100 Fun Facts About Global History

Which writing system, pressed into clay tablets, did the Sumerians develop in Mesopotamia?

Cuneiform, meaning 'wedge-shaped,' was developed by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 3400-3000 BCE. It is considered one of the earliest forms of writing and was inscribed on clay tablets using a stylus.

The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas split newly found lands outside Europe between Castile and which other seafaring kingdom?

Portugal and Castile drew their line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands; the far side of the globe was only divided in 1529, by the Treaty of Zaragoza.

Mansa Musa, famous for the gold he spent on his pilgrimage to Mecca, ruled which West African state?

His reign marked the Mali Empire's territorial peak, at a time when West Africa supplied an estimated two-thirds of the gold circulating in the medieval Mediterranean.

Which Greek philosopher founded the Peripatetic school, also known as the Lyceum?

Aristotle, a student of Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great, established the Lyceum in Athens, where he taught and developed his philosophical system, influencing Western thought for centuries.

In what year was the Roman Republic traditionally established, following the overthrow of the monarchy?

According to tradition, the Roman Republic was founded in 509 BCE after the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was expelled, leading to the establishment of a new form of government.

Born Temüjin, which ruler united the nomadic tribes of the Mongolian plateau and founded the Mongol Empire in 1206?

Genghis Khan, born Temüjin, was proclaimed ruler of all the Mongols at a kurultai (assembly) on the Onon River in 1206, the founding moment of the Mongol Empire.

Which explorer led the first circumnavigation expedition but did not complete the journey?

Ferdinand Magellan initiated the first expedition to sail around the world in 1519. Although he was killed in the Philippines, one of his ships, the Victoria, completed the circumnavigation under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1522.

Which city served as the capital of the Byzantine Empire for over a thousand years?

Constantinople, founded by Emperor Constantine I on the site of ancient Byzantium, became the capital of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in 330 AD and remained so until its fall in 1453.

Which Italian-born explorer, sailing for the Spanish crown, made four Atlantic crossings that opened the Americas to European colonisation?

Christopher Columbus was Genoese by birth but sailed under the Spanish flag, making four crossings between 1492 and 1504 in the name of the Catholic Monarchs.

Which Mongol ruler completed the conquest of China and established the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century?

Kublai proclaimed the Great Yuan in 1271, and by 1279 his forces had crushed the last Song resistance, making him the first non-Han ruler of all of China.

Which Turco-Mongol conqueror founded the Timurid Empire in 1370 and campaigned across Central Asia, Persia and India?

Tamerlane, also known as Timur, was a warlord of the Turco-Mongol Barlas tribe who ruled his empire from 1370 until his death in 1405.

Which ancient figure is traditionally credited with unifying Upper and Lower Egypt?

Narmer is widely considered to be the first pharaoh who unified Upper and Lower Egypt, laying the foundation for one of the longest-lasting civilizations in history. Some scholars identify him with the legendary Menes.

Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, in which fifth-century year?

After the deposition in 476 CE the Senate sent the imperial insignia east to Emperor Zeno, and the Eastern Empire carried on for centuries.

Which country is widely recognized as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution?

Great Britain, with its coal, canals and textile mills, saw the Industrial Revolution begin around 1760; it spread to continental Europe and the United States by about 1840.

Which 1942-43 battle on the Volga ended with the surrender of Germany's Sixth Army?

The Battle of Stalingrad, fought between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, was one of the largest and deadliest battles in history and is widely regarded as a critical turning point on the Eastern Front of World War II.

What post-WWII US initiative funded Western Europe's reconstruction?

The Marshall Plan, officially known as the European Recovery Program, was a U.S.-sponsored initiative launched in 1948 to help rebuild war-torn Western European economies and counter the spread of communism.

The Black Death of 1346-1353 was caused by which bacterium?

Yersinia pestis, the plague bacterium carried by fleas on rats, caused the Black Death; between 1346 and 1353 it killed an estimated 30 to 50 percent of Europe's population.

Roughly how long was the overland Silk Road network at its fullest extent?

