Weekly History Quiz No.300

The Neo-Inca State was established in 1537 at Vilcabamba by Manco Inca Yupanqui (the son of Inca emperor Huayna Capac) after the Spanish conquest in the mid-1530s led to the collapse of the previous Inca state. It lasted until 1572, when the last ruler, Túpac Amaru (Manco's son), was captured and executed, thus ending the political authority of the Inca state.

British colonies in North America were mostly united into the Dominion of Canada on July 1st, 1867. At this stage it didn't include the Western provinces, or Newfoundland, which did not join Canada until 1949. Canada had a gradual path of exercising their independence over time. Consistent with the other Dominions in the British Empire, Canada followed Imperial foreign and defence policies until the 1920s.

A parliamentarian for 62 of the years between 1900 and 1964, he represented a total of five constituencies over that time. He first became Prime Minister in 1940, but not via election, he took power after Neville Chamberlain's resignation. He was defeated in the 1945 election, only finally winning election as Prime Minister in 1951.

The German Auxiliary Cruiser, SMS Wolf, spent 451 days at sea, disrupting and attacking Allied shipping. During its voyage, Wolf captured or sank 14 Allied and neutral ships and mined 13 others. As well as a field of fifteen mines near Gabo Island and fifteen mines near Cape Everard (now Point Hicks), the Wolf laid mines off Cape Town, Bombay and New Zealand. Striking a mine off Gabo Island, the British freighter SS Cumberland was the first civilian ship to be lost in Australian waters due to an enemy mine. Australian newspapers claimed that the Cumberland had been sabotaged. The government allowed the story of sabotage to continue rather than admit there could be a minefield lying ten kilometres off the south coast of Australia. The Australian government did not admit to the existence of the minefield until 15th October 1917.

McCarthy became infamous for aggressive, often unsubstantiated accusations of communist infiltration. Taft and Johnson were prominent senators but not central to the Red Scare. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr was the US Ambassador to the UK during the first years of WWII, where he developed a reputation as a defeatist.

His theory, articulated in 1798, was that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply, known as a "Malthusian trap". He proposed that the betterment of humankind needed strict limits on reproduction. While influential for generations, it has been proven wrong completely wrong, not least by the almost 10 fold population increase, that has been accompanied by an even greater increase in food production, in the time since.

Seneca the Younger was born in Corduba, Roman Spain, and then moved to Rome to study. He wrote extensively on stoic philosophy, as well as writing a number of plays. He served the Emperor Nero as an advisor and was considered to be a stabilising force in his government. Nero forced him to commit suicide when he was implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero.

An abbreviation for Staatssicherheit (State Security), the Stasi were notorious for surveillance and political repression within East Germany. This was accomplished through the enlistment of civilian informants called unofficial collaborators. At its peak the Stasi employed around 200,000 of these informants, more than any other regime in history.

Arabic numerals were developed from the Indian Brahmi numerals, in use since the 300s BCE. The first mentions of the numerals from 1 to 9 in the West are found in the 976 Codex Vigilanus, but there wasn't widespread adoption until Leonardo Fibonacci promoted the numeral system in his 1202 book Liber Abaci. Prior to this the older Roman numbers, and other numeral systems were in use.

Ankhesenamum was Tutankhamen’s half sister and he himself was born from brother sister incest. This strategy was designed to concentrate political power within the family. However the couple’s shared genes probably made it impossible for them to conceive a healthy baby, and two of their mummified foetuses were found in the tomb.