214 Fun Facts About European History

Which animals' fleas were long blamed for carrying the Black Death across Europe in the 1340s?

Rats long carried the blame: their fleas' bites were thought to pass the disease to people. A 2018 study found the outbreak's spread fits human fleas and body lice better.

What did Mongols besieging Kaffa in the 1340s reportedly hurl over its walls?

Plague corpses: the tale comes from the Italian notary Gabriele de' Mussi, who was probably never there. Genoese ships are still thought to have carried plague to Sicily in 1347.

Which sultan's forces captured Constantinople on 29 May 1453?

Mehmed II was just 21. He made the ruined city his capital and set about repopulating it, handing back the houses of Greeks and Genoese who had fled so that they would return.

Which Constantinople church became a mosque in 1453?

Hagia Sophia: the sultan went straight to the church as the city fell and had it made a mosque. It became a museum in 1935 and a mosque again in 2020.

During the 1453 siege of Constantinople, Ottoman ships were dragged overland on greased logs into which waterway?

The Golden Horn was closed by a great chain across its mouth, so the Ottoman ships were hauled over the hill behind Galata on greased logs and launched inside it on 22 April.

Weeks before losing at Hastings in 1066, Harold Godwinson won which battle on 25 September?

At Stamford Bridge, east of York, Harold's army killed both Harald Hardrada of Norway and Harold's brother Tostig on 25 September 1066, nineteen days before Hastings.

The 1618 Defenestration of Prague is credited with triggering which war?

The 1618 defenestration launched the Bohemian Revolt that opened the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648); an earlier 1419 defenestration by Hussites had set off the Hussite Wars.

Protestant pamphleteers claimed the men thrown from a Prague window in 1618 survived by landing on what?

A dung heap was the Protestant retort to Catholic claims that angels or the Virgin Mary had caught the men; all three, Martinitz, Slavata and the secretary Fabricius, survived the fall from the castle window.

The indulgences Luther attacked in 1517 were sold to help rebuild which church?

St Peter's Basilica got only half the money. The rest repaid the Fugger bank loan that had bought Archbishop Albert of Mainz his office, and it was to Albert that Luther sent his theses.

Which preacher's 1517 indulgence campaign near Wittenberg drew locals to buy pardons, provoking Luther?

Johann Tetzel was barred from Saxony by its elector, so he preached at nearby Jüterbog and Wittenbergers travelled there to buy. The jingle about a coin ringing in the coffer was pinned on him.

How many prisoners were inside the Bastille when it was stormed on 14 July 1789?

Seven men were inside: four forgers, two held as insane and an aristocrat locked up at his family's request. The crowd had come for the fortress's gunpowder, not its prisoners.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 15 August 1769 in which town?

Ajaccio had been French for barely a year: Genoa handed Corsica to France in 1768, so Napoleon grew up speaking Corsican and Italian and was sent to the mainland at nine to improve his French.

After abdicating in April 1814, Napoleon was exiled to which Mediterranean island?

Elba held Napoleon for under a year; he escaped, lost at Waterloo in June 1815 and was shipped to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.

What did Napoleon sell to the United States in 1803?

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 transferred about 828,000 square miles to the United States for roughly $15 million, nearly doubling the young republic's territory.

What did Napoleon's doctors record as the cause of his death on Saint Helena in 1821?

Stomach cancer was the verdict of the autopsy reports. Arsenic theories arose later from traces found in his hair, but his father Carlo is also thought to have died of stomach cancer.

At which site beside the Thames did King John agree Magna Carta with his rebel barons in June 1215?

Runnymede was neutral ground: a meadow long used for assemblies, lying between the king's castle at Windsor and the rebel barons' base at Staines.

Which pope annulled the 1215 Magna Carta, helping trigger the First Barons' War?

Innocent III declared the charter 'null and void of all validity for ever' in a bull of 24 August 1215; it was reissued in revised form after John's death in 1216.

How many copies of the original 1215 Magna Carta survive today?

Four survive, though the pope declared the charter void within months: two are in the British Library, one at Lincoln Castle and one at Salisbury Cathedral, thought the best preserved.

What did East German authorities officially call the Berlin Wall?

The GDR called it the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall, the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart', as if it kept Western aggressors out; its real job was to stop East Germans fleeing to the West.

At which Berlin landmark did Reagan urge Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall'?

The Brandenburg Gate stood sealed in the border strip for 28 years. It reopened on 22 December 1989, six weeks after the Wall was opened and two and a half years after Reagan's speech.

Which pope crowned Charlemagne emperor in Rome on Christmas Day 800?

Leo III owed Charlemagne his throne: attacked in a Roman street in 799 by rivals who meant to blind him, he fled over the Alps to the Frankish king, who restored him and was crowned a year later.

Charlemagne built his great palace and chapel in which city?

Aachen drew Charlemagne for its hot springs: his biographer Einhard says he loved to swim in them and built his palace there for that reason. He spent most winters there until his death in 814.

Who commanded the Spanish Armada that sailed from Lisbon in May 1588?

The Duke of Medina Sidonia, a reluctant landsman, took command after the Marquis of Santa Cruz died in February 1588; Philip II sent the fleet against Elizabeth I.

Atlantic gales wrecked many ships of the retreating Spanish Armada in 1588 on which country's coast?

Ireland's rocky west coast wrecked ship after ship as the fleet, driven north by the English, tried to sail home around Scotland; most survivors who struggled ashore were handed over and killed.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in the summer of 1914 in which city?

Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were shot in Sarajevo, capital of Austrian-annexed Bosnia, by Gavrilo Princip, one of several young conspirators posted along the route.

Why did Franz Ferdinand's car stop right beside Gavrilo Princip in 1914?

The driver stalled it while reversing out of a wrong turn, a few steps from Princip, who had moved to that corner after the morning's bomb attack on the motorcade failed.

Which Portuguese navigator first rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488?

Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, proving a sea route to the Indian Ocean existed; Vasco da Gama reached India by that route in 1498.

Which weapon won the English their victories at Crécy and Agincourt?

The longbow won Crécy in 1346 for an English army the French greatly outnumbered: in a brief archery duel its bowmen routed the Italian crossbowmen who opened the French attack.

Which English king won at Agincourt in 1415?