The overland Silk Road stretched over 6,400 km (about 4,000 miles) from Chang'an in China to the Mediterranean; the name was coined by geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in 1877.

Johannes Gutenberg, who invented mass-produced movable type around 1440, trained in which craft?

Gutenberg trained as a goldsmith in Mainz and Strasbourg; that metalworking skill produced his hand mould, which cast uniform metal type quickly and in large quantities.

Roughly how many impressions could a European printing press produce in a 15-hour workday around 1600?

A press crew around 1600 could pull up to 3,600 impressions in a 15-hour day, roughly 240 an hour, whereas a scribe copying by hand managed only a few pages a day.

Magna Carta was sealed by King John at which meadow near Windsor in June 1215?

Runnymede, a meadow beside the Thames near Windsor, is where King John sealed Magna Carta on 15 June 1215; Pope Innocent III annulled the charter within months, sparking the First Barons' War.

Which Archbishop of Canterbury first drafted Magna Carta to make peace between King John and his barons?

Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1207, mediated between John and the rebel barons and is credited with drafting the charter, whose terms were to be enforced by a council of 25 barons.

The Inca called their empire Tawantinsuyu, a Quechua name meaning what?

Tawantinsuyu means 'Realm of the Four Parts': the empire's four suyus (Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu, Collasuyu and Cuntisuyu) met at Cusco, its capital.

Which Portuguese explorer became the first European to reach the Inca Empire, in 1524?

Aleixo Garcia, a shipwrecked Portuguese sailor, marched west from the Brazilian coast with Guaraní allies and raided the Inca frontier, eight years before Pizarro's conquest began in 1532.

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 restored practical power to which institution in Japan?

The Meiji Restoration of 1868 returned ruling authority to the Emperor, the young Meiji, ending the Tokugawa shogunate and launching Japan's rapid industrialisation.

On what date did East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall?

Construction began overnight on 13 August 1961, when East German troops sealed the border with barbed wire; the GDR officially called the Wall the 'Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart'.

The Rosetta Stone records a decree issued in 196 BC on behalf of which ruler?

The Memphis decree of 196 BC, carved in hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek, was issued by priests to honour the young king Ptolemy V Epiphanes, who had inherited the throne as a child in 204 BC.

The Rosetta Stone was found in July 1799 by an officer of which army?

French officer Pierre-François Bouchard found the stone in July 1799 while Napoleon's army was rebuilding a fort at Rashid (Rosetta); Britain seized it under the 1801 Capitulation of Alexandria.

Which scholar announced the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs in Paris in 1822?

Jean-François Champollion presented his 'Lettre à M. Dacier' to the Académie des Inscriptions in September 1822, showing hieroglyphs recorded sounds as well as ideas; rival Thomas Young had earlier identified only some phonetic signs.

The best-known sections of the Great Wall of China were built by which dynasty?

Ming builders used bricks and stone instead of the rammed earth of earlier walls.

Which diplomat from France formed the company that built the Suez Canal, opened in 1869?

Ferdinand de Lesseps, a former French consul in Egypt, won the concession from Said Pasha and founded the Suez Canal Company in 1858; construction ran from 1859 to 1869.

The Ottoman Empire emerged around 1299 from a principality founded by which tribal leader?

Osman I, a Turkish bey in north-western Anatolia, founded the principality around 1299; 'Ottoman' is the Western form of his name, and his son Orhan took Bursa in 1326.

Which Ottoman sultan conquered Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire?

Mehmed II, aged 21, took Constantinople on 29 May 1453 after a 53-day siege, earning the name 'the Conqueror'; the last emperor, Constantine XI, died in the fighting.

By the death of Kublai Khan in 1294, the Mongol Empire had fractured into how many separate khanates?

Four: the Golden Horde in Russia, the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia, the Ilkhanate in Persia and the Yuan dynasty in China, each ruled by a branch of Genghis Khan's descendants.

The Mongol Empire holds what distinction among all empires in history?

Its enforced Pax Mongolica linked the Pacific to the Mediterranean.

The Turkish War of Independence, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, ended the Ottoman sultanate in which year?

