Legacies Trivia Quiz

If not the most significant date in the history of England, perhaps one of the most famous. William's march on England was deeply personal. He was promised the title of King of England but, at the final moment, England's King Edward, changed his mind and named Harold Godwinson as his successor. Feeling betrayed William gathered an army and challenged for the throne. However, he was not the only challenger. Also in the fray were Harald III of Norway and King Harold's own brother, Tostig. The battle at Hastings in East Sussex was the decisive confrontation in which William emerged victorious and earned the nickname "The Conqueror".

The Legacy: This would be the last successful conquest of England, but William's legacy would go much deeper than that. He would transform England politically, economically, and socially. As part of a new military strategy, a number of castles were built to strengthen defenses, land ownership rules started to change and the first steps towards feudalism began. Returning militia men were granted parcels of land to start new lives. He also created the Domesday Book as a comprehensive record of land ownership. Anglo-Saxons were removed from the hierarchy of the Church and replaced with Norman followers and French was introduced into the elite circles as a language. This, in turn, would have a great influence on English vocabulary.

King John was a tyrant, and his growing power base was becoming a concern to the people of England, in particular the barons. The biggest sticking point, was the level of the taxes that he was imposing. The tide turned after King John had waged a war with France which had turned into a disaster. With his power base starting to wane, the barons took the opportunity to present John with a list of demands. John refused to acknowledge them, so the barons renounced their allegiance to him, marched against him and captured London in 1215. In June of the same year, they forced a meeting with King John at Runnymede and got his seal on the Magna Carta.

The Legacy: This document put into writing the principle that the King was not above the law. It placed limits on the monarch's authority and made all men equal in the eyes of the law, and entitled to a fair trial. Whilst this was important to the people of England back then, its influence has stretched well beyond that generation. It became the foundation stone for England, and many other countries, to build their constitution upon. For example, when the North American colonies of England started piecing together their own fundamental laws, they drew on the Magna Carta. The basic rights in the Magna Carta are also echoed in the Constitution of the USA and their Bill of Rights.

The Plague (or Black Death) swept through the majority of Europe. In London, though, the death toll was horrendous. It is estimated that its population was savagely reduced from 100,000 to 20,000 in the course of a single generation. The impacts were numerous; wars were put on hold and trade, temporarily, ceased. The biggest headache though was the loss of labour. This led to a significant drop in crop cultivation and the ruin of many land-owners. In other parts of the world, the subjects for many artists and poets became those of death. The Holy Church's influence waned as people turned to mysticism to avoid eternal damnation and a wave of Anti-Semitism swept the continent, with Jews being blamed for the malady.

The Legacy: The biggest benefit landed in the laps of the peasants or serfs. Their services were now in great demand, and it meant that (a) they were no longer tied to a single land-owner (b) they could demand better conditions and higher wages or (c) it opened doors to greater standing or positions in the community. In addition, it also led to leap in the standards of medicine and hygiene. There is also an argument that this episode led to a new outlook on life and that from this came the inspiration for the Renaissance.

England was in an upheaval again, a little over a hundred years after being afflicted by the Plague. The thirty odd years that marked the period known as the Wars of the Roses was an extremely fractious time in England. The powerhouses, York and Lancaster, give their names to this conflict but it was not as simple as that. Each side garnered allies. Those allies were not necessarily loyal and switched sides whenever it would be to their advantage. The key to the end of this brutal conflict was Henry Tudor's defeat of Richard III at Bosworth in 1485. That said, there were still conspirators and would be successors and the disposal of Lambert Simnel at Stoke Field in 1487 is generally considered to be the final act of the conflict. To emphasize the complexity of the machinations within this war, many of them would provide inspiration for numerous authors and playwrights, extending from William Shakespeare through to modern day's George R. R. Martin.

The Legacy: The monarchy became richer thanks to the acquisition of lands from deceased estates or confiscated from those vanquished. Importantly, it allowed Henry VII to declare that the maintenance of the armies rested with the Crown, to limit the number of retainers that the nobles could hold and to personally approve marriages between noble families to ensure that new (and powerful) alliances were not formed. The new rules provided Henry with a stable base to work with and it ensured that trade with other European countries would prosper. Henry would also reunite the two rival houses by marrying Edward IV's daughter, Elizabeth of York. This would usher in the Tudor dynasty which would rule England for over a hundred years and bear witness to England's "Golden Age".

It is only "assumed" that William Shakespeare was born in 1564. This is because there are no records of it, however, his christening was recorded and the custom in the day was that the christening generally took place three days after the birth. Shakespeare is England's most celebrated playwright, a man who wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets. He wrote of love and hate, life and death and the youth versus its elders, to name a few. Shakespeare was born a Catholic in the time that Elizabeth I had converted the country to Protestantism and this also runs through the Bard's work as a tension. These are themes that are timeless which is why his tales are still relevant today and they are reflected in so many stories in the modern era. For example, "Ten Things I Hate About You" (1999) has echoes of "The Taming of the Shrew", "The Lion King" (1994), at its core, is "Hamlet" and "West Side Story" (1961) smacks of the tale of "Romeo and Juliet".