Henry V won at Agincourt in 1415; the tide turned against England after the Siege of Orléans in 1428–29, and Joan of Arc was executed in 1431.

Which town was England's last foothold in France after the Hundred Years' War, held until 1558?

Calais, English since 1347, fell to a surprise winter attack by the Duke of Guise in January 1558; Mary I reportedly said its name would be found written on her heart.

The 1648 Peace of Westphalia was signed in which two cities?

Osnabrück and Münster hosted the talks from 1644 and each gave its name to one of the treaties, which also recognised the United Provinces and the Swiss Confederation as independent states.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 began at Thomas Farriner's bakery on which street?

Pudding Lane's fire, which began early on 2 September 1666, outran the Lord Mayor's attempts to pull down buildings in its path and destroyed some 13,200 houses and 87 parish churches.

Christopher Wren designed the 202-foot Monument to the Great Fire of London with which collaborator?

Robert Hooke and Wren built the hollow column to double as a giant zenith telescope, with a small laboratory underneath; vibrations from the traffic outside meant it never gave accurate readings.

Vikings who travelled the Dnieper and Volga trade routes were known in the east by what name?

Varangians became the Byzantine emperors' own bodyguard after 988, when Vladimir of Kiev sent 6,000 of them to help an emperor put down a revolt and they stayed on as the Varangian Guard.

The only confirmed Norse settlement in North America outside Greenland was found at which site?

L'Anse aux Meadows, at Newfoundland's northern tip, came to light in 1960 when a villager led the Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad to grass-covered mounds that proved to be Norse buildings.

The Treaty of Verdun in 843 gave the Carolingian middle kingdom to which grandson of Charlemagne?

Lothair I kept the imperial title and a long middle strip from the Low Countries to Italy; the split was the first step in the break-up of Charlemagne's empire into the forerunners of France and Germany.

Whose 42-line Bible was Europe's first major book printed with movable type?

Johannes Gutenberg lost the workshop soon after the Bible was printed: his backer Johann Fust called in the loans, took it over and ran it with Peter Schöffer, who became his son-in-law.

Who chaired the Congress of Vienna of 1814-15?

Metternich, Austria's foreign minister and the Congress's host, presided over it; Talleyrand nonetheless won defeated France a seat among the great powers.

Which 1866 war broke up the German Confederation?

The Austro-Prussian War lasted seven weeks. Prussia's win at Königgrätz shut Austria out of German affairs and replaced the Confederation with a northern union under Prussian control.

Which emperor was forced to abdicate to Odoacer in 476, the usual end date of the Western Roman Empire?

Romulus Augustulus, a boy emperor, was deposed by Odoacer in 476 but spared for his youth and pensioned off to Campania; Julius Nepos, still recognised in the East, kept his claim from Dalmatia until 480.

Which Athenian general, the most experienced against Persia, led the Greeks at Marathon in 490 BC?

Miltiades, who had ruled the Thracian Chersonese under Persian overlordship, broke a five-five deadlock among the generals by winning over the war-archon Callimachus, who cast the deciding vote for battle.

Who won the first modern Olympic marathon, run in Athens in 1896?

Spyridon Louis took the lead about 30 km in and won by more than seven minutes, becoming a Greek national hero; the race had been created to honour the legend of the runner from Marathon.

The Reconquista, traditionally begun at Covadonga around 722, ended in 1492 with the fall of which city?

Granada's last emir surrendered the city to Ferdinand and Isabella on 2 January 1492, ending nearly eight centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia that had begun with the invasion of 711.

The 1492 decree expelling Spain's Jews is named after which Moorish palace?

The Alhambra had been in Christian hands for less than three months when Ferdinand and Isabella issued the decree that bears its name, on 31 March 1492; Jews had until the end of July to accept baptism or go.

Which Spanish writer lost the use of his left hand fighting at Lepanto?

Miguel de Cervantes was below deck with a fever but refused to stay there; he took two shots in the chest and a third that crippled his left hand, decades before he wrote Don Quixote.

Which king led the great cavalry charge that broke the Ottoman siege of Vienna on 12 September 1683?

John III Sobieski of Poland had signed a treaty that spring binding him to come to the emperor's aid; he led the relief army's horsemen downhill into the Ottoman camp and ended the two-month siege.

Louis XIV's 72-year reign ended with the throne passing to which relative?

His great-grandson, aged five, became Louis XV: the old king had outlived his son, who died of smallpox in 1711, and his grandson, carried off by measles in 1712.

Louis XIV stripped the Huguenots of their rights by revoking which royal proclamation?

The Edict of Nantes, Henry IV's 1598 grant of rights to the Huguenots, was revoked by the Edict of Fontainebleau in October 1685, driving hundreds of thousands of Protestants to seek refuge abroad.

Which statesman, already prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, became unified Italy's first prime minister in 1861?

Camillo Cavour held the new office for under three months: he died on 6 June 1861, weeks after the kingdom he had engineered was proclaimed and with Rome and Venice still outside it.

Which thousand-year-old realm did Italian troops end in 1870?

The Papal States had lasted since 756. The popes refused to accept their loss, and the quarrel with Italy was settled only by the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which created Vatican City.

Where was the German Empire proclaimed on 18 January 1871?

The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles saw a grudging emperor: Wilhelm wanted to be 'Emperor of Germany', but Bismarck held him to 'German Emperor' for fear of offending the other German princes.

Which French territory did the new German Empire annex in 1871, stoking decades of French resentment?

Alsace-Lorraine was ceded under the Treaty of Frankfurt, along with an indemnity of five billion francs; winning it back became a French rallying cry until the territory was recovered after the First World War.

Russia's October Revolution fell in November 1917 in the West because Russia still used which calendar?

The Julian calendar ran 13 days behind the Gregorian one used in the West, so 25 October in Petrograd was 7 November in London; for the same reason Russia's 'February' Revolution had begun in March.

In which city were Tsar Nicholas II and his family shot in a cellar in July 1918?

Yekaterinburg kept the secret for decades: the family's forest grave was found in 1979, but the finder stayed silent and the bones were not dug up until 1991.

DNA from which British royal helped identify the Romanovs' remains, reburied in St Petersburg in 1998?

