100 Fun Facts About Middle School History

Hammurabi, famous for his law code, was king of which ancient city?

Hammurabi ruled Babylon as the sixth king of its Amorite dynasty; the stele carrying his code shows him receiving the laws from Shamash, the sun god and god of justice.

The Silk Road took its name from a luxury textile produced mainly in which country?

The term itself was only popularised in 1877, by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen.

Roughly what share of Europe's population is estimated to have died in the Black Death of 1346-1353?

Estimates put the Black Death's toll at 30% to 60% of Europe's population; the disease, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, spread mainly through the bites of infected fleas.

From which besieged Crimean port did Genoese ships carry the Black Death toward Europe?

Caffa, a Genoese colony in Crimea, was besieged by Jani Beg's Golden Horde army in 1346; plague spread into the port, and Genoese ships carried it to Sicily in 1347.

The Renaissance was first centred in which Italian city?

Florence, ruled by the banker Medici family, paid for much of the early Renaissance art, and Byzantine scholars fleeing Constantinople's fall in 1453 brought ancient texts to the city.

Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-five Theses in which year?

Luther dated his Ninety-five Theses 31 October 1517, sending them to the Archbishop of Mainz; the debate they started grew into the Protestant Reformation.

The Industrial Revolution began around 1760 in which country?

Great Britain, with its coal, canals and textile mills, industrialised first from about 1760; by about 1840 steam power and the factory system had spread to continental Europe and the United States.

How much did the United States pay France for the Louisiana territory in 1803?

The price was $15 million for about 828,000 square miles, less than three cents an acre, and the purchase nearly doubled the size of the United States.

Which leader had regained Louisiana for his country in 1800, three years before selling it to the US?

Napoleon Bonaparte regained Louisiana from Spain in the 1800 Treaty of San Ildefonso, trading territory in Tuscany for it, in the hope of rebuilding France's empire in North America.

Which president sent Lewis and Clark to explore the newly bought western lands?

Thomas Jefferson commissioned the Corps of Discovery in 1803; Lewis and Clark crossed the Continental Divide at Lemhi Pass and reached the Pacific in November 1805.

Sacagawea, who travelled with Lewis and Clark, was a young woman of which people?

Sacagawea was Lemhi Shoshone, taken by the Hidatsa as a girl and later married to the fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, whom the expedition hired at Fort Mandan on the Missouri.

The Golden Spike completing America's first transcontinental railroad was driven in 1869 in which state?

The Golden Spike was driven at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, joining the Union Pacific from Omaha with the Central Pacific from Sacramento after six years of building.

The first immigrant processed at Ellis Island in 1892 was a 17-year-old girl from which country?

Annie Moore from County Cork, Ireland, landed on January 1, 1892, with her two younger brothers to join their parents in America.

About how many immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954?

About 12 million immigrants entered through Ellis Island between its opening in 1892 and its closure in 1954; by one estimate two-fifths of Americans have an ancestor among them.

The Wright brothers' first powered flight in 1903 happened near which North Carolina town?

The first flight lifted off near Kitty Hawk, at Kill Devil Hills, on December 17, 1903; the longest of the day's four flights, with Wilbur at the controls, lasted 59 seconds.

Which amendment gave American women the right to vote nationally in 1920?

The 19th Amendment, ratified when Tennessee approved it in August 1920, barred denying the vote on account of sex; Wyoming had let women vote since 1869.

The Great Depression is usually said to have begun with which event in 1929?

The Wall Street crash of October 1929, with Black Thursday on the 24th and Black Tuesday on the 29th, is the usual starting point; the downturn lasted a decade and brought bank failures and mass unemployment worldwide.

The five D-Day landing beaches were Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and which other?

Sword, the easternmost beach and the one nearest Caen, was taken by the British 3rd Division on 6 June 1944; the landings, codenamed Operation Neptune, were the largest seaborne invasion in history.

Which Apollo 11 astronaut stayed in lunar orbit while Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon?

Michael Collins orbited alone in the command module Columbia for about 21 hours while the lunar module Eagle sat on the Sea of Tranquility.

Which 1962 standoff is considered the closest the Cold War came to nuclear war?