The Legacy: Shakespeare was a creative genius who re-shaped the English language in so many ways. Under his guiding hand nouns would become verbs and verbs turned into adjectives. He invented over a thousand new words and phrases that have become staple idioms. However, possibly the greatest lesson he delivered to the world was that success lay within creativity and that we can create new ways of communicating by creatively playing with language.

Led by Robert Catesby, a devout Catholic, the Gunpowder Plot was an attempt to blow up the British parliament and, in the process, assassinate King James I. With the introduction of Protestantism by Elizabeth I, Catholicism was on the receiving end of some serious persecution. When James I ascended to the throne Catholics were looking forward to some tolerance from him, mainly because his wife, Anne of Denmark, was a Catholic. Their hopes were dashed when the King delivered a speech in 1604 announcing that he detested the faith and then ordered the Jesuits and Catholic priests to leave the kingdom. Catesby's idea was to remove the King so that they could install a Catholic monarch and, to this end, the second part of their scheme was to kidnap the King's daughter and place her on the throne as a "puppet" ruler.

The Legacy: This plot was a disaster for the Catholics on many fronts: (a) The actions of the few had tainted the perspective that the entire faith was viewed in, (b) Parliament came down hard on them, introducing laws that required Catholics to swear loyalty to the Crown and denounce the power of the Pope, (c) despite the conspiracy being quashed and laid to rest, Protestant suspicions remained, and life did not get any easier for Catholics. The latter can be evidenced by the unrest that was caused during the subsequent reign, that of Charles I in the 1630s, where it was felt that his policies had a Catholic bias. Then, during the reign of Charles II, there were fears that the Catholics would stage a coup. These fears were amplified when Charles' brother James converted to Catholicism. The fictitious Popish Plot arrived in 1678, which alleged that the Jesuits were planning to assassinate Charles II and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which couldn't have arrived quick enough for Protestants, was seen as a major victory over Catholics.

It would not be until 1745 that politicians were finally coming to the consensus that Catholics did not represent a threat and then another eighty odd years (1829), when the final pieces of the Catholic Emancipation Act were put together, that the last of the legal disabilities against the Catholics were removed.

The Battle of Waterloo was the decisive battle after 23 years of fighting between European nations and Napoleon Bonaparte's France. The Europeans, led by the Duke of Wellington, which defeated Bonaparte and ended the first French Empire, could be loosely described as the world's first United Nations. To this end, little more than a third of the Duke's force was made up of British soldiers. The balance was made up of Dutch and Belgian nationals, soldiers from a number of German Duchies and 50,000 members from the Prussian Army.

The Legacy: Victor Hugo wrote "Waterloo is not a battle, it is the changing face of the universe." He could not have been closer to the truth. After the signing of the Vienna Treaty (also known as the Treaty of Schonbrunn, 1809), France was no longer a super-power. The United Kingdom did not gain any land in Europe from this treaty, but what it did receive were territories in South Africa, Sri Lanka and Trinidad. Here they were able to install strategic naval bases, which would become crucial to their ability to control and safeguard its burgeoning empire.

This war also provided the USA the ability to emerge from the shadows and take its first steps toward becoming the superpower that it was to be in the late 19th and the 20th centuries. This was because the fighting had disrupted both industry and trade for the European nations and it meant that there was a heavy demand for goods from the USA, especially their cotton and grain crops. The beauty for the States was that they were neutral in this conflict, which meant they could trade with both sides.

For the Prussians and the Germans this victory stirred up great echoes of nationalism. It created the bud that would blossom into the new German Empire which, in turn, would cast the die that would lead to the rise of the Third Reich.

Born in Kensington Palace in May of 1819, Victoria was the only daughter of Edward, the Duke of Kent who, in turn, was the fourth son of King George III. When her father passed away she became the heir to the throne. That was because her three uncles, who all pre-deceased her had no surviving legitimate children. She ruled as Queen for sixty years and, so profound were the changes during her reign, that the era was named after her. As significant as the cultural and scientific changes were during this time, her rule was not without conflict. The Opium Wars with China arrived in 1839. This was followed by the Afghan attack in 1842, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny and the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. Even at home, she had to contend with a serial killer who was christened "Jack the Ripper".

The Legacy: The Victorian era is looked upon as an age of industrial evolution and the great economic expansion of Great Britain. There were incredible advancements in science and health, the aptly titled Industrial Revolution and a cultural explosion that had some scholars prepared to argue that this period represented a second Renaissance... and, at the heart of this great movement, was Queen Victoria.

