Better Late Than Never Trivia Quiz

Answer: The collapse of the Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989 and it marked the fall of the Iron Curtain which separated the 'Eastern Bloc' (comprised of Eastern Europe and Russia) and the Western democratic side of Europe. This disintegration began in Hungary a few months before the fall of the wall, but when this border came crashing down, it was a momentous triumph for freedom in history. With revolutions in many Eastern Bloc countries, the end of the Cold War was marked by this important razing. I mean, I missed the whole thing (by a bit of a longshot), but there are still pieces of the wall to be found in Berlin (and even in the United States).

Answer: Sears Tower

Sears Tower (also known as the Willis Tower) passed the World Trade Center as the tallest building in the United States in the 1970s and temporarily became the world's tallest skyscraper until it was passed in 1998 by Kuala Lampur's Petronas Twin Towers.

While Sears originally made use of the tower for business purposes, they departed from this location in the mid-1990s. The reason for its being named Willis Tower is because of Willis Group Holdings who occupy three floors of the structure. In 2010, the completion of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE surpassed all records held by the Chicago skyscraper. Turns out I missed that opening too ...

Answer: Hurricane Hazel

Hurricane Hazel is notable in the regions around Toronto for its widespread flooding and damaging power. The area north of Toronto, the Holland Marsh, was completely flooded, while local rivers heading all the way into cottage country overflowed. Overall, over a hundred million dollars in damages were caused (equating to over a billion in costs by values half a century later). Hazel started in the eastern Caribbean and progressed west, then north up the Eastern Coast of North America before ending near James Bay. Due to the intensity of the storm and its effects on the region, over eighty fatalities were counted in Ontario as a result. Best to be prepared though; I finish boarding up my house anyways.

Answer: Ankara

Well, we know that Istanbul was Constantinople, but Istanbul (and at one point Constantinople) was once the capital of Turkey (and before that it was New Rome and Byzantium). In 1923, Istanbul, one of the largest cities in the world (and the largest in Turkey) stepped aside, and Ankara became the country's capital city. Rich in history, the city features the central government of Turkey and, like Istanbul, has suffered from a history of name changes.

Originally, the city was known as Ankuwash.

While the city of Ankara is in central Turkey, Istanbul stands on the cusp of the European part of the country at the edge of the Bosporus.

Answer: The eruption of Krakatoa

I seem to be getting worse with this stuff. Now, my trip to Indonesia has to suffer. Krakatoa sits between Sumatra and Java, two of Indonesia's major islands. The eruption of this volcano was magnificent with the eruption being so loud that it was heard in Australia and Mauritius.

The earthquakes and subsequent eruption decimated the original island, shrinking it into a tiny version of what it once was. It was one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions ever with over thirty thousand fatalities.

Indonesia also holds the most deadly volcano record for its 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora which killed three times the number of people.

Answer: HMS Beagle

A Royal Navy ship, the Beagle eventually became a survey ship. Its second voyage took Darwin to the Galapagos Island where he made some important observations and theories about evolution. Sending letters back to Britain at port cities, his findings were met with mixed praise and criticisms. Nonetheless, his theories on natural selection proved to be influential in the biological science community and they jilted religious beliefs worldwide. Though Darwin disembarked from the boat in 1836 (and I missed it) he left Britain on the same boat in 1831 to begin his journey.

Answer: 1803

The United States purchased the area known as Louisiana (named after Louis XIV) in 1803 in order to expand westward. The purchase cost S11.25 million (in addition to a lifting of US debts to France debts totaling an additional eighteen million francs).

As a result, the United States grew towards the Pacific. The amount of land acquired comprises nearly a quarter of surface area of the country. The Louisiana Purchase was completed during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. It would be another forty years before the States had claimed Texas. Somebody really needs to tell me about these things ... I would've put up a bid if I'd have known about it earlier.

Answer: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

While Rousseau (and many others) regarded "Emile" as his most important and most influential work, the book was heavily criticized in its day for its views on children and society. It essentially states Rousseau's views that the child does not retain the innocence it is born with, losing it due to the corruption placed upon it by civilization.

This, of course, opposes the Puritan views of the child in which kids were given harsh moral lessons in order to inherit goodness (as children were inherently not innocent upon birth).

The book had a major effect on education practices in the years that followed.

Answer: Salem

Massachusetts in the late 17th century may not have been the safest place, but I vow to keep our current century the same way! The Salem witch trials are a notable part of the state's history, and it's another instance in which the Puritan views have been raised in outrage. For fear of devilish deals and the supernatural, the residents of Salem and surrounding towns cried out and killed twenty people in the trials (imprisoning many more).

The witches were tried in a court of law, and a number of men and women were hanged. All of these accusations began a year earlier when two girls received unexplainable symptoms which could be attributed to no diseases.

Answer: 13th century

The Magna Carta, or the Great Charter, was monumental in shaping law in Europe. The signing of this document allowed the people of England to sleep better at night as it ensured that the King could not go beyond the extent of the law in his reign, using unlawful imprisonment, for example. Numerous copies of this vow were made to spread across England and the territories held by the British Empire.

There is no single master copy left in existence and the original was scribed in Latin.