This quiz about the 1380s doesn't have a single question about hit movies or popular music. However, it does take us to within a decade of the birth of Johannes Gutenberg. It's not too too long now until the texture of history, or at least our access to it, begins to take on a new shape.
In the meantime, things are really settling down now that the Mongols made their point!
1. The Genoese thought they had beaten their rival sea empire into submission in the late 1370s, but on June 24, 1380, they lost almost their entire war fleet of 23 galleys at the Battle of Chioggia. This left a power vacuum into which the rivals expanded aggressively, becoming one of the major players of the late middle ages. Who did Genoa lose out to at Chioggia?
2. In exceedingly rough terms, it seems to be about now – the 1380s, more or less – that the last small habitable areas of the planet were discovered and settled, thus more or less completing the human occupation of the planet. Where, generally speaking, were these last pieces of land to receive the human footprint?
3. On June 13 and 14, 1381, a group of English peasants led by Wat Tyler, disgruntled by what they