Through History with The New Monday Quiz: the 1240s

Last time around I kind of suggested that the 1230s weren't much fun for many of the participants.  Well, the 1240s were pretty awful too.  Especially for Hungarians.   

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1. Cimabue was born in Florence around 1240. Cimabue is one of the first “big names” in what field of endeavor?

2. He won a battle against the Swedes on the Neva River in 1240, which gave him the name we know him by today. He fended off Germans and Estonians at a 1242 battle on the ice of Lake Peipus. He would be Prince of Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev, and Grand Prince of Vladimir, he is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Sergei Eisenstein would eventually make a hit movie about him with a Prokofiev soundtrack. Many Russians consider him the father of their country. NAME THAT GUY!

3. In 1241–1242, the kingdom received a major blow… Up to half of Hungary's then population of 2,000,000 were victims of the invasion. What horrific force could wreak such a horrific loss of human life?

4. In around 1243, Henry III of England agreed not to attack France for as long as its king, Louis IX – of “St. Louis” fame – was out of the country on a big project. What do you suppose was the project?

5. Construction on the modern version of this London landmark started in 1245 on orders of Henry III. What’s it called?

6. Throughout the middle 1240s, war raged up and down northern Italy between Frederick II, with his many allies, and Innocent IV, with his many allies. This was one of many late medieval conflicts between the ______________ and the _____________________.

7. In 1246, a Latin translation came out of the Nichomachean Ethics. This would spark a huge resurgence of interest in that work’s author, whose influence would thereafter reshape the intellectual landscape of Europe for at least the next couple hundred years.  Who was this classical writer?

8. In about 1248, a new tribe settled on Chapultepec hill, on the shore of Lake Texcoco. Today, Chapultepec hill is the center of a great park in a City named after that tribe. What’s the city?

9. Also in 1248, construction began this building, now Germany’s most visited landmark (By a long shot. The Reichstag, in second place, has fewer than half as many visitors). It was completed in 1880. Good work takes time. What is this building?

10. University College – a name that sounds kind of odd to Americans – was founded in 1249. Eventually it would educate influential folks such as Shelley, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Clinton. Of what larger institution is University College a constituent part?

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Through History with The New Monday Quiz: the 1230s

1. "irreverent poems and songs" -- The Carmina Burana
2. "a court of exception to... glean the beliefs of those differing from Catholic teaching" -- The Inquisition.
3. Korea's "devastating invaders from the north" -- The Mongols.
4. "Constitutions of Melfi" -- Were for the Kingdom of Sicily. Just the one Sicily, technically.
5. "expanding his kingdom among the fragments of the former Empire of Ghana" -- That's Mali in the making.
6. Proto-Russia "overrun by a vastly superior military force from the east." -- The Mongols.
7. "Rinderpest" is a plague of cattle. In the sense of, the cattle get sick. Not that they become hyperabundant.
8. "the Latin Empire" in this sense was Constantinople and its surroundings after the Byzantine Empire was sacked in the Fourth Crusade. It hung in there from 1204 to 1261.
9. "The Kingdom of Sukhothai" is an ancestor state of modern Thailand. There was a typo in the question that probably confused you.
10. "Thowadra Monastery" is, like Thimphu, in Bhutan.

We salute brave quiz takers pfly, Christine M, Unwise Owl, Morgan, DrSchnell, and Susan -- none of whom I would especially want as an opponent on Jeopardy -- but there's one of them that was both firstest and rightest, and that would be pfly.