Prince Philip was a great-nephew of Empress Alexandra through an unbroken female line, so his mitochondrial DNA matched hers and her daughters'; the family was reburied eighty years after the shootings.

The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) drew its dividing line 370 leagues west of which islands?

The line ran 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, which put the bulge of Brazil on Portugal's side and explains why Brazilians speak Portuguese.

Which general commanded the German 6th Army that surrendered at Stalingrad on 2 February 1943?

Friedrich Paulus, promoted field marshal a day earlier in the hope he would die rather than surrender, capitulated on 31 January 1943; the last pocket of the 6th Army gave up on 2 February.

The 1957 Treaty of Rome founded which organisation?

The European Economic Community began work in 1958 as a common market and customs union between France, West Germany, Italy and the three Benelux states, and grew into today's European Union.

Which future king of England was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots?

James I became King of Scots at thirteen months when his mother was forced to abdicate; in 1603 he inherited the English throne from Elizabeth I, who had signed his mother's death warrant.

Which church gathering finally ended the Western Schism in 1417, electing Martin V?

The Council of Constance (1414-1418) removed the three rival popes of Rome, Avignon and Pisa by deposition or resignation and elected Martin V in November 1417.

The 1856 Treaty of Paris that ended the Crimean War forbade Russia from basing warships in which sea?

The treaty neutralised the Black Sea, barring Russian and Ottoman warships and coastal arsenals, a clause Russia repudiated in 1870; the 11-month Siege of Sevastopol had decided the war.

William of Orange sailed from which country to invade England in 1688?

The Dutch Republic's stadtholder landed at Brixham on 5 November 1688; the same easterly 'Protestant wind' that blew his fleet down the Channel kept the English navy penned in the Thames estuary.

What does the name of Alexander the Great's horse Bucephalus mean?

Ox-head, from the Greek for ox and head, is said to refer to a brand on the horse's thigh; when Bucephalus died after the battle of the Hydaspes, Alexander founded a city named Bucephala in his memory.

In which city did Alexander the Great die in 323 BC?

Alexander died in Babylon in June 323 BC, aged 32, after days of fever; three years earlier his own troops had mutinied at the Beas River in India and forced him to turn back.

Which painter to Henry VIII's court also portrayed the German merchants of London's Hanseatic Steelyard?

Hans Holbein had left Basel as the Reformation dried up demand for religious painting there; back in London in 1532, he painted the Steelyard's German merchants, among them Georg Giese.

Which Baltic port was the leading city of the medieval Hanseatic League?

Lübeck's position between the Baltic and North Sea trades made it the league's natural leader; the last Hanseatic assembly met there in 1669 with fewer than ten cities represented.

Which general reconquered North Africa and Italy for Emperor Justinian in the 6th century?

Belisarius took Vandal Carthage in 533, then got into Ravenna in 540 by pretending to accept the Goths' offer to make him their own emperor in the West, and claimed the city for Justinian.

The Nika riots that shook Constantinople in January 532 grew out of which rivalry?

The riots began when the Blue and Green chariot-racing factions of the Hippodrome united against Justinian; Theodora's resolve kept him from fleeing, and his troops killed some 30,000 rioters in the Hippodrome.

Suleiman the Magnificent died in his tent in 1566 while besieging Szigetvár, a fortress in which present-day country?

Hungary: Suleiman, in his seventies and ailing, died of natural causes in his tent in early September 1566, just before Szigetvár finally fell, and never saw his last victory.

Leonardo da Vinci spent his final years at Clos Lucé in the service of which French king?

Francis I gave the ageing Leonardo the manor of Clos Lucé and a pension; the king also acquired the Mona Lisa, which is how the painting came to belong to France and hang in the Louvre.

Who led the Frankish forces that defeated an Umayyad army between Tours and Poitiers in 732?

Charles Martel, 'the Hammer', held only the office of mayor of the palace, ruling in the name of figurehead kings; his victories cleared the way for his son Pepin to take the Frankish crown itself in 751.

At which trade did Peter the Great work for months in Holland while travelling incognito in 1697?

Shipbuilding: travelling as 'Pyotr Mikhailov', the tsar spent four months at work in a Dutch East India Company yard, then went home to build up Russia's new navy.

Which Swedish king did Peter the Great defeat at Poltava in 1709?

Charles XII of Sweden, wounded in the foot and unable to lead in person, lost his army at Poltava on 8 July 1709 and fled into Ottoman territory, where he stayed until 1714.

Which representative body, last convened in 1614, did Louis XVI recall in 1789?

The Estates-General, representing clergy, nobility and commons, had not met since 1614; the nobles and parlements insisted only it could approve new taxes, and it opened at Versailles on 5 May 1789.

Which document did France's National Assembly adopt in August 1789?

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen began as a draft by Lafayette, written with help from the American Thomas Jefferson; the Assembly adopted the final text on 26 August 1789.

The Women's March on Versailles in 1789 forced Louis XVI to move to which Paris palace?

On 6 October 1789 the crowd escorted Louis XVI and his family from Versailles to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, where they lived until the monarchy fell in August 1792.

Whose execution in July 1794 is taken to mark the end of the Reign of Terror?

Maximilien Robespierre was guillotined on 28 July 1794, a day after the Convention ordered his arrest; his jaw had been shattered by a pistol shot as troops seized him.

Which committee ran France during the Reign of Terror?

The Committee of Public Safety was set up in April 1793 to defend the republic against invasion and revolt; under its rule some 17,000 people were officially executed.

What name is given to the political turn that ended the Terror in 1794?

The Thermidorian Reaction takes its name from 9 Thermidor Year II of the revolutionary calendar (27 July 1794), the day the Convention turned on the Terror's leaders; the Directory followed in 1795.

Waterloo, where Napoleon was finally defeated on 18 June 1815, lies in which present-day country?

Belgium did not yet exist: the battlefield, a short ride south of Brussels, lay in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the French knew the fight as Mont-Saint-Jean, after a nearby hamlet.

Which Prussian field marshal's army reinforced Wellington at Waterloo?

Blücher's Prussians, beaten at Ligny two days earlier, kept their promise to reinforce Wellington and struck Napoleon's right flank late in the afternoon, deciding the battle.