The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 began when US spy planes photographed Soviet missile sites in Cuba; the 13-day standoff ended with the Soviets withdrawing the missiles.

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

The Ming dynasty (1368-1644) built the brick-and-stone sections near Beijing that tourists know, such as Badaling; the earliest walls date to the 7th century BC and were first joined under the Qin.

The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan was founded on islets in which body of water?

Tenochtitlan rose on islets in Lake Texcoco, linked to the shore by causeways; the lake was later drained, and Mexico City stands on the site today.

Which city was the political and military centre of the Inca Empire?

Cusco, high in the Peruvian Andes, was the Inca capital from which the four quarters of Tawantinsuyu, the Realm of the Four Parts, radiated; it was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America.

Mansa Musa, one of history's richest people, ruled which West African empire?

Mansa Musa ruled the Mali Empire from about 1312 to 1337; his 1324 pilgrimage to Mecca, with a huge entourage carrying gold, made him famous across the Mediterranean world.

In Greek myth, Paris took Helen from her husband, the king of which city?

Helen's husband Menelaus was king of Sparta; her abduction launched the Trojan War, which ended with the trick of the wooden horse and is partly told in Homer's Iliad.

Which philosopher tutored the young Alexander the Great until he was 16?

Aristotle taught Alexander at Mieza from 343 BC, when the prince was 13, until he was 16; Alexander went on to be undefeated in battle before dying aged 32.

Gutenberg's famous printed book of the 1450s is also known by what number-based nickname?

The 42-line Bible takes its nickname from the lines of type in most of its columns; of the roughly 180 copies printed, 49 survive in substantial part and 21 in full.

Which English king sealed Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215?

King John, pressed by rebel barons, sealed Magna Carta on 15 June 1215; four 1215 copies survive, two at the British Library and one each at Lincoln and Salisbury cathedrals.

How many amendments make up the US Bill of Rights?

Ten amendments were ratified on December 15, 1791, out of the twelve articles Congress approved in 1789; the other two dealt with congressional size and congressional pay.

Which representative drafted the proposals that became the Bill of Rights?

James Madison, then a Virginia congressman, introduced the amendments in June 1789 after studying Anti-Federalist objections to the Constitution and turning them into corrective proposals.

On the Underground Railroad, what were the guides who led escaping people called?

Conductors led escapees from one safe house to the next, Harriet Tubman being the most famous; hiding places were 'stations', escapees 'passengers' and their hosts 'station masters'.

Besides the northern free states, escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad headed for which country?

Canada, where slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire in 1834, was the main goal beyond the free states; the network was secret routes and safe houses rather than an actual railway.

Which Missouri town was the classic jumping-off point for wagons on the Oregon Trail?

Independence, Missouri, was where most emigrants of the 1840s outfitted their wagons and set off west; the trail ran about 2,000 miles to Oregon's Willamette Valley.

Which Frenchman, builder of the Suez Canal, led the failed first attempt to dig the Panama Canal?

Ferdinand de Lesseps, whose company had dug the Suez Canal, began a sea-level canal at Panama in 1881 that collapsed in bankruptcy by 1889; the canal finally opened under American control on 15 August 1914.

Ships in the Panama Canal are lifted by locks up to which artificial body of water?

Gatun Lake, created by damming the Chagres River in 1913, lies about 26 metres above sea level; ships climb to it through the Gatun locks, which cut the digging needed.

Roughly how many of the 2,208 people aboard the Titanic died when it sank in April 1912?

About 1,500 died; the ship's lifeboats had room for only 1,178 people, and the Carpathia rescued some seven hundred survivors.

The Titanic was sailing from Southampton to which city when it hit an iceberg?

New York was the destination; the Titanic left Southampton on 10 April 1912 on her maiden voyage, and the Carpathia, which rescued the survivors, later relayed the news by wireless.

The Rosetta Stone carries the same text in hieroglyphs, Demotic and which third script?

The third script is Greek, which scholars could already read; comparing it with the hieroglyphic text let Jean-François Champollion crack hieroglyphs in 1822.