The Grand National Assembly abolished the sultanate on 1 November 1922, and the last sultan, Mehmed VI, left Istanbul on a British warship days later; the Republic followed in October 1923.

Which Byzantine ruler (527-565) rewrote Roman law as the Corpus Juris Civilis?

Justinian I commissioned the Corpus Juris Civilis, compiled under the jurist Tribonian between 529 and 534; his generals Belisarius and Narses also briefly reconquered Italy and North Africa.

The Byzantine Empire was severely fragmented in 1204 when Constantinople was sacked by which force?

The Fourth Crusade, diverted by Venetian debts and a Byzantine succession dispute, sacked Constantinople in April 1204; a Latin Empire and Greek rump states such as Nicaea then competed for its lands.

Which warrior-prince founded the Mali Empire around 1235 by defeating the Sosso king Soumaoro Kanté?

Sundiata Keita defeated Soumaoro Kanté at the Battle of Kirina around 1235 and founded the Mali Empire; its charter, the Kouroukan Fouga, set out the new state's laws.

Mansa Musa's lavish spending on his 1324-26 pilgrimage caused inflation in which country?

Mansa Musa handed out so much gold in Cairo during his 1324 stay that Egypt's gold price slumped; the chronicler al-Umari reported it had not recovered twelve years later.

The Black Death reportedly reached Europe in 1347 via Genoese ships from which Crimean port?

Kaffa (modern Feodosia), a Genoese colony in Crimea, was besieged by the Golden Horde in 1346; Jani Beg's army reportedly catapulted plague corpses over its walls, and Genoese ships carried the disease to Sicily in 1347.

Roughly how many people managed to escape across the Berlin Wall during its 28 years?

Over 5,000 people got across the Wall during its 28 years (1961-1989), out of more than 100,000 who tried; estimates of those killed in the attempt range from 136 to over 200.

How long is the Suez Canal?

The Suez Canal runs about 193 km (120 miles) from Port Said on the Mediterranean to Suez on the Red Sea; it opened in 1869 at 164 km and was lengthened by later expansions.

The Black Death is estimated to have killed up to how many people in Europe?

Estimates put the Black Death's toll in Europe at 25 to 50 million people between 1347 and 1351, roughly a third to a half of the continent's population.

The Peace of Westphalia treaties of 1648 were signed in Münster and which other city?

Osnabrück hosted the Protestant negotiations (Sweden and the Empire) while Münster hosted the Catholic ones (France and the Empire); both treaties were signed on 24 October 1648, ending the Thirty Years' War.

The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was built on an island in which body of water?

Tenochtitlan rose on an island in Lake Texcoco, linked to the shore by causeways; founded in 1325, it was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas, and its ruins lie beneath Mexico City.

Ashoka the Great, who spread Buddhism across Asia, belonged to which Indian dynasty?

Ashoka was the third Maurya emperor, grandson of the dynasty's founder Chandragupta; his edicts say the bloody conquest of Kalinga in his eighth regnal year turned him toward 'dhamma', righteous conduct.

Angkor Wat, the vast temple dedicated to Vishnu, was built under which Khmer king?

Suryavarman II (reigned 1113-1150) built Angkor Wat as his state temple, dedicated to Vishnu; it gradually became a Buddhist site from the late 13th century.

Roughly how far did the 14th-century traveller Ibn Battuta journey over 30 years?

Ibn Battuta covered roughly 117,000 km between 1325 and 1354, from Morocco to China and back, far more than Marco Polo's 24,000 km or Zheng He's 50,000 km.

The Haitian Revolution began with a slave revolt in Saint-Domingue on 21 August of which year?

The uprising began on the night of 21-22 August 1791 after the Bois Caïman ceremony in northern Saint-Domingue; it led to Haiti's independence on 1 January 1804.

In which eleventh-century year did William of Normandy defeat Harold Godwinson at Hastings, beginning the Norman Conquest?

Harold had crushed a Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge just 19 days before Hastings, then marched his exhausted army south to meet William on 14 October 1066.

When it was stormed on 14 July 1789, the Bastille held how many prisoners?

