Q 01/05

Which vegetable did pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier champion after eating it as a Seven Years' War prisoner?

A) The turnip

B) The potato

C) The artichoke

D) The tomato

Answer · why

B) The potato

The potato was known to the French only as hog feed when Parmentier's Prussian captors served it to him. He later hosted dinners built around the crop...

Q 02/05

Which future US president led the 1754 ambush at Jumonville Glen that helped ignite the Seven Years' War?

A) George Washington

B) Thomas Jefferson

C) William Henry Harrison

D) James Madison

Answer · why

A) George Washington

George Washington later signed a surrender written in French, a language he could not read, which admitted that the French commander had been assassin...

Q 03/05

Which future Pacific explorer helped chart the St Lawrence River for the British assault on Quebec in 1759?

A) George Vancouver

B) William Bligh

C) James Cook

D) Matthew Flinders

Answer · why

C) James Cook

James Cook, then a ship's master, took soundings and marked shoals so that troops could be carried across the river for a stealthy night attack.

Q 04/05

Which James Fenimore Cooper novel is set during the 1757 siege of Fort William Henry in the Seven Years' War?

A) The Deerslayer

B) The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish

C) The Pathfinder

D) The Last of the Mohicans

Answer · why

D) The Last of the Mohicans

The Last of the Mohicans turns the fort's real surrender, and the attack on the British column as it marched away, into the centre of its plot.

Q 05/05

Which British admiral, shot in 1757 for failing to relieve Minorca, did Voltaire satirise in Candide?

A) John Byng

B) George Rodney

C) George Anson

D) Edward Vernon

Answer · why

A) John Byng

John Byng faced a firing squad after a court martial ruled he had not done his utmost. Voltaire has a character explain that Britain finds it useful t...