Soldiers of which army found the Rosetta Stone in 1799?

French officer Pierre-François Bouchard found it in July 1799 during the French expedition to Egypt; after the French surrender it passed to Britain and has sat in the British Museum since 1802.

Which of these was NOT one of the three city-states that formed the Aztec Empire in 1427?

Teotihuacan was a far older city, already in ruins when the Aztecs rose.

What is the Cold War's usual end date, when the Soviet Union dissolved?

It is usually dated from 12 March 1947 to 26 December 1991.

The Great Depression is usually said to have lasted from 1929 until which year?

It is usually dated 1929 to 1939, ending as rearmament and the Second World War revived output; it brought high unemployment, collapsing trade and widespread bank failures worldwide.

About how many chests of tea did the Sons of Liberty throw into Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773?

Around 340 chests, 342 by the East India Company's count, went overboard from three ships, the Dartmouth, Eleanor and Beaver, thrown by protesters disguised as Mohawk Indians.

How many passengers sailed to America aboard the Mayflower in 1620?

The Mayflower carried 102 passengers plus about 30 crew; after 66 days at sea she anchored off the tip of Cape Cod on 21 November 1620, New Style.

Which second ship was meant to sail with the Mayflower but was left behind as unseaworthy?

The Speedwell leaked twice after leaving Southampton, forcing both ships back into Dartmouth and then Plymouth; she was abandoned there, and the Pilgrims crossed in the Mayflower alone from 16 September 1620.

In what year did East Germany begin building the Berlin Wall?

Construction began on 13 August 1961, when East German troops sealed the border overnight; the wall encircled West Berlin until November 1989, with a 'death strip' of trenches and defences.

Which lookout aboard the Pinta first spotted land on Columbus's 1492 voyage?

Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor from Seville, sighted land from the Pinta at about 2 a.m. on 12 October 1492, though Columbus later claimed the promised reward for himself.

On what date did Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation take effect?

It took effect on January 1, 1863, a hundred days after the preliminary proclamation of September 22, 1862; it declared slaves in the rebel states free and made abolition a Union war goal.

How old was Alexander the Great when he became king of Macedon in 336 BC?

Alexander was 20 when his father Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC; by 30 he ruled an empire stretching from Greece to northwestern India, and he was never defeated in battle.

After how many years away did Marco Polo return to Venice from his travels in Asia?

He had set out with his father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo, who had already met Kublai Khan.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built as the tomb of which pharaoh?

Khufu's vizier Hemiunu is thought by some to have been the architect, and three smaller pyramids nearby were built for Khufu's wives.

Cuneiform, the earliest known writing system, was first developed to write which language?

Cuneiform was first used for Sumerian in Mesopotamia around 3200 BC; the wedge-shaped script grew out of a clay-token accounting system, so the earliest writing was largely bookkeeping.

The first ancient Olympic Games are traditionally dated to which year?

The traditional date is 776 BC, from the ancient victor lists compiled by Hippias of Elis; most later historians of antiquity accepted it, though not all.

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March in which year?

Caesar was stabbed on 15 March 44 BC by a group of senators at a Senate session held in the Theatre of Pompey, not in the Senate house itself.

Which volcano buried the Roman city of Pompeii in 79 AD?

Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and buried the city under 4 to 6 metres of ash and pumice, which is why so much of it survived intact for excavators.

Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, fell in 1453 to which empire?

The Ottoman army of Sultan Mehmed II took the city on 29 May 1453 after a 53-day siege, and he promptly made it his new capital.

Who crowned Charlemagne emperor in Rome in the year 800?

Pope Leo III placed the crown on Charlemagne's head in St Peter's on Christmas Day 800, and Charlemagne is counted as the forerunner of the Holy Roman Emperors.

According to the sagas, Leif Erikson founded a Norse settlement in a land he called what?

Leif called it Vinland, named in the sagas for the grapes found there; many link it to L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, a Norse site occupied about 1,000 years ago.

Which English king was defeated and killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066?

Harold Godwinson died at Hastings on 14 October 1066; only three weeks earlier he had beaten Harald Hardrada's Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge, then marched south to face the Normans.

Which pope called for the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095?

