History pop quiz answers

[ciroccoj]

OK, we'll just have to taken as a given that woffprof would've kicked everybody's derrieres with this one, but I'm pretty impressed by how many people knew what happened on each of these dates.

Some of the events were referred to in different ways by different people, eg. 1861 events included shots at Ft. Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War. I know some of the people who only referred to the Civil War beginning probably considered Ft. Sumter to just be part of that and not a separate event on its own. I figure some of you didn't. Made judgment calls re. who recognized what :)

And wherever people came up with events I hadn't been thinking of that were still of major historical significance, I counted those too. Sorry, culturevulture and mynuet, but the birthdates of Secretariat, Man O'War, and mynuet's sister didn't quite make the cut ;)

• 1867 - Canadian Confederation (a_dawn, clearbell, snarkhunter) BTW, go snarkhunter! Didn't expect any non-Canadians to get this one :)
  
  
  
• 1776 - Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies (sangerin, mynuet, a_dawn, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1912 - Titanic (sangerin, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter) Woodrow Wilson becomes president after the Republican vote is split between Taft, the incumbent, and Teddy Roosevelt, the still highly popular former president running on a third party ticket. (mynuet)
  
  OK, the Wilson one was not what I was thinking, but it's a bit more relevant to world history than the first, I'd think. Except that no cutesey children's campfire songs were written about it, nor did Céline Dion's heart go on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it.
  
  
  
• 1865 - end of the (US) Civil War (sangerin, mynuet, culturevulture, snarkhunter) Lincoln is assassinated (mynuet, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1917 - USA enters WWI (sangerin, culturevulture, snarkhunter) the Russian Revolution(s)(mynuet, culturevulture), JFK is born (clearbell)
  
  
  
• 1215 - Magna Carta (culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1939 - Beginning of WWII, invasion of Poland (sangerin, mynuet, a_dawn, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1066 - William the Conquerer does his conquering (sangerin, mynuet, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 622 - Muhammed migrates to Medina; the beginning of the Islamic calendar. The closest guess was "Or his taking over in Arabia" (culturevulture)
  
  
  
• 1914 - Assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, etc, WWI (sangerin, mynuet, a_dawn, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1918 - Armistice, end of WWI (sangerin, mynuet, a_dawn, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter), a global flu pandemic kills more people than the war did (mynuet, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1929 - Stockmarket crash (sangerin, mynuet, a_dawn, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 79 - Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii. It had erupted many times before, and has many times since, but this is the eruption most people think of when they think of Vesuvius, because it was particularly violent and it buried many Roman cities, including Pompeii.
  
  
  
• 1347 - Ship carrying the Black Plague lands in Messina, Italy, beginning the outbreak which eventually killed 30-50% of Europe's population. Closest guess was "Is this the year the Black Plague reached England?" (snarkhunter) The plague actually reached England in 1348 :)
  
  
  
• 2001 - 9/11 (sangerin, mynuet, a_dawn, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1969 - Moon landing (sangerin, mynuet, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter), Woodstock (snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 1861 - Beginning of the Civil War (sangerin, mynuet, culturevulture, snarkhunter), Lincoln inauguration (clearbell); shots at Ft. Sumter (mynuet, snarkhunter); southern states secede (mynuet)
  
  
  
• 1963 - Kennedy assassination (sangerin, mynuet, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter), the March on Washington (mynuet)
  
  
  
• 1973 - Watergate (mynuet, a_dawn), Roe v. Wade (clearbell), Pinochet takes over Chile (culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  And believe it or not, I totally wasn't thinking of Pinochet when I grabbed that year out of the air. Which is bizarre, because not only am I from Chile, but I had just been reading about Latin American Truth and Justice Commissions, and Chile was mentioned quite frequently.
  
  
  
• 800 - Charlemagne coronated as the Holy Roman Emperor (mynuet, culturevulture)
  
  
  
• 1961 - setting up the space program: Kennedy's "fly men to the moon in this decade" speech to the joint session of congress (sangerin), Gagarin going into space, Summer of the Freedom Riders. (mynuet), JFK is inaugurated (clearbell, culturevulture), Bay of Pigs (culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  Was not thinking of Gagarin or the Freedom Riders when I grabbed that date either.
  
  
  
• 1492 - "Back in 1492 (Christopher Columbus) Sailed across the ocean blue (Christopher Columbus)" (sangerin, mynuet, a_dawn, clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter)
  
  
  
• 410 - Rome falls (mynuet, culturevulture)
  
  
  
• 1968 - Assassination of MLK (sangerin, mynuet clearbell, culturevulture, snarkhunter), Assassination of Bobby Kennedy, (sangerin, mynuet, culturevulture) the 68 Convention in Chicago, Students go nuts all over Europe... (sangerin)