Which two marshals commanded the wings of Napoleon's army in the Waterloo campaign of 1815?

Ney and Grouchy led the left and right wings. Sent after the Prussians, Grouchy was still fighting their rearguard at Wavre while the main battle was being lost a few miles away.

Which 1805 victory of Napoleon's is called the Battle of the Three Emperors?

Austerlitz was fought on 2 December 1805: Napoleon beat a larger army with the Russian and Austrian emperors both on the field, and Austria made peace within weeks.

Which 1805 naval victory gave Britain hegemony over the seas in the Napoleonic Wars?

At Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 Nelson's 27 ships beat a Franco-Spanish fleet of 33 without losing one; a French marksman shot Nelson on his flagship's deck, and he died knowing the battle was won.

Which archangel did Joan of Arc say guided her, along with Saints Margaret and Catherine?

Joan said Saint Michael first appeared in her father's garden when she was about 13; the voices, she told her judges, ordered her to drive the English from France and see the dauphin crowned.

Which French faction captured Joan of Arc at Compiègne in 1430 and sold her to the English?

The Burgundians, French allies of England, seized Joan outside Compiègne in May 1430 and sold her to the English, who had her tried for heresy by a church court under Bishop Pierre Cauchon.

In which English-held city was Joan of Arc tried and burned at the stake?

Rouen, capital of English-held Normandy, staged the trial under Bishop Pierre Cauchon; Joan was burned in the Old Market Square and her ashes thrown into the Seine, but a retrial in 1456 cleared her name.

Where was William the Conqueror crowned King of England on Christmas Day 1066?

William was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 25 December 1066; when the congregation's shouted acclamation alarmed the Norman guards outside, they set fire to nearby houses.

Which famous record of medieval England was compiled on William the Conqueror's orders?

The Domesday Book set down who held the land in most of England in 1086; a royal treasurer wrote a century later that the English named it after Doomsday because, like the Last Judgement, its verdicts could not be appealed.

Which pope's speech at Clermont in 1095 launched the First Crusade?

Urban II preached the crusade at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, reportedly to cries of 'Deus vult', after Byzantine envoys had asked for military help at Piacenza that spring.

Which Muslim ruler retook Jerusalem from the crusaders in 1187?

Saladin destroyed the crusader army at Hattin in July 1187, took the almost undefended Jerusalem that autumn, and then held off the Third Crusade sent to win it back.

Which Byzantine emperor requested Western military aid before the First Crusade?

Alexios I asked the West for mercenaries to help win back Asia Minor from the Seljuk Turks; what arrived instead was a mass crusade bound for Jerusalem.

Which Byzantine emperor died defending his capital in 1453?

Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, refused the sultan's demand to hand over the city and died in the fighting when the walls were stormed on 29 May 1453.

Which Roman emperor legalised Christianity and founded a new capital on the site of Byzantium?

Constantine I credited the Christian God with his victory at the Milvian Bridge in 312, legalised the faith with the Edict of Milan the next year and dedicated his new capital, Constantinople, in 330.

Which Byzantine emperor earned the epithet 'Bulgar-Slayer' after crushing Bulgaria in 1014?

Basil II, Boulgaroktonos, reportedly blinded thousands of Bulgarian prisoners after the 1014 battle of Kleidion and annexed the First Bulgarian Empire in 1018.

Charlemagne captured Pavia in 774 and added which people's crown to his own?

The Lombards had held much of Italy since 568; when Pavia fell, Charlemagne captured their last king, Desiderius, and from then on styled himself King of the Franks and Lombards.

Charlemagne reportedly had 4,500 prisoners beheaded at Verden in 782 during his long war to convert which pagan people?

The Saxons fought Charlemagne on and off for some thirty years; after Widukind's rebels destroyed a Frankish force in 782, the royal annals say he had 4,500 of them beheaded in a single day at Verden.

Which philosopher said the Holy Roman Empire was "in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire"?

Voltaire made the quip in his Essai sur les mœurs, written when the empire had long since declined into a loose patchwork of German territories under an elected emperor.

Whose 962 coronation by Pope John XII is counted as the founding of the Holy Roman Empire?

Otto of Saxony, later called 'the Great', marched into Italy when the pope asked for help against Berengar and was crowned on 2 February 962; within two years he had the same pope deposed for plotting against him.

Which Italian writer set the Decameron among young people fleeing the Black Death?

Boccaccio has his young men and women pass the time in a country villa by telling a hundred stories; the last of them, patient Griselda, went on to be retold all over Europe.

Which 1381 rising followed the Black Death's wage caps?

The Peasants' Revolt was sparked by a third poll tax, on top of laws that had capped wages since the plague; Wat Tyler's rebels entered London, but he was killed while meeting the young Richard II.

Which minority was massacred in Strasbourg in 1349 on the false charge of spreading plague by poisoning wells?

Jews were accused of poisoning wells, and some 2,000 were burned in Strasbourg on 14 February 1349, before the plague had even reached the city, although Pope Clement VI had condemned the charge.

Which 1555 settlement let each German prince choose Lutheranism or Catholicism for his lands?

The Peace of Augsburg let each prince fix his territory's faith, and subjects who dissented were allowed to sell their lands and move; Charles V left the negotiations to his brother Ferdinand.

Which French reformer developed the Reformed tradition from Geneva?

John Calvin, born at Noyon in Picardy, settled in Geneva in 1536 and again from 1541; his Institutes of the Christian Religion shaped the Reformed churches of Scotland, the Netherlands and France.

Which Catholic assembly of 1545–1563 answered the Reformation?

The Council of Trent met in three stretches over eighteen years, rejected Luther's teaching on justification and ordered seminaries founded so that priests would be properly trained, the core of the Counter-Reformation.

Which imperial generalissimo was murdered at Eger in 1634 after Ferdinand II branded him a traitor?

Wallenstein had raised the emperor's armies himself, but his private dealings with Sweden and other enemies led Ferdinand II to charge him with treason; officers loyal to the emperor killed him at Eger on 25 February 1634.

Which king was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688?

James II's son was born in June 1688, raising the prospect of a Catholic dynasty; when William of Orange invaded that November, James fled to France, and his flight was ruled to be an abdication.

What did the Convention Parliament of 1689 make William and Mary?

