Weekly History Quiz No.289

Fought in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, it saw an Azerbaijani offensive into the ethnic Armenian breakaway Republic of Artsakh. This, and further fighting in 2023, resulted in an Azerbaijani victory, and the dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh.

Initially a key port for the British East India Company, it was annexed by the British in 1839 to secure maritime routes and prevent piracy in the Arabian Sea. The 1960s saw the Aden Emergency, a violent uprising against colonial authorities. Aden is now part of Yemen.

An economic development plan introduced in 1960, it planned to double the size of Japan's economy in ten years through a combination of tax breaks, targeted investment, an expanded social safety net, and incentives to increase exports and industrial development. Japan's annual growth averaged more than 10% over the course of the plan, and the economy doubled in size in less than seven years.

Following their victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 Bengal became the first major Indian region ruled by the British East India Company. Tax-collecting rights in Bengal were a crucial step in the company's development from trading company to territorial power.

Homer is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator before taking up oil painting.

Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France at the age of 10.

The pilum javelin had a thin iron shank around 60cm long with a pyramidal head, attached to a wooden shaft. The shank may have been designed to bend after impact and so render the weapon useless to the enemy. The pilum was often thrown en-masse to break up an enemy formation prior to engaging them with the Gladius, or short thrusting sword, the primary weapon of the Roman soldier.

Read more about how the Roman tactics allowed them to dominate the Mediterranean.

Trotsky was a Ukrainian-Russian Marxist revolutionary, political theorist and politician. Ideologically a communist, he developed a variant of Marxism which has become known as Trotskyism. He became one of the seven members of the first Bolshevik Politburo in 1919.

After the death of Lenin in 1924 and the rise of Joseph Stalin, Trotsky gradually lost his government positions; the Politburo eventually expelled him from the Soviet Union in 1929. He spent the rest of his life in exile, writing prolifically and engaging in open critique of Stalinism. In 1938 Trotsky and his supporters founded the Fourth International in opposition to Stalin’s Comintern. After surviving multiple attempts on his life, Trotsky was assassinated in August 1940 in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, an agent of the Soviet NKVD.

Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Achaemenid Persian empire, which spanned the period 550 BCE to 330 BCE.

Beginning on the night of 9th-10th July 1943 Operation Husky was a large Allied amphibious and airborne operation, followed by a six-week land campaign that ended on 17th August with all German and Italian forces ejected from the island. This led to the Armistice of Cassibile the following month, which saw Italy end hostilities against the Allies.