Weekly History Quiz No.266

Trade with Ming China via Manila was a major source of revenue for the Spanish Empire. The Manila Galleon cargoes arrived in Acapulco and were transported by land across Mexico, then they were loaded onto the Spanish treasure fleet bound for Spain. This is a framed print of what was known of the Pacific ocean in this era.

In 1814, as part of the War of 1812, in which the USA declared war on Britain at the height of the Napoleonic wars. British attention was mostly focussed on fighting the French, they did however send some forces to North America. The burning of Washington was in part a retaliation for the Americans burning and looting York in British Upper Canada the previous year.

In early 1836, nine ships carrying 636 people set sail for South Australia from Britain. Here is a map of South Australia from the only 15 years after this. The South Australia Act 1842 gave the British Government full control of South Australia as a Crown Colony.

Fiji became a colony in 1874, Bahrain in 1880 and Southern Rhodesia in 1923.

Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom, was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party. It was widely seen as the point of no return for anti-semitic violence and repression in Germany, with many German Jews trying to find asylum in other countries after this time.

Phoenicia was an ancient Semitic-speaking civilization that originated in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. It was concentrated along the coast of Lebanon and included some coastal areas of modern Syria and Galilee. At its height between 1100 and 200 BCE, Phoenician civilization spread across the Mediterranean, from the Levant to the Iberian Peninsula.

Casablanca – 1942

Seven Samurai - 1954

12 Angry Men – 1957

Spartacus – 1960

The oldest known photograph was created by Nicéphore Niépce, entitled ‘View from the Window at Le Gras’ in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France. He went into partnership with Louis Daguerre, rapidly improving the processes, enabling them to produce the first photograph of a person in 1838.

Conversos were Spanish Jews who adopted the Christian religion after a severe persecution. Even after conversion they continued to be targeted by the Spanish state. Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile argued that they needed to examine the piety of Jewish and Muslim converts in their realm, known as Conversos and Moriscos respectively, instituting the Spanish Inquisition to do so.

Unique among Inquisitions, the Spanish Inquisition was controlled by local monarchs, rather than directly by the Pope.
This was followed in 1492 by the Alhambra decree, which expelled all practicing Jews. This decree was only rescinded in 1968.

Born in Limoges, Ranson became one of the five founding members of "Les Nabis" in 1888, a group that played a large role in the transition from Impressionism to the various styles of Modern art.

Defoe is thought to have based much of the description of the shipwreck in Robinson Crusoe on his travels on the remote Norfolk coast. Defoe was an avid traveller, embarking on a total of 17 journeys around Britain and documenting many of them in a series of books he published between 1724-6.