Urban II preached the crusade at Clermont in November 1095, urging Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem, which the crusaders captured in 1099.

Joan of Arc is famous for her role in lifting the 1429 siege of which city?

Joan reached Orléans in late April 1429 and the English abandoned the siege on 8 May; she was about seventeen then, and about nineteen when she was burned at Rouen in 1431.

What was Genghis Khan's birth name?

He was born Temüjin, around 1162; after his father Yesügei was poisoned, his family was abandoned by its tribe, an unlikely start for the founder of the Mongol Empire.

How many treasure voyages did the Chinese admiral Zheng He lead between 1405 and 1433?

The fleets sailed across Asia as far as East Africa under the Yongle and Xuande emperors.

After Magellan died in the Philippines, who led the expedition's return to Spain in 1522?

Juan Sebastián Elcano brought the Victoria home to Spain in September 1522 with just eighteen survivors; five ships and about 270 men had left in 1519, and his crew completed the first circumnavigation.

Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, was founded in which year?

The Virginia Company of London founded it as 'James Fort' on 14 May 1607, on an island in the James River named for King James I.

How many people were executed by hanging in the Salem witch trials of 1692?

19 people were hanged at Proctor's Ledge in Salem Town between June and September 1692; thirty were found guilty, and Giles Corey was pressed to death for refusing to plead.

About how many Lexington militiamen faced the British advance guard on April 19, 1775?

About 80 militiamen under Captain Parker, who had waited in Buckman Tavern, stood in ranks on Lexington Common at sunrise as the Regulars marched in; eight of them were killed.

Which British general's army was defeated at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781?

Charles Cornwallis, trapped at Yorktown by Washington's army and de Grasse's fleet, surrendered in October 1781 but skipped the ceremony, sending Charles O'Hara in his place.

The 1787 Constitutional Convention that wrote the US Constitution met in which city?

The delegates met in Philadelphia's State House from May 25 to September 17, 1787, and 39 of the 55 signed the finished document.

British troops burned the White House and Capitol in August 1814 during which war?

The War of 1812 was in its third year; with fighting in Europe over by spring 1814, Britain sent veteran troops who took Washington late that August and burned the White House and Capitol.

Key's "Star-Spangled Banner" lyrics describe the 1814 bombardment of which place?

Fort McHenry guarded Baltimore harbor; the British bombardment of 13-14 September 1814 lasted about 25 hours, and Francis Scott Key watched it from a ship in the harbor.

Which Mexican general led the troops that retook the Alamo in 1836?

Santa Anna, then Mexico's president as well as its general, stormed the Alamo on March 6, 1836, ending a 13-day siege; his execution of captured defenders spurred Texians to join the Texian Army.

Which 1830 law set in motion the forced relocations known as the Trail of Tears?

The Indian Removal Act, signed by Andrew Jackson in May 1830, authorised treaties moving tribes west of the Mississippi; the Cherokee removal of 1838 followed a gold find near Dahlonega, Georgia.

Sutter's Mill, where gold was found in January 1848, is in which California town?

Sutter's Mill stood on the American River at Coloma, where James Marshall found gold in January 1848; the rush drew roughly 300,000 people to California, about half by sea and half overland.

Harriet Tubman rescued roughly how many enslaved people on her Underground Railroad missions?

Tubman brought out about 70 people in some 13 trips; later, in the Civil War, she guided the Combahee Ferry raid of June 1863, which liberated more than 700 people in one operation.

The Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 was fought in which state?

Gettysburg is in south-central Pennsylvania; Confederate troops under Jubal Early had occupied the town on June 26 after scattering a newly raised emergency militia regiment, a week before the battle.

Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, in the parlor of whose house?

Wilmer McLean had moved to Appomattox after the first major battle of the war, Bull Run, was fought near his earlier home at Manassas in 1861; the war began in his front yard and ended in his parlor.

Lincoln was watching which play at Ford's Theatre when he was shot in April 1865?

Lincoln was watching Our American Cousin, a comedy by Tom Taylor, on April 14, 1865; Booth and his conspirators had originally plotted to kidnap the president rather than kill him.

