170 Fun Facts About European History

Roughly what share of Europe's population did the Black Death kill between 1346 and 1353?

The continent's population did not climb back to its 14th-century level until the 16th century.

Genoese traders reportedly carried plague into Europe in 1347 from which Crimean port?

The disease itself is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, spread mainly by flea bites.

Which sultan's forces captured Constantinople on 29 May 1453?

He was only 21 at the time and was later nicknamed 'the Conqueror'.

The 1453 siege of Constantinople, which began on 6 April, lasted how many days?

Orban's giant bombard was 27 feet long and could hurl a 600-pound stone ball more than a mile.

During the 1453 siege, Ottoman ships were dragged overland on greased logs into which waterway?

The road of greased logs ran across Galata, bypassing the chain that blocked the harbour mouth.

Weeks before losing at Hastings in 1066, Harold Godwinson won which battle on 25 September?

Harald Hardrada and Harold's own brother Tostig were both killed there; Hastings itself was fought about 7 miles from the town, near present-day Battle.

The 1618 Defenestration of Prague is credited with triggering which war?

An earlier defenestration in 1419 saw Hussites throw members of the city council from a window.

Protestant pamphleteers claimed the men thrown from a Prague window in 1618 survived by landing on what?

The 70-foot fall was survived by all three men; Catholics credited divine intervention, and the pamphleteers' story was unknown to contemporaries.

On 31 October 1517 Luther sent his theses to Albert of Brandenburg, archbishop of which city?

The famous door-posting story rests on a later claim by Melanchthon that conflicts with Luther's own accounts.

Which preacher's 1517 indulgence campaign near Wittenberg drew locals to buy pardons, provoking Luther?

Luther's theses aired misgivings about indulgences and their relation to repentance and papal authority.

How many prisoners were inside the Bastille when it was stormed on 14 July 1789?

The governor, de Launay, was killed after surrendering; 14 July is now France's national holiday.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 15 August 1769 in which town?

The town is on Corsica, which had only become French the year before his birth.

After abdicating in April 1814, Napoleon was exiled to which Mediterranean island?

He escaped within a year, only to be beaten at Waterloo in June 1815 and shipped to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic.

What did Napoleon sell to the United States in 1803?

The Napoleonic Code, his legal reform, is often called his most enduring legacy.

Napoleon died in 1821, aged 51, of what cause?

Arsenic-poisoning theories circulated for decades, but the standard account is a cancer that also killed his father.

Magna Carta was agreed on 15 June 1215 at which water-meadow beside the Thames?

It was drafted by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, to make peace between King John and rebel barons.

Which pope annulled the 1215 Magna Carta, helping trigger the First Barons' War?

The annulment came within weeks; the charter was reissued in revised forms after King John's death.

How many exemplifications of the original 1215 Magna Carta survive?

Two are at the British Library, one at Lincoln Castle and one at Salisbury Cathedral.

What did East German authorities officially call the Berlin Wall?

Construction began on 13 August 1961, and estimates of people killed trying to cross range from 136 to more than 200.

In which year did East Germany open the Berlin Wall on 9 November?

The border between West and East Berlin alone ran 43.1 km.

Which pope crowned Charlemagne emperor at St Peter's on Christmas Day 800?

Charlemagne had already been King of the Franks since 768; historians call him the 'Father of Europe'.

Charlemagne built his great palace and chapel in which city?

He died there in 814 and was buried in the Palatine Chapel, now part of the city's cathedral.

Who commanded the Spanish Armada that sailed from Lisbon in May 1588?

The fleet numbered 141 ships when it left Lisbon; Philip II sent it against Elizabeth I.

Returning home around Scotland and Ireland, the Armada lost up to how many ships to wreck?

English fire ships had scattered the fleet at night before storms finished the job.

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

His wife Sophie was killed too; the assassin was part of a group of six later known as Young Bosnia.

How did the archduke's car end up stopped right beside Gavrilo Princip in 1914?