Fertility rates went through the roof, continuing improvements in health and environmental standards saw mortality rates decrease and this, in turn, created a population explosion. Artists flourished as did authors and poets. However, the new-found technologies, particularly with steam, would pave the way for mass production and the introduction to the world of a modern Britain. It was also a period when Britain extended its global holdings, so much so that at her death, it was said that Victoria's and Britain's worldwide empire was one on which the sun would never set. Indeed, the British Empire was at its peak two decades after the Queen's passing, covering almost a quarter of the world's earth, and ruling over 458 million people.

In less than the thirty years, between 1910 and 1940, the fragile illusion of peace in Europe was destroyed by two horrific World Wars. With the launch of the Second World War, Britain, for the first time, was subjected to aerial warfare. Through six long years they endured a range of hardships, such as rationing, air raids, serious damage to property and, importantly, a significant loss of lives. V.E. Day marked the end of that war (in Europe) and it was a cause for great celebration. Yes, there was still a war being fought against the Japanese, but those battles were not in their faces and, while it remained at arms length, it was a cause for some relief.

The Legacy: While V.E. Day did spark some celebration, when Britain came to have a closer look at itself, it was both exhausted and devastated. Thanks to the German bombing campaigns, a number of its cities had been destroyed and the war effort had left the country desperately short of manpower and materials with which to rebuild them. These shortages would also contribute to Britain's steady decline as a global power in the second half of the 20th century, but it would also have the nation question itself on a range of issues. Economically, could they continue to maintain their monstrous empire? Ideologically, could they continue to view their African and Asian peoples as "inferior" to the white European people? Certainly, their (the Africans and Asians) standing alongside them in the trenches against a nationalistic and racist regime went, part of the way, to dispelling that but, so too, did Churchill's signing of the Atlantic Charter in 1941 and the introduction of the equality ideals set out by the United Nations with their formation in 1945. The loss of Singapore in 1942, a strategically vital naval port to the defense of their empire (to an Asian force) added weight to this argument. Further, it showed that Britain could be beaten or, at least, were vulnerable to attack and this provided great encouragement to African and Asian leaders who had their own ideas of nationalism.

Britain did embark on a process of decolonization. India was granted its independence in 1947 and Great Britain removed themselves from the Middle East. The latter decision was pushed upon them by the growing unrest in the region and the expense to try and maintain a level of peace there. However, they chose to hang onto their African nations because they saw opportunities of great wealth from the continent and a chance to refill their own coffers. The intended prosperity did not eventuate. When you add to this the Accra Riots of 1948, the Mau Mau revolts in Kenya during the 1950s and the embarrassment that was the Suez Crisis in 1956, it was not surprising then to hear the British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, produce his "Winds of Change" speech in 1960 that would lead to Britain providing independence to its African holdings.

The Internet, as distinct from the World Wide Web (WWW), was founded in the late 1960s as a means for government departments in the USA to share information with each other. Its official birthday though, is considered to be January 1, 1983 and, as a birthday gift, it was provided to the people of the world... for free. By the end of that decade Tim Berners-Lee was putting a proposal to his bosses at CERN about a document sharing facility he proposed to call the "Mesh". The lukewarm response he got was "Vague but exciting...". The following year (1990) Berners-Lee was writing code for it, changed its name to the World Wide Web and the way we would transaction in various functions would soon change.

The Legacy: The World Wide Web has transformed the world we live in. It has changed the way we are able to research, the way we can divulge information, the way that we shop, the way we operate our education systems, our health systems etc. Significantly, it has changed the way we communicate. We are now able to talk to people, deliver documents or pass on information to a person or a group of people on the opposite side of the globe in mere seconds. The Web has created opportunities, given a voice to those that were a minority, and it has made our lives so much easier.

But it also has a dark side. The opportunities that exist for the every-man also exist for scammers, those that would be mongers of hate and bullies who could use the cyber links to cause distress from a distance and with great anonymity. Fake news has become a buzz-word of the 2020s. Then there are those that have preyed on the benevolence of the Web, introducing ad-based models and providing, what Berners-Lee terms, "perverse incentives". The changes that have occurred in the 30 odd years of the Web's existence have been vast and rapid that it has made some fearful of approaching it and some now doubt that it will represent a force for good going forward.

Perhaps it is too early to talk of the legacy of the World Wide Web. Whilst we may know the technicalities of its workings, we don't know the organism that has become the Web today. Nor can we reliably predict what it will become in ten or twenty years time for that matter. In an interview with the Guardian in March 2019, Berners-Lee echoed similar thoughts and was already calling for a "re-foundation" of the system and the creation of a new set of rules for it.