William and Mary became joint monarchs of England and Ireland on 13 February 1689 after hearing the Declaration of Right, which barred the crown from suspending laws without Parliament; it became the Bill of Rights that December.

The English Civil War was fought between Royalists and which faction?

The Parliamentarians, nicknamed Roundheads, fought Charles I's Royalist Cavaliers from 1642, broke his army at Naseby in 1645 and went on to try the king for treason and behead him in 1649.

What did the nickname "Roundhead" refer to?

Puritans' closely cropped hair, unlike the long ringlets of courtly fashion, made 'Roundhead' a Royalist jeer for the king's opponents, though only some of them wore the style.

Oliver Cromwell's corpse was dug up in 1661 and hanged at which London execution site?

Tyburn was where the restored monarchy hanged Cromwell's exhumed body on 30 January 1661, the anniversary of Charles I's execution; his head was then set on a spike for all London to see.

Which 1651 battle ended Charles II's attempt to regain the throne by force?

At Worcester on 3 September 1651 the New Model Army destroyed Charles II's mainly Scottish army; Charles fled, hiding in the Boscobel oak, and escaped to France.

Which minister was arrested weeks after hosting Louis XIV at a lavish fête at Vaux-le-Vicomte in 1661?

Nicolas Fouquet, the finance superintendent, entertained the king on 17 August 1661 at Vaux, a palace that foreshadowed Versailles; on 5 September he was arrested for embezzlement, and he died a prisoner at Pignerol in 1680.

Which rebellions did Louis XIV face during his minority?

The Fronde of 1648-53, first by the Parlement and then by princes such as Condé, marked Louis XIV's childhood; he later tamed the aristocracy by binding it to court life at Versailles.

Which war did Tsar Peter win to gain Baltic coastline for Russia?

Victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700-21) gave Russia Ingria, Estonia and Livonia by the Treaty of Nystad, after which Peter took the title of emperor.

Which nickname for Tsar Peter's new Baltic city is traced to Francesco Algarotti's 1739 description of it?

The window to the West echoes Algarotti's remark that the new city was a great window through which Russia looks into Europe; Pushkin's poem The Bronze Horseman later made the image proverbial.

Whom did Catherine the Great overthrow to become Empress of Russia in 1762?

Catherine's guards regiments deposed her husband, Peter III, on 9 July 1762, six months into his reign; he died in custody eight days later, officially of colic, though he is generally thought to have been killed.

Which Cossack-led revolt challenged Catherine the Great's rule?

Pugachev's Rebellion of 1773-75 began among the Yaik Cossacks; Yemelyan Pugachev posed as the rightful tsar and promised an end to serfdom, until his own Cossacks handed him over and he was executed in Moscow in January 1775.

Which former favourite of Elizabeth I was beheaded in 1601 after a failed rising in London?

The Earl of Essex, ruined when the queen would not renew his monopoly on sweet wines, marched into the City in February 1601 claiming a plot against his life; London did not rise for him, and he was beheaded on 25 February.

Which Protestant cousin did Edward VI try to make queen, bypassing Mary and Elizabeth?

Edward VI's 'Devise for the Succession' named Lady Jane Grey, his Protestant cousin, who was proclaimed queen in July 1553 for nine days before Mary seized the throne.

Which of Henry VIII's wives was still married to him when he died in 1547?

Catherine Parr, the sixth wife, is the 'survived' of the rhyme 'divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived', yet she died in 1548, and it was Anne of Cleves, divorced in 1540, who lived on until 1557.

Which archbishop of Canterbury declared Henry VIII's first marriage void in 1533?

Thomas Cranmer, made archbishop only weeks earlier, annulled the marriage to Catherine of Aragon on 23 May 1533; two decades later her daughter, Mary I, had him burned at the stake in Oxford.

Which minister ran the dissolution of the monasteries for Henry VIII from 1536?

Thomas Cromwell, the king's vicegerent in church affairs, ran the dissolution from 1536 and moved the monasteries' lands to the Crown; Henry had him beheaded in July 1540 after the marriage he arranged with Anne of Cleves failed.

Who had overall command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588?

Lord Howard of Effingham led the fleet from his flagship Ark Royal; after a running fight up the Channel his ships sent fireships into the anchored Armada by night, breaking its formation before the battle off Gravelines.

Who raided Cádiz in 1587, 'singeing the King of Spain's beard' and delaying the Armada?

Francis Drake sailed straight into Cádiz harbour in April 1587, ignoring the fortress guns, and destroyed some 30 ships and the stores gathered for the invasion, which put the Armada off until the following year.

On which Caribbean island did Columbus found La Navidad, his first settlement, in 1492?

Columbus built La Navidad on Hispaniola from the timbers of the wrecked Santa María in December 1492; when he came back in November 1493 he found the fort burned and the men he had left there gone.

Columbus set sail with three ships in August 1492 from which Spanish port?

Palos was under royal order to find Columbus two ships, which is why the caravels Niña and Pinta sailed from the little port; crews came forward only once the local Pinzón brothers joined the venture.

Which attack of 793 is traditionally taken as the start of the Viking Age?

The sack of Lindisfarne abbey on 8 June 793 struck one of Northumbria's holiest shrines; the scholar Alcuin wrote from Charlemagne's court that never before had such terror appeared in Britain.

Which feature let Viking longships raid far inland along rivers such as the Seine?

Their shallow draught let longships float in water barely a metre deep and land on any beach, so raiders could row up rivers and strike towns as far inland as Paris.

Which place at the mouth of the Mediterranean is named after Tariq ibn Ziyad, leader of the 711 invasion of Spain?

Gibraltar is a worn-down form of the Arabic Jabal Tariq, 'Mount of Tariq'; Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed from North Africa in 711, and his campaign opened the conquest of most of the Iberian peninsula.

Which economist resigned from Britain's delegation over the Treaty of Versailles?

John Maynard Keynes resigned from the Treasury team in protest and wrote The Economic Consequences of the Peace, a bestseller arguing that the reparations demanded of Germany would wreck Europe's economy.

Which Kaiser did the Treaty of Versailles seek to put on trial?

Article 227 arraigned Wilhelm II 'for a supreme offence against international morality', but the Netherlands, where he had fled in November 1918, refused to hand him over.