Which engineer built the metal framework inside the Statue of Liberty?

Gustave Eiffel designed the iron pylon and skeleton that carries Bartholdi's copper skin; the statue was a gift from the people of France and was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

The USS Maine exploded and sank in which harbor in February 1898?

The Maine blew up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898, killing about three-quarters of her crew; 'Remember the Maine' helped push the US into the Spanish-American War that April.

In what year did the Ford Motor Company start producing the Model T?

The Model T went into production in 1908, the first leaving the Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit that autumn; Henry Ford watched the 15 millionth roll off the line in May 1927, its final year.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on 28 June 1914 in which city?

The couple were in Sarajevo to open the state museum's new premises; after a bomb missed their car earlier that morning, Gavrilo Princip shot them both near the Latin Bridge.

About how many minutes did the Lusitania take to sink after being torpedoed in 1915?

The Lusitania sank in about 18 minutes off the Old Head of Kinsale in May 1915; only six of her 48 lifeboats were successfully lowered, and 1,198 of the roughly 1,960 people aboard died.

The Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 in which room of the palace?

The treaty was signed in the Hall of Mirrors on 28 June 1919, the fifth anniversary of the assassination that triggered the war, in the room where the German Empire had been proclaimed in 1871.

Pearl Harbor, attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941, is on which Hawaiian island?

The raid killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178 others.

What was the nickname of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945?

Little Boy was a gun-type weapon using enriched uranium, dropped by the B-29 Enola Gay; the bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days later, Fat Man, used plutonium.

Anne Frank's family hid from the Nazis in a secret annex in which city?

The annex was at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, concealed behind a bookcase in the building where her father Otto's business operated; the family hid there from July 1942 until August 1944.

How many nations were represented at the first UN General Assembly in January 1946?

All 51 founding members were represented when the General Assembly first met in London on 10 January 1946; the UN had formally come into being the previous October, once the Charter was ratified.

Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color line in 1947 with which team?

Robinson debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field on April 15, 1947; general manager Branch Rickey had signed him from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro leagues.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955 in which Alabama city?

Parks was arrested in Montgomery on December 1, 1955; she had been secretary of the city's NAACP chapter since 1943, long before the bus boycott made her famous.

The 1954 school segregation case Brown v. Board of Education came from which city?

The Supreme Court's decision was unanimous and became a model for later impact litigation.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave "I Have a Dream" in 1963 from the steps of which landmark?

King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to more than 250,000 people at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963.

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite, in which year?

Sputnik 1 was launched on 4 October 1957 (already 5 October at the Kazakhstan launch site) and circled Earth every 96 minutes, beeping for three weeks before its batteries died.

Which queen of France was executed by guillotine in October 1793?

Marie Antoinette, the Austrian-born queen of Louis XVI, was guillotined in Paris on 16 October 1793, nine months after her husband, during the Reign of Terror.

Howard Carter discovered the intact tomb of which pharaoh in November 1922?

Tutankhamun's tomb, KV62, was opened on 26 November 1922; Carter had been digging for his patron Lord Carnarvon since 1907, and it is the best-preserved royal tomb found in the Valley of the Kings.

Which American historian brought Machu Picchu to international attention in 1911?

Hiram Bingham of Yale reached the site in July 1911 and publicised it in National Geographic; it was already known locally and had been visited in 1902 by Peruvian farmer Agustín Lizárraga.

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

The fire began in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday 2 September 1666, and an east wind turned it into a firestorm before demolitions could stop it.

Gandhi's 1930 Salt March from Sabarmati Ashram ended at which coastal village?

Dandi, a village on the Gujarat coast, was where Gandhi picked up a handful of natural salt on 6 April 1930, ending the march from Sabarmati Ashram in protest at the British salt monopoly.

How many years did Nelson Mandela spend in prison before becoming South Africa's president?

Mandela served 27 years, from 1962 to 1990, first on Robben Island and later at Pollsmoor and Victor Verster prisons, before becoming president in 1994.

Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic in which year?

Earhart flew from Newfoundland to a pasture near Derry in May 1932, five years after Lindbergh's solo crossing, and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for the feat.