Just seven prisoners were inside: four forgers, two men held as insane and one aristocrat; the Marquis de Sade had been moved out ten days earlier after shouting that prisoners were being massacred.

After Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to which remote South Atlantic island?

Saint Helena, a British island about 1,900 km off south-western Africa, received Napoleon in October 1815; he died there on 5 May 1821, aged 51, officially of stomach cancer.

The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was a standoff that lasted roughly how many days?

Soviet missiles in Cuba answered American missiles already deployed in Britain, Italy and Turkey. Robert Kennedy's memoir of the crisis was titled Thirteen Days.

Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii and Herculaneum under metres of ash and pumice in which first-century year?

Pompeii vanished under 4 to 6 metres of ash and pumice in AD 79, along with Herculaneum and Stabiae; around 11,000 people lived in the town at the time.

Who commissioned the Taj Mahal in 1631 to house the tomb of his wife Mumtaz Mahal?

Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, began the Taj Mahal at Agra in 1632, a year after Mumtaz Mahal died in childbirth; the mausoleum was essentially complete by 1643, and his own tomb was later placed beside hers.

The Terracotta Army near Xi'an depicts the armies of which ruler of China?

Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of a unified China, was buried near Xi'an in 210 BC with thousands of terracotta soldiers to guard him in the afterlife; farmers digging a well found them in 1974.

The Hijrah of 622, start of the Islamic calendar, took Muhammad from Mecca to which city?

Muhammad travelled with his companion Abu Bakr to Medina (then Yathrib) after pledges from its tribes of Aws and Khazraj; the year of that migration, 622, became year 1 of the Islamic calendar.

Which British admiral was fatally shot by a French musketeer at Trafalgar in 1805?

Horatio Nelson was hit by a musket ball fired from the French ship Redoutable and died about three hours later, shortly before the battle ended; his chaplain recorded his last words as 'God and my country'.

Hannibal's army crossed the Alps to invade Italy in which year?

Hannibal led his army over the Alps in the autumn of 218 BC, opening the Second Punic War on Italian soil; Polybius says his elephants had earlier crossed the Rhône on rafts covered with soil.

Luther was a professor at which university when he wrote the Ninety-five Theses in 1517?

His target was the indulgence campaign of Johann Tetzel, whose sales were banned in Saxon cities, so locals travelled to nearby towns to buy them.

On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev handed the nuclear launch codes to which Russian leader?

Gorbachev resigned as Soviet president on 25 December 1991 and passed the 'nuclear briefcase' to Boris Yeltsin, president of Russia; the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin that evening.

Pilot Paul Tibbets named the B-29 that bombed Hiroshima, the Enola Gay, after whom?

Tibbets named the bomber after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets, having the name painted on 5 August 1945, the day before the mission; she had herself been named after the heroine of a novel.

The 1842 Treaty of Nanking ceded which island to the British as a colony?

Hong Kong Island was ceded to Britain 'in perpetuity' by the Treaty of Nanking, which ended the First Opium War, opened five treaty ports and ended the Canton system that confined foreign trade to one port.

The 1588 Armada's commander was an aristocrat appointed by which Spanish king?

Philip II appointed the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a grandee with little naval experience, after his original commander, the Marquis of Santa Cruz, died in February 1588.

The Code of Hammurabi, composed around 1753 BC, is written in which language?

The laws are written in Akkadian, in its Old Babylonian dialect, in cuneiform script; the stele's top shows Hammurabi, sixth king of Babylon's First Dynasty, receiving authority from Shamash, god of the sun and justice.

The English siege of Orléans collapsed in May 1429, nine days after whose arrival?

Joan of Arc entered Orléans on 29 April 1429 and the English abandoned the siege on 8 May, after some seven months; it was her first victory of the Hundred Years' War.

Which last Nasrid ruler surrendered Granada and the Alhambra to Castile on 2 January 1492?

Boabdil (Muhammad XII), the last Nasrid emir, handed Granada to Isabella and Ferdinand on 2 January 1492, ending the ten-year Granada War; within months Spain's Jews were ordered to convert or leave.

Clemenceau chose which room of the Palace of Versailles for signing the 1919 peace treaty?