Which German war plan sent armies through neutral Belgium in August 1914?

The Schlieffen Plan sent the German armies through neutral Belgium in August 1914 to knock France out before turning on Russia; it failed at the Marne in September, and four years of trench warfare followed.

Which nationality was Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Franz Ferdinand?

Princip was a Bosnian Serb from Obljaj in western Bosnia; at 19 he was too young for the death penalty and died of tuberculosis in Theresienstadt prison in April 1918.

With which country's invasion is World War II generally considered to have begun?

Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, and Britain and France declared war two days later; the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east on 17 September.

Which Soviet city endured a German siege of 872 days in World War II, during which hundreds of thousands starved?

Leningrad was cut off from September 1941 to January 1944; its one lifeline ran across Lake Ladoga, by barge in autumn and by truck over the ice in winter, and hunger killed its people in vast numbers in the first winter.

Which cruiser's blank shot is said to have signalled the assault on the Winter Palace in 1917?

Aurora's crew had sided with the Bolsheviks; on the orders of the insurgents' Military Revolutionary Committee she fired a blank from the Neva that evening, by tradition the signal for the move on the palace.

Who led the Provisional Government overthrown in the October Revolution?

Alexander Kerensky, a Socialist Revolutionary lawyer, had headed the Provisional Government since July 1917; he fled Petrograd during the rising and died in exile in New York in 1970.

In which Italian city was the Renaissance first centred?

Florence was a banking and commercial capital, and the Renaissance began there because its wealthy citizens, the Medici above all, could afford to back artists and scholars.

Which 14th-century poet, famed for his sonnets to Laura, is often called the father of humanism?

Petrarch found a lost collection of Cicero's letters at Verona in 1345 and hunted old libraries for more Roman texts; his view of the centuries after Rome as an age of darkness fed the later idea of the 'Dark Ages'.

Who engineered the huge brick dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, completed in 1436?

Brunelleschi won the 1418 competition for the dome and raised it without a supporting timber frame, laying the bricks in a herringbone pattern; Ghiberti, who had beaten him for the Baptistery doors in 1401, was made to share the job.

Whose steam engine with a separate condenser, patented in 1769, became the workhorse of the Industrial Revolution?

James Watt was given a model Newcomen engine to repair at Glasgow University in the 1760s and saw how much steam it wasted; his separate condenser cut the waste, and the unit of power now bears his name.

Which industry mechanised rapidly in 1780s Britain during the Industrial Revolution?

Textile spinning went first: Arkwright's spinning frame of 1769 ran on horse power at first; in 1771 he built a water-driven mill at Cromford, taking spinning out of cottages and setting the pattern for the modern factory.

Which pope built the chapel Michelangelo painted and authorised the Spanish Inquisition?

Sixtus IV, who gave his name to the Sistine Chapel, let Ferdinand and Isabella name their own inquisitors in 1478 and was soon trying to curb the tribunal's abuses, without loosening the crown's hold on it.

Which Dominican friar became Spain's first Grand Inquisitor in 1483?

Tomás de Torquemada, Queen Isabella's confessor since her girlhood, ran the Inquisition for its first fifteen years and pressed the monarchs towards the expulsion decree of 1492.

Which movement led to the 1861 creation of the Kingdom of Italy?

The Risorgimento, from the Italian for 'to rise again', united most of the peninsula under one king in March 1861, yet Venice and Rome stayed outside the new kingdom for years.

Which epithet did Italians give King Victor Emmanuel II?

Father of the Fatherland, in Italian Padre della Patria, echoes the Roman honour Pater Patriae; as Italy's first king he kept the numeral II of his Sardinian title rather than start afresh as Victor Emmanuel I.

What name is given to the Iron Chancellor's 1870s campaign against the Catholic Church in Germany?

Kulturkampf, 'culture struggle', saw the Jesuits expelled in 1872 and clergy appointments put under state veto; it backfired as Catholic voters rallied to the Centre Party, and the laws were eased by 1887.

Which 1870 battle saw Napoleon III captured, breaking the Second French Empire?

Napoleon III surrendered with his army at Sedan on 2 September 1870; two days later Paris proclaimed a republic and a Government of National Defence.

Which uprising held the French capital for two months before the army crushed it in a 'Bloody Week'?

The Commune of 1871 began on 18 March, when Paris's National Guard refused to give up its cannon on Montmartre, and ran the city until 28 May, when the army finished retaking it street by street.

Which Jamaican-born nurse opened a 'British Hotel' for troops during the Crimean War?

Mary Seacole, a Jamaican-born nurse refused a place in Nightingale's party, paid her own way to the Crimea and opened her 'British Hotel' for soldiers near the British base in 1855.

Which battle of 25 October 1854 included the Charge of the Light Brigade?

At Balaclava a misunderstood order sent Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade charging Russian guns down the 'Valley of Death'; well over a third of its roughly 670 men were killed or wounded, and Tennyson's poem followed within weeks.

Which Berlin crossing saw US and Soviet tanks face off at close range in October 1961?

Checkpoint Charlie became a flashpoint after East German guards tried to check the papers of a US diplomat on his way to the opera; tanks from both sides then faced each other there until an agreed pull-back on 28 October.

Which prime minister split his own party in 1846 by repealing the Corn Laws as famine gripped Ireland?

Robert Peel carried repeal in June 1846 with Whig and Radical votes against most of his own Conservatives; defeated on another bill the same day, he resigned and never held office again.

Which Basque town was destroyed in April 1937 by German and Italian aircraft flying for Franco's Nationalists?

Guernica was bombed for about three hours on a market day, 26 April 1937, by Germany's Condor Legion and Italian aircraft; Picasso's mural of the attack hung in the Paris exhibition that summer.

Which flower, handed to soldiers by Lisbon crowds, gave Portugal's almost bloodless 1974 revolution its name?

The carnation was in full bloom when the army rose on 25 April 1974, ending nearly fifty years of dictatorship; crowds pressed the flowers on the soldiers, who wore them in their gun barrels.

Which flamed tulip was the costliest of Dutch tulip mania, one bulb reportedly fetching 10,000 guilders?