Earlier that morning a bomb thrown by Čabrinović bounced off the folded car roof and wounded 16 to 20 bystanders.

How many round-trip voyages to the Americas did Columbus make in all?

Born in the Republic of Genoa around 1451, he died at Valladolid on 20 May 1506.

The Hundred Years' War between England and France actually lasted how many years?

Historians split it into Edwardian, Caroline and Lancastrian phases.

Which English king won at Agincourt in 1415?

The tide turned after the Siege of Orléans in 1428-29, and Joan of Arc was executed in 1431.

After the Hundred Years' War, England kept one continental foothold until 1558. Which?

It fell during the reign of Mary I, a loss she reportedly said would be found written on her heart.

The 1648 Peace of Westphalia was signed in which two cities?

The settlement also confirmed the independence of the Dutch Republic and the Swiss Confederacy.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 began at Thomas Farriner's bakery on which street?

It destroyed 13,200 or more houses and about 87 parish churches, yet only a few deaths were officially recorded.

Christopher Wren designed the 202-foot Monument to the Great Fire of London with which collaborator?

It stands near the fire's starting point and was built between 1671 and 1676.

Vikings who travelled the Dnieper and Volga trade routes were known in the east by what name?

The Viking Age is conventionally dated from the first recorded raids in 793 to the Norman conquest of England in 1066.

Leif Erikson's short-lived North American settlement has been identified at which site?

The site is in Newfoundland, Canada; Leif was heir to Erik the Red.

The Treaty of Verdun in 843 gave the Carolingian middle kingdom to which grandson of Charlemagne?

The three-way split has been seen as foreshadowing the map of modern western Europe.

The Gutenberg Bible is nicknamed for the number of lines per page. How many?

Of the 158 or 180 copies printed in the 1450s, 49 survive in substantial part.

Who chaired the Congress of Vienna of 1814-15?

France, the defeated power, was still represented by its foreign minister Talleyrand.

The German Confederation created at the Congress of Vienna had how many member states?

It replaced a patchwork of roughly 300 earlier states, under the presidency of the Austrian Emperor.

Which emperor was forced to abdicate to Odoacer in 476, the usual end date of the Western Roman Empire?

The empire's greatest territorial extent had come under Trajan, more than three centuries earlier.

Which Athenian general, the most experienced against Persia, led the Greeks at Marathon in 490 BC?

According to Herodotus, the runner Pheidippides was actually sent to Sparta before the battle, not to Athens after it.

Who proposed staging a 'marathon race' at the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896?

The legend of a run from the battlefield to Athens first appears in Plutarch, some 500 years after the battle.

The Reconquista is traditionally dated from which battle of around 718 or 722?

It ended in 1492 with the fall of Granada, 781 years after Tariq ibn Ziyad's army crossed the Strait of Gibraltar.

The Alhambra Decree of 30 July 1492 forced roughly how many Jews out of Spain?

The decree came just months after the Catholic Monarchs took Granada.

Who commanded the Holy League fleet at Lepanto on 7 October 1571?

It was fought almost entirely between rowing vessels, galleys and galleasses.

Which king led the 18,000-strong cavalry charge at the Battle of Vienna on 12 September 1683?

He rode at the head of 3,000 Winged Hussars and afterwards quipped 'We came, we saw, God conquered'.

Louis XIV's reign, the longest of any sovereign monarch, lasted roughly how many years?

He came to the throne in 1643 at about four years old and died on 1 September 1715.

Louis XIV stripped the Huguenots of their rights by revoking which royal proclamation?

The Sun King's move sent many Protestant craftsmen and merchants into exile across Europe.

Who served as the first prime minister of unified Italy?

Victor Emmanuel II was the first king; Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand had conquered the south.

In which year did Rome become the capital of the Kingdom of Italy?

The city was captured in 1870; Venice had joined after the Third War of Independence in 1866.