The Hall of Mirrors was where the German Empire had been proclaimed on 18 January 1871 during the siege of Paris, so Clemenceau chose it for the 28 June 1919 signing to reverse that humiliation.

Peter the Great founded Saint Petersburg in 1703 on a fort captured from which country?

Swedish colonists had built the fortress of Nyenskans at the mouth of the Neva in 1611. Peter named his new city after the apostle, not himself.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 began in a bakery on which street?

Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane caught fire shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September 1666; the blaze burned for four days and destroyed some 13,000 houses.

The 1883 Krakatoa explosion was heard 4,800 km away on Rodrigues, an island near where?

Rodrigues is an outlying island of Mauritius, about 4,800 km west of Krakatoa; the sound was also heard in Perth, 3,110 km away, and the climactic blasts of 27 August 1883 collapsed most of the volcano into the Sunda Strait.

Which pope crowned Charlemagne in Rome on Christmas Day 800?

Leo had faced fierce political opposition in Rome since becoming pope in 795, and the coronation at St Peter's bound the papacy to Frankish protection.

Which former Gold Coast colony became independent on 6 March 1957 under Kwame Nkrumah?

Ghana, formed from the Gold Coast colony and British Togoland, became independent on 6 March 1957 with Kwame Nkrumah as prime minister; he had earlier spent a year in prison for his 'Positive Action' campaign.

Vasco da Gama's fleet reached Kappadu, near which Indian city, on 20 May 1498?

Calicut, now Kozhikode on the Kerala coast, was the spice port da Gama sought; he had left Malindi in East Africa on 24 April 1498 with a local pilot and crossed the Indian Ocean in 26 days.

Gandhi's 1930 Salt March ended at which coastal village, where he made salt from seawater?

Dandi, on the Gujarat coast, was where Gandhi picked up salt on 6 April 1930 after a 387 km march from Sabarmati Ashram; he then continued south along the coast, making salt and addressing meetings.

Zheng He's treasure voyages, which began in 1405, ended in which year?

The seventh and last voyage sailed in 1431 and returned in 1433; Zheng He led all seven for the Yongle and Xuande emperors, reaching Arabia and East Africa, and records describe him as seven chi tall.

The stone edifices of Great Zimbabwe were erected by ancestors of which people?

Great Zimbabwe was built by ancestors of the Shona between about the 11th and 15th centuries; the name comes from Shona 'dzimba dza mabwe', 'houses of stone', and its Great Enclosure walls rise 11 metres without mortar.

Who led the Frankish forces that defeated an Umayyad army at the Battle of Tours in 732?

Charles Martel, Mayor of the Palace of the Franks, defeated the Umayyad governor Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi, who died in the battle near Poitiers in October 732; later chroniclers inflated Muslim losses to an absurd 375,000.

The Norse site of L'Anse aux Meadows sits at the northern tip of which island?

L'Anse aux Meadows lies at the northern tip of Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula; found by Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad in 1960, it holds the remains of eight sod buildings and evidence of iron working from around AD 1000.

At Gaugamela in 331 BC, Alexander the Great defeated which Persian king?

Darius had already lost his wife, mother and daughters to capture after the Battle of Issus two years earlier. Gaugamela brought down the Achaemenid Empire.

The Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 delivered victory to which future shogun?

Tokugawa Ieyasu's Eastern Army won on 21 October 1600 after Kobayakawa Hideaki and other Western commanders defected mid-battle; Ieyasu was named shogun in 1603. The field lies in today's Gifu Prefecture.

Which statesman chaired the Congress of Vienna of 1814-15?

It was the first time national representatives from across a continent gathered in one city at once to draft treaties, a format Metternich devised with Friedrich von Gentz.

The Boxer Rebellion was crushed in 1900 by an alliance of how many foreign nations?

The Eight-Nation Alliance of American, Austro-Hungarian, British, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Russian troops seized the Dagu forts on 17 June 1900 and relieved the besieged Beijing legations on 14 August.

Taiping leader Hong Xiuquan claimed visions revealed Jesus to be his celestial what?