Semper Augustus owed its red-and-white flames to a virus that also weakened the bulb, which kept it rare; 10,000 guilders was over thirty times a skilled artisan's yearly pay, and the market collapsed in February 1637.

Which veteran of the American Revolution led Poland's failed 1794 uprising against partition?

Tadeusz Kościuszko, who had served as an engineer in Washington's army, led the 1794 rising with scythe-armed villagers in his ranks; its defeat brought the Third Partition, and Poland was off the map for 123 years.

Which capital did Soviet tanks storm on 4 November 1956 to crush an uprising?

Budapest rose on 23 October 1956, when crowds pulled down Stalin's statue and left only its boots on the plinth; after the tanks returned, some 200,000 Hungarians fled the country.

Which Czechoslovak leader's 'socialism with a human face' reforms were crushed in 1968?

Alexander Dubček was forced out as party leader in April 1969, expelled from the party and put to work as a clerk in Slovakia's forestry service; in December 1989 he returned as chairman of the Federal Assembly.

Which dissident became Czechoslovakia's president on 29 December 1989, at the end of the Velvet Revolution?

Václav Havel, a playwright who had served years in communist prisons, was elected six weeks after police beat students marking the fiftieth anniversary of a 1939 Nazi crackdown on Czech universities.

Which queen designed the Kalmar Union that joined three Scandinavian kingdoms from 1397?

Margaret I of Denmark, regent of all three kingdoms, engineered the union sealed at Kalmar in 1397 under her great-nephew Eric of Pomerania; Sweden left for good when Gustav Vasa was elected king in June 1523.

In which city did an opera performance in August 1830 set off the riot that began the Belgian Revolution?

Brussels operagoers left the theatre on 25 August 1830 stirred by Auber's La muette de Portici and joined the rioters in the streets; within weeks the revolt had spread and a provisional government declared independence.

Which 1992 treaty created the European Union?

The Maastricht Treaty was signed by twelve states on 7 February 1992 and set the rules for a single currency; when the euro arrived in 1999, Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom chose to stay out.

Which US president proposed the League of Nations in his Fourteen Points, only for his own country never to join?

Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize as the League's chief architect, but the US Senate vote on joining fell short of the two-thirds it needed.

Which Nazi leader was jailed after the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923 and dictated a book in prison?

Adolf Hitler was sentenced to five years for treason but walked free after nine months in Landsberg Prison, where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow inmates.

Which former newspaper editor became Italy's prime minister in October 1922 after his Blackshirts marched on Rome?

Benito Mussolini left the march itself to four lieutenants and waited in Milan, taking power when the king appointed him rather than by force.

Which German city gave its name to the republic whose national assembly met there in 1919 to avoid unrest in Berlin?

Weimar hosted the national assembly that wrote the 1919 constitution, so a quiet town that never served as the capital lent its name to fourteen turbulent years.

Which country, created in 1918 as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, took a shorter name in 1929?

Yugoslavia means 'land of the South Slavs', and the new name arrived together with a royal dictatorship that the king declared in January 1929.

Which French prime minister, nicknamed 'the Tiger', pressed for harsh terms on Germany at the Paris Peace Conference?

Georges Clemenceau was shot in the back by a would-be assassin during the conference and later joked about the gunman's poor aim.

Which German industrial region did French and Belgian troops occupy in 1923 after reparations payments fell behind?

The Ruhr answered with passive resistance backed by Berlin, a shutdown that helped spark the hyperinflation of 1923.

Which economist quit the Paris peace talks in 1919 and attacked the settlement in a best-selling book?

John Maynard Keynes resigned from the British Treasury team in protest and argued in The Economic Consequences of the Peace that the terms were a 'Carthaginian peace'.

Which country broke from Russia in December 1917, then fought a civil war between Reds and Whites in 1918?

Finland's Whites won within months under Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, who had spent three decades as an officer in the Russian tsar's own army.

Which 1920 peace settlement, signed in a French palace, left Hungary with less than a third of its pre-war land?

The Treaty of Trianon also left nearly a third of ethnic Hungarians living under foreign rule and cost the country its access to the sea.

Which English philosopher's 1651 book Leviathan argued that only an absolute sovereign could keep people from chaos?

Thomas Hobbes had watched the English Civil War tear his country apart, and concluded that life without a strong ruler would be 'nasty, brutish and short'.

Which 1689 act of Parliament barred the English crown from suspending laws or keeping a peacetime army without consent?

The Bill of Rights also outlawed excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments, wording the United States later copied into its own constitution.

Which Dutch city, home to what is considered the oldest modern stock exchange, was Europe's financial hub in the 1600s?

Amsterdam's exchange sprang up after 1602 so that investors could trade their shares in the newly founded Dutch East India Company.

Which 1679 English law let a prisoner demand that a judge examine whether the detention was lawful?

The Habeas Corpus Act carries a famous legend: that it passed the Lords only because a teller jokingly counted one very fat peer as ten, a story historians doubt.

Which 1689 work by John Locke argued that rulers need the people's consent and may be overthrown?

Two Treatises of Government was published anonymously after the Glorious Revolution, though Locke had probably drafted it almost a decade earlier.

Which finance minister of Louis XIV built up French industry and trade through tariffs and state-backed manufactures?

Colbert founded a royal glassworks in 1665 so that France could stop buying Venetian glass, then banned the imports once the new industry was on its feet.

Which nickname, taken from Scottish Presbyterian rebels, stuck to MPs who tried to bar a Catholic heir around 1680?

Whigs was short for Whiggamore, and their rivals fared no better: the Tories were named after Irish outlaws.

Which levy, extended to England's inland counties in the 1630s without Parliament, did John Hampden refuse to pay?

Ship money had been charged only on coastal areas to fund the navy; Hampden lost his case, but five of the twelve judges backed him and payments collapsed.

Which office made the princes of Orange the leading figures of the Dutch Republic without making them kings?

Stadtholder literally means 'stead holder': the post began as a medieval lord's deputy in each province, and was made formally hereditary in every province only in 1747.

Which execution device was named after a physician who proposed it to France's National Assembly as a humane method?

The guillotine was built to a design by the surgeon Antoine Louis and was first known as the louisette; Dr Guillotin had only proposed the idea.

Which Austrian-born queen of France was tried for treason and executed in Paris in October 1793?

