Weekly History Quiz No.292

In July 1936, Francisco Franco, having cast his lot with a group of conspirators within the Spanish military, flew to Morocco, executed 200 Republican officers, and assumed control of the 30,000-strong Army of Africa. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supplied aircraft to carry half this force to Andalusia. This would form the core of a Nationalist army which would carefully dismantle the Republic over the following three years.

Throughout the Spanish Civil War, the most active support for Franco’s Nationalists came from Germany and Italy. Both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini provided ground and air forces, regular supplies of arms, ammunition, vehicles, and many millions in lira and marks.

Ending on 1st April 1939, Spain’s Civil War left half a million dead, as many refugees, and the already frail economy in tatters. Republican guerrillas carried on resisting in the countryside or staged raids from France. And just a few months later, German forces blitzed across their eastern border into Poland, igniting a new war which would consume them.

Read more about the infamous ‘Bay of Pigs’ invasion.

Constructed in 1150 CE in what is now Cambodia by King Suryavarman II of the Khmer Empire. It was originally a temple dedicated to the Hindu God Vishnu, it later became a Buddhist Temple.

The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The explosion was caused by the failure of o-ring seals used in a joint that were not designed to handle the unusually cold conditions that existed at this launch. The seals’ failure caused a breach in the Solid Rocket Booster joint, allowing pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the external fuel tank.

Tokyo was originally a small fishing village called Edo. Following the end of the shogunate in 1868, the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to the city, which was renamed Tokyo, literally meaning “eastern capital”.

The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were between 50 and 70 feet long and carried 24 to 40 crew each.

Beginning on 2nd September 1666 and lasting four days the fire gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall. It destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St Paul’s Cathedral. It is estimated to have destroyed the homes of 87% of the City’s inhabitants.

Great Lisbon earthquake - 1755

Great Chicago Fire - 1871

Great San Francisco Earthquake - 1906

Under the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole nations – known as the Five Tribes – were forced from their ancestral homelands in the southeast and relocated to “Indian Territory,” as Oklahoma was then designated. With Oklahoma statehood in November 1907, Indian Territory lost its “independence” and was extinguished.

The battle of Tours-Poitiers halted the expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate from the Iberian Peninsula into Western Europe. Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer) lead the Franks to victory against a Umayyad Caliphate Army under Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi.

Mohenjo-daro is an archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2500 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley or Harappan Civilisation. At its height, the Indus Valley Civilization spanned much of what is now Pakistan and North India, extending westwards to the Iranian border, south to Gujarat in India and northwards to the Himalaya.