Weekly History Quiz No.261

Constructed in 282 BCE, the Colossus of Rhodes was an enormous statue built by the Rhodians to honor their patron god, Helios, for aiding them in defeating Demetrius I, son of the late Macedonian officer Antigonus, during a year-long siege between Ptolemy I and Antigonus. Following the death of Alexander the Great, his three former generals—Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus—competed for control over Greece. Ptolemy, being one of the renowned rulers, formed an allyship with Rhodes, which Antigonus later sought to conquer. The statue’s construction was led by Chares of Lindos, who planned its measurements and materials, which included 13.6 tons of bronze and 8.2 tons of iron.

Coming from Germanic roots, the word bush was in use in English from the mid 1600s. Its meaning as uncultivated country is directly from the Dutch word bos.

Originally named the Chip Test, Deep Blue was a supercomputer designed by IBM’s computer engineer Feng-Hsiung Su, beginning in 1985. It became the first supercomputer to defeat the chess world champion, winning a game against Garry Kasparov in 1996, and a match against him in 1997.

Harald Fairhair is credited as the first Viking king to unify Norway. He was victorious at the Battle of Hafrsfjord in 880 CE, described in several of the Kings' sagas. The accounts of Harald and his life differ on many points, but it is clear that in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Harald was regarded as having unified Norway into one kingdom.

April Fools’ Day really became popular in the 18th Century in Britain, roughly around the time Britain also adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. The earliest known April Fool’s Day prank in Britain occurred a little earlier, in 1698. Read more about it here.

Formed as a province of Pakistan during the 1947 partition of British India, it gained independence in 1971 at the end the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.

General Zabrodskyi knew his Russian enemy well, in the 1990s he had attended a military academy in St. Petersburg and served for five years in the Russian Army.
He also knew the Americans: From 2005 to 2006, he had studied at the Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The Australian artist was a prominent member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism.

Mămăligă is a traditional Romanian dish made with cornmeal, cheese, and sour cream. It was also commonly paired with Sarmale (stuffed cabbage rolls) also beginning in the 1100s.

By the end of the war, it had become the largest volunteer army in history, rising to over 2.5 million men under arms in 1945. Field Marshal Claude Auchinleck asserted that the British 'couldn't have come through both wars if they hadn't had the Indian Army.'