The German Empire was proclaimed on 18 January 1871 in which room?

Paris was under siege by German troops at the time, and the Grand Duke of Baden led three cheers for 'Kaiser Wilhelm'.

Which statesman read out the proclamation of the German Empire in January 1871?

Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor at the ceremony.

The Bolshevik insurrection began 25 October 1917 (Old Style). Which day of November is it in the Gregorian calendar?

Nicholas II had stepped down on 15 March, or 2 March by the Julian calendar then in use.

Who led the Bolshevik squad that killed the Romanov family on the night of 16-17 July 1918?

The burial site was found by amateur detective Alexander Avdonin in 1979 and confirmed by DNA in 1994.

In 1998 the Romanovs' remains were reinterred in a state funeral at which church?

The reburial came exactly eighty years after the killings.

The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) drew its dividing line 370 leagues west of which islands?

The line put the bulge of Brazil on Portugal's side, which is why Brazilians speak Portuguese today.

Which general commanded the German 6th Army that surrendered at Stalingrad on 2 February 1943?

It was the first of Hitler's field armies to surrender, and the battle is widely seen as the turning point of the war in Europe.

The Treaty of Rome, signed on 25 March 1957, was signed by how many founding states?

It was signed at the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill and took effect on 1 January 1958.

Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded on 8 February 1587. Where?

Elizabeth I, the last Tudor, was ultimately succeeded by Mary's son James VI of Scotland.

Which church gathering finally ended the Western Schism in 1417, electing Martin V?

At its height the schism had three rival popes, in Rome, Avignon and Pisa.

The 1856 Treaty of Paris that ended the Crimean War forbade Russia from basing warships in which sea?

The war's 11-month Siege of Sevastopol and Florence Nightingale's nursing reforms both date from this conflict.

William of Orange landed his invasion army in Devon on 5 November 1688 at which bay?

The same wind that carried the Dutch fleet down the Channel trapped the English fleet in the Thames estuary.

Alexander the Great's horse Bucephalas carried him as far as India. What did the name mean?

Alexander was tutored by Aristotle at Mieza from the age of 13 and never lost a battle.

In which city did Alexander the Great die in 323 BC?

He had turned back at the Beas River after his troops mutinied; he founded more than twenty cities, most famously Alexandria.

The Hanseatic League's London trading post was known by what name?

Other kontors stood at Bruges, Bergen and Novgorod; the last Hanseatic Day met in 1669.

The Hanseatic League grew from which North German town in the late 12th century?

Even at its peak the league had no permanent administration, treasury or standing army.

Which general reconquered North Africa and Italy for Emperor Justinian in the 6th century?

Justinian also rebuilt the Hagia Sophia and had Roman law rewritten as the Corpus Juris Civilis.

The Nika riots that shook Constantinople in January 532 grew out of which rivalry?

Justinian's wife Theodora, a former actress, is credited with steeling him to stay and crush the revolt.

Suleiman the Magnificent was known to his own Ottoman subjects by which epithet?

His 46-year reign, from 1520 to 1566, was the longest of any Ottoman sultan.

Suleiman the Magnificent died in his tent in 1566 during the siege of which Hungarian fortress?

He died one day before the fortress fell; his son Selim II succeeded him.

Leonardo da Vinci spent his final years at Clos Lucé in the service of which French king?

He died there on 2 May 1519 aged 67, near the royal château of Amboise.

Who led the Frankish forces that defeated an Umayyad army between Tours and Poitiers on 10 October 732?

Ninth-century chroniclers gave him the nickname 'the hammer' for his many victories, not this battle alone.

Peter the Great's beard tax charged boyars who kept their beards how many rubles a year?

Peter, who stood a reported 6 ft 8 in, had spent 18 months touring the West incognito, even studying shipbuilding in Zaandam.

Which Swedish king did Peter the Great defeat at Poltava in 1709?

Peter founded Saint Petersburg in 1703 and moved the capital there from Moscow in 1712.