Marie Antoinette is forever linked to telling the hungry to eat cake, yet there is no evidence she ever said it.

Which indoor sports venue gave its name to the oath sworn by France's Third Estate after a lockout in June 1789?

A tennis court was where the deputies gathered when they found their own hall locked and guarded, and there they vowed not to separate until France had a constitution.

Which marching song, written in Strasbourg in 1792, took its name from the volunteers who sang it on reaching Paris?

La Marseillaise was first called the War Song for the Army of the Rhine, written after France declared war on Austria.

Which radical journalist was stabbed to death in his bath by Charlotte Corday in July 1793?

Jean-Paul Marat spent much of each day in a medicinal bath to soothe a painful skin condition, and received Corday there when she called as a petitioner.

Which Geneva-born philosopher argued in The Social Contract that legitimate power rests on the people's general will?

Rousseau held that people are free only when they obey laws they have made together, an idea that helped inspire revolution in France.

Which club, the most powerful of the French Revolution, was named after the Dominican monastery where it met?

The Jacobins rented the friars' refectory, which stood next door to the chamber where the Assembly sat.

Which Prussian king, a flute-playing composer, declared that a ruler should be the first servant of the state?

Frederick the Great wrote 121 flute sonatas and four concertos in between the wars that turned Prussia into a great power.

Which Habsburg emperor abolished serfdom in 1781 and let Protestants and Orthodox Christians worship openly?

Joseph II moved so fast that protests and passive resistance forced him to withdraw many of his reforms in Hungary shortly before his death.

Under which surname, borrowed from a medieval ancestor, was the dethroned Louis XVI put on trial in December 1792?

Capet came from Hugh Capet, who founded the royal line in 987; the name turned a dethroned monarch into plain Citizen Louis.

Which Carthaginian general marched war elephants over the Alps in 218 BC to invade Italy?

Hannibal got most of his elephants across the Alps and used them at the Trebia that winter, then went on to crush Roman armies at Lake Trasimene and Cannae.

Which volcano buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and pumice in AD 79?

Mount Vesuvius caught the region off guard because small tremors were routine there, and the only eyewitness account survives in two letters by Pliny the Younger.

Which prehistoric stone circle on Salisbury Plain includes bluestones brought about 150 miles from Wales?

Stonehenge is aligned towards sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice, which suggests its builders were tracking the turning of the year.

Which Greek city-state's king Leonidas died holding the pass at Thermopylae against a Persian invasion in 480 BC?

Sparta's Leonidas was killed on the third and final day of the battle, and the 300 Spartans who fell with him became a byword for a last stand.

Which river did Julius Caesar cross with his army in 49 BC, starting a civil war and a phrase for no return?

The Rubicon marked the edge of Caesar's province of Cisalpine Gaul, and he allegedly remarked as he crossed that the die was cast.

Which Bronze Age civilisation of Crete built the sprawling palace of Knossos, long before classical Greece?

The Minoans were named in modern times after the mythical King Minos, a label popularised by the archaeologist Arthur Evans.

Which queen of the Iceni led a revolt that burned Roman London, Colchester and St Albans around AD 60?

Boudica took up arms after Roman officials had her flogged and her daughters assaulted, by the account of the Roman historian Tacitus.

Which Athenian statesman led the city in its golden age and launched the building of the Parthenon?

Pericles paid for his temples out of the treasury of Athens's allies, and died in 429 BC of the plague that was ravaging the city.

Which Gallic chieftain united the tribes against Julius Caesar and surrendered after the siege of Alesia in 52 BC?

Vercingetorix had beaten Caesar at Gergovia earlier in the campaign; after surrendering he was held in Rome for six years, then executed following Caesar's triumph.

Which Germanic chieftain, trained as a Roman officer, wiped out three legions in the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9?

Arminius had learned Latin and earned Roman citizenship in the army, then lured the governor Varus into an ambush that ended Rome's attempt to conquer Germania.

Which artist, primarily a sculptor, painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling for Pope Julius II between 1508 and 1512?

Michelangelo was reluctant to take the job and suggested that his young rival Raphael paint the ceiling instead.

Which Italian scientist discovered four moons of Jupiter in 1610 with a telescope he had improved himself?

Galileo Galilei was later tried by the Inquisition, forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Which Polish astronomer's 1543 book placed the Sun, not the Earth, at the centre of the planets' orbits?

Copernicus saw his book into print just before he died; legend has it that the final printed pages reached him on the very day of his death.

Which Portuguese navigator led the first voyage around the world but was killed in the Philippines in 1521?

Ferdinand Magellan set out with a fleet of five and about 270 men; only the Victoria completed the voyage, under Juan Sebastián Elcano.

Which Italian diplomat wrote The Prince, a handbook for rulers that made his name a byword for cunning?

Niccolò Machiavelli never saw the book in print: it was published in 1532, five years after his death.

Which imperial assembly of 1521 heard Martin Luther refuse to recant and saw him condemned as an outlaw?

The Diet of Worms ended with Luther branded a heretic; fearing for his safety, his own prince staged a fake highway attack and hid him in Wartburg Castle.

Which Danish astronomer, who lost part of his nose in a duel, ran an observatory on the island of Hven?

Tycho Brahe wore a brass false nose for the rest of his life, and his data later let Johannes Kepler work out the laws of planetary motion.

Which queen mother of France has traditionally been blamed for the St Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572?

Catherine de' Medici saw three of her sons reign in turn, and the killings began days after her daughter's wedding to a Protestant king.

Which Swedish king, nicknamed the Lion from the North, was killed leading a cavalry charge at Lützen in 1632?

Gustavus Adolphus rode astray in fog and gunsmoke and was cut off behind enemy lines; his army won the battle anyway but lost its direction without him.

Which Dutch city gave its name to the 1713 treaties that ended the War of the Spanish Succession?

Utrecht's treaties let Louis XIV's grandson keep the Spanish throne provided the French and Spanish crowns never merged, and gave Britain Gibraltar.

Which Swiss town gave its name to the 1925 treaties in which Germany accepted its borders with France and Belgium?

Locarno's treaties so improved the mood of western Europe that hopes for further peaceful settlements became known as the 'spirit of Locarno'.