Hong Xiuquan concluded that Jesus was his elder brother and that he was God's second son, after fever visions that followed his 1837 failure in the imperial exams; he believed he was sent to rid China of demon worship.

At Adwa in 1896, Menelik II's army defeated the colonial force of which European nation?

Italy's force under General Oreste Baratieri, about 17,000 men, was routed on 1 March 1896 by Menelik's army of up to 100,000, many armed with modern rifles bought from France and Russia.

The 1618 Defenestration of Prague helped ignite which European war?

The Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) began after Protestant estates threw two Habsburg governors and their secretary from a window of Prague Castle on 23 May 1618; a 1419 defenestration had likewise triggered the Hussite Wars.

The 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula to which country?

Japan gained Taiwan, the Pescadores and the Liaodong Peninsula, plus a 200-million-tael indemnity and China's renunciation of its claim on Korea; the Triple Intervention forced Japan to hand Liaodong back within weeks.

The 1571 Battle of Lepanto saw a Holy League fleet defeat which empire's navy?

Pope Pius V assembled the coalition, led by Spain and Venice. The two fleets met in the Gulf of Patras, and the Ottoman fleet was almost entirely destroyed.

Babur defeated which Sultan of Delhi at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526?

Ibrahim Lodi, last sultan of the Lodi dynasty, died on the field at Panipat on 21 April 1526; Babur's field artillery and matchlocks, combined with flanking cavalry, broke the far larger Delhi army.

The 1897 British expedition that looted the Benin Bronzes sent which Oba into exile?

Oba Ovonramwen was deposed after the punitive expedition of February 1897 and exiled to Calabar, where he died in 1914; the British seized thousands of bronzes and ivories from his palace.

The Cyrus Cylinder was discovered in 1879 in the ruins of which ancient city?

Hormuzd Rassam found it in March 1879 in the ruins of Babylon; it is a foundation deposit laid after Cyrus took the city in 539 BC and denounces the deposed king Nabonidus as an impious, low-born oppressor.

The 1591 Battle of Tondibi, won by a Moroccan army, doomed which West African empire?

Judar Pasha's force defeated Askia Ishaq II. Songhai had dominated the Western Sudan for over a century, but succession wars after 1586 had weakened it.

Aksum's King Ezana was the first to adopt Christianity and which name for his country?

Ezana, ruler of Aksum in the mid-4th century, was the first king to call his realm 'Ethiopia' in his inscriptions; tradition says his tutor Frumentius, from Tyre, converted him, and earlier inscriptions style him a son of Ares.

The Hanseatic League grew from which north German town, rebuilt in 1159 by Henry the Lion?

Lübeck, re-founded by Henry the Lion in 1159, became the league's leading city and host of its assembly, the Hansetag; at its height the league linked nearly 200 towns around the North Sea and Baltic.

The 793 raid often taken as the start of the Viking Age hit a monastery on which island?

Lindisfarne, a tidal island off Northumberland, was sacked in 793; the scholar Alcuin lamented the attack in letters to the king, and the monks later carried St Cuthbert's body away, settling at Durham in 995.

A replica of the Hittite-Egyptian peace treaty of Ramesses II hangs at which body's headquarters?

A replica hangs at United Nations headquarters in New York, a gift from Turkey, where the Hittite clay-tablet version was found at Hattusa; it is the only ancient Near Eastern treaty with both parties' versions surviving.

The 1955 Asian-African Conference of new states met in Bandung, a city in which country?

Sukarno and Nehru were key organisers, aiming to build a nonaligned movement. The conference was coordinated by Indonesia's Ruslan Abdulgani.

The 1864-70 Paraguayan War, South America's deadliest, is also called the War of the what?

Paraguay faced Argentina, the Empire of Brazil and Uruguay; the name stuck after Argentina and Uruguay joined Brazil in 1865.

Ashurbanipal's library, holding the Epic of Gilgamesh, stood in which Assyrian capital?

Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, excavated at the Kouyunjik mound near Mosul from the 1840s, yielded some 30,000 tablets and fragments, including the Gilgamesh flood tablet and the Enûma Eliš creation story.