Which representative body, last convened in 1614, did Louis XVI recall in 1789?

The nobles and parlements argued only it could approve new taxes.

Which foundational statement of liberties did the National Assembly issue in 1789?

The Assembly also abolished feudalism after the storming of the Bastille.

What was the fate of Bernard-René de Launay, governor of the Bastille, in 1789?

He had been born inside the Bastille, the son of a previous governor.

Whose execution in July 1794 is taken to mark the end of the Reign of Terror?

Will Durant dated the Terror from the Law of Suspects on 17 September 1793 to that day.

Roughly how many people were officially executed during the Reign of Terror?

At least 300,000 suspects were arrested; 16,594 official death sentences were recorded by then.

What name is given to the political turn that ended the Terror in 1794?

Robespierre and his allies fell in July 1794, the month of Thermidor.

On what date was the Battle of Waterloo fought?

It was Napoleon's last engagement, near Waterloo in modern Belgium.

Which Prussian field marshal's army reinforced Wellington at Waterloo?

Wellington led a British-Dutch-German coalition force.

Which two marshals commanded Napoleon's wings at Waterloo?

Ney led the left wing, Grouchy the right.

Over roughly which years were the Napoleonic Wars fought?

They are usually divided into seven conflicts, five named for coalitions.

Which 1805 naval victory gave Britain hegemony over the seas in the Napoleonic Wars?

Britain could not challenge France on land but dominated at sea afterward.

Which archangel did Joan of Arc say guided her, along with Saints Margaret and Catherine?

She asked to be taken to Charles VII in 1428.

On what date was Joan of Arc burned at the stake?

She was about nineteen; her coronation of Charles VII was her greatest triumph.

In which city was Joan of Arc tried and executed?

She had lifted the siege of Orléans and had Charles VII crowned at Reims.

Which two invaders did Harold Godwinson face in 1066 before Hastings?

He beat them at Stamford Bridge on 25 September, weeks before Hastings.

Which survey did William the Conqueror complete by 1086?

It recorded much of England and parts of Wales.

Which pope's speech at Clermont in 1095 launched the First Crusade?

He backed the Byzantine emperor Alexios I's request for military aid.

In which year did the First Crusade capture Jerusalem?

The crusade ran from 1096 to 1099.

Which Byzantine emperor requested Western military aid before the First Crusade?

His ambassadors reached the Council of Piacenza in 1095.

Which Byzantine emperor died defending Constantinople in 1453?

Sultan Mehmed II, later "the Conqueror", led the Ottoman army.

Which emperor moved the Roman capital to Constantinople and legalised Christianity?

The Byzantine Empire reached its greatest extent under Justinian I.

Under which emperor did the Byzantine Empire briefly reconquer much of Italy?

His general Belisarius led the reconquest.

Charlemagne became King of the Franks in which year?

He became sole ruler three years later after his brother Carloman's death.

Which atrocity did Charlemagne commit while forcibly Christianising a conquered people?

He was crowned emperor in Rome in 800.

Which philosopher said the Holy Roman Empire was "in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire"?

It ran from 800 or 962 until its 1806 dissolution.

Whose 962 coronation by Pope John XII revived the imperial title in the West?

The Holy Roman Empire lasted until 1806.

Roughly how many years did the Black Death last across Europe?

The 1346–1353 pandemic was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis.

Which bacterium caused the Black Death?

It spread mainly by flea bites, and by respiratory droplets in pneumonic cases.

Which minority did panicked Europeans falsely blame for spreading the Black Death by poisoning wells?

Healers and governments could not explain or stop the plague.

Which 1517 document is usually taken as the start of the Reformation?

It gave birth to Lutheranism.

Which French reformer developed the Reformed tradition from Geneva?

The Swiss Zwingli also preached against church abuses from 1516.

Which Catholic assembly of 1545–1563 answered the Reformation?

It has been called the great embodiment of the Counter-Reformation.

Where were the two treaties of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia signed?

They ended the Thirty Years' War, which killed 4.5 to 8 million people.

The Thirty Years' War began in 1618 when which Protestant replaced Ferdinand II as king of Bohemia?

It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history.

Which king was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688?

He was replaced by his daughter Mary II and her husband William III.

What did a Convention make William and Mary in April 1689?

A separate Scottish settlement followed in June 1689.

The English Civil War was fought between Royalists and which faction?

They were nicknamed Cavaliers and Roundheads.

What did the nickname "Roundhead" refer to?

"Cavalier" came from a Latin root meaning horseman, used as an insult.

Which cavalry commander of the New Model Army became Lord Protector in 1653?

He advocated the execution of Charles I in January 1649.

Whose 1649 execution, advocated by Cromwell, led to the Commonwealth of England?

Cromwell was a leading advocate of the regicide.

By what nickname did Louis XIV style himself?

He built his court at the Palace of Versailles.

Louis XIV's 1685 revocation of which royal decree forced Huguenots to flee or convert?

It virtually destroyed the French Protestant community.

Which rebellions did Louis XIV face during his minority?

Pacifying the aristocracy who had joined them was a key achievement.

Which war did Tsar Peter win to gain Baltic coastline for Russia?

Russia was then raised from a tsardom to an empire.

What did Francesco Algarotti famously call Tsar Peter's new Baltic city?

He founded it on the Neva River in 1703.

Whom did Catherine the Great overthrow to become Empress of Russia in 1762?

She is often ranked among the enlightened despots.

Which Cossack-led revolt challenged Catherine the Great's rule?

Catherine also annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783.

Which royal dynasty did Elizabeth I end as its last monarch?

She reigned from 1558 to 1603.

Which Protestant cousin did Edward VI try to make queen, bypassing Mary and Elizabeth?

Edward's will was quickly set aside and Mary became queen.

How is Henry VIII's marital history often summarised in a rhyme's first two words?

His wives included Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour.

Which archbishop of Canterbury declared Henry VIII's first marriage void in 1533?

The pope then excommunicated Henry, who passed the Acts of Supremacy.

Which legislation made Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England?

They freed his realms from obedience to the pope.

From which port did the Spanish Armada sail in May 1588?

It was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War.

Which king of Spain ordered the Armada of 1588?

He appointed the Duke of Medina Sidonia to command it.

From which republic did Christopher Columbus originally hail?

He completed four Spanish transatlantic voyages.

From which Spanish port did Columbus set sail in 1492?

He made landfall in the Americas on 12 October with three ships.

Which 793 attack is traditionally taken as the start of the Viking Age in England?

Norsemen destroyed the abbey on the island on 8 June 793.

What were the Vikings' characteristic vessels called?

They settled the British Isles, Iceland, Greenland, Normandy and beyond.

Which Umayyad governor did Charles Martel defeat at the Battle of Tours in 732?

The Frankish victory checked the Umayyad advance into Gaul.

On what date was the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919?

It came five years to the day after the assassination of Franz Ferdinand.

Which Kaiser did the Treaty of Versailles seek to put on trial?

Germany also had to disarm, cede territory and pay reparations.

On what date did World War I begin?

Gavrilo Princip's assassination of Franz Ferdinand on 28 June had lit the fuse.

Which nationality was Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Franz Ferdinand?

The killing in Sarajevo pushed the Balkans to breaking point.

With which country's invasion is World War II generally considered to have begun?

Nazi Germany invaded on 1 September 1939.

Roughly how many people died in World War II, making it history's deadliest conflict?

A majority of the dead were civilians.

On what date did the Bolsheviks seize power in the October Revolution?

7 November corresponds to 25 October in the Old Style calendar.

Who led the Provisional Government overthrown in the October Revolution?

Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks seized power.

In which Italian city was the Renaissance first centred?

The Medici family were leading patrons there.

Which 14th-century poet did contemporaries credit with reviving learning from classical sources?

Renaissance humanism drew on the concept of Roman humanitas.

Which two polymaths inspired the term "Renaissance man"?

The era saw the development of linear perspective in painting.

Around which year and country did the Industrial Revolution begin?

It had spread to continental Europe and the US by about 1840.

Which industry mechanised rapidly in 1780s Britain during the Industrial Revolution?

Steam power and iron production grew fast after 1800.

Which pope authorised the Spanish Inquisition in 1478?

Ferdinand and Isabella appointed the first inquisitors in 1480.

Which Dominican friar was a driving force of the early Spanish Inquisition?

He was confessor to Ferdinand and Isabella.

In which Austrian capital was the 1814–15 congress of the great powers held?

Austrian statesman Metternich chaired it.

Which movement led to the 1861 creation of the Kingdom of Italy?

Victor Emmanuel II, Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini were its leading figures.

Which epithet did Italians give King Victor Emmanuel II?

It borrowed the Roman emperors' title Pater Patriae.

By what nickname was Otto von Bismarck known?

His Realpolitik oversaw German unification.

Bismarck served as Germany's first chancellor over which years?

His balance-of-power diplomacy kept Europe largely at peace.

Which 1870 battle saw Napoleon III captured, breaking the Second French Empire?

A Government of National Defense then formed in Paris.

Which revolutionary uprising seized the French capital for two months after the 1870 war?

Its suppression shaped the politics of the Third Republic.

Between which years was the Crimean War fought?

Russia faced the Ottomans, France, Britain and Sardinia.

Which Russian naval base did allied forces try to capture in the Crimean War?

The disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade came at nearby Balaclava.

On which 1961 date did the GDR start building the Berlin Wall?

The wall encircled West Berlin until 1989.

Ireland's population was about 8.5M before the Great Famine. What was it by 1901?

Roughly a million died and over a million emigrated; at least 2.1 million left between 1845 and 1855.

The potato blight behind the Irish famine has been traced to which region of Mexico?

Phytophthora infestans, an oomycete rather than a fungus, probably reached Europe in 1844 via North American shipping.

On what date was Francisco Franco appointed supreme leader of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War?

He ruled the 'Spanish State' until his death in November 1975, backed during the war by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

Which 1974 Eurovision entry was the first secret radio signal for Portugal's Carnation Revolution?

Paulo de Carvalho's song aired at 22:55 on 24 April; restaurant worker Celeste Caeiro's carnations gave the coup its name.

At the peak of Dutch tulip mania in 1637, which bulb variety was the most expensive, once selling for 10,000 guilders?

Some bulbs fetched more than ten times a skilled artisan's annual income before the market collapsed that February.

The three Partitions of Poland erased the Commonwealth from the map for how many years?

Austria sat out the Second Partition of 1793; the Third, in 1795, followed the failed Kościuszko Uprising.

Roughly how many Hungarians fled the country after the 1956 uprising was crushed?

The revolt began when students marched to Parliament on 23 October and lasted 15 days before Soviet tanks rolled in.

Besides the USSR, how many other Warsaw Pact states invaded Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring?

Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary and Poland joined the 21 August 1968 invasion against Alexander Dubček's reforms.

The Velvet Revolution began on 17 November 1989, a date marking the anniversary of what?

Within days the crowds in Prague swelled from 200,000 to an estimated 500,000, ending 41 years of one-party rule.

Which queen designed the Kalmar Union that joined three Scandinavian kingdoms from 1397?

Gustav Vasa's election as King of Sweden in June 1523 marked the final Swedish secession from the union.

The Belgian Revolution erupted in August 1830 after audiences left a performance of which nationalistic opera?

Theatregoers joined a looting mob in Brussels; independence was declared that September and recognised at the London Conference.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was concluded between how many member states?

It created European citizenship and set the path to a single currency; its 'Maastricht criteria' govern the eurozone.