the CIA, William Burns, was asked to assess Mr Putin's mental state in 2022, he said he had 'been stewing in a combustible combination of grievance and ambition for many years' and described his views as having 'hardened' and that he was 'far more insulated' from other points of view.

The first European name for Tasmania was Van Diemen’s Land. It was given to the island by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the 1640s.

With the Egyptian kingdom’s influence in decline, Pharaoh Ramesses II pursued an expansionist policy to restore the power of Egypt. Expanding North, the Egyptians pushed closer to Hittite territory, creating tension between the groups. One of the contested border areas – Kadesh – was a vital trading hub and sought after city in the region. Ramesses launched a campaign to capture this area for Egypt and came up against the Hittites in battle.

Operation Paperclip was a United States program officially approved on September 3rd, 1946. This secret initiative sought to recruit German and Austrian scientists and obtain information about rocket and weapon development, in particular German developments during the later stages of the Second World War.

The Ride of the Valkyries is part of the operatic cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), composed by Richard Wagner.