Weekly History Quiz No.280

One of the most important painters of the Northern Renaissance, he is known for his landscapes and scenes depicting the lives of common people.

It mandated that all practicing Jews had to leave the country by July 31st, 1492 or convert to Christianity. This was intended to eliminate the influence of practicing Jews on the 'converso' population (those who had converted from Judaism to Christianity) and prevent them from reverting to their original faith. The decree was only formally revoked in 1968.

The victory at Waterloo was a coalition effort. Forces from the United Kingdom, Prussia, Netherlands, Hanover, Nassau and Brunswick fought the French. Only 31,000 of the total 120,000 coalition soldiers were British.

The name came from the webs of intrigue he would spin around Europe. He intervened in the Wars of the Roses, shaping this conflict.

The Piasts were Poland’s first documented royal house, reigning from the 10th to the 14th centuries.

Born in Trier, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia, in 1818, Marx studied in what is now Germany until 1843. He briefly worked as the co-editor of a new, radical left-wing Parisian newspaper, before moving to Belgium, where he wrote The Communist Manifesto. By 1848 he was exiled from Belgium, eventually settling in London in 1850. He lived here until his death in 1883, writing Das Kapital during this period.

The heavy cruiser delivered plutonium and components of the first nuclear weapon to be used in combat, to the aircraft that was to drop it on Hiroshima. It then departed, and shortly afterwards was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Around 900 men survived the sinking, but in the four days it took for them to be found and rescued almost 600 died, many from shark attack.

Robert Catesby led the group of English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. He planned a popular uprising following the attack, through which a Catholic monarch would be installed.

The Treaty of Westphalia marked a turning point in European diplomacy, recognising the sovereignty of states and ending decades of religious conflict in Central Europe.

The Taiping Rebellion, one of the bloodiest civil wars in history, aimed to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and establish a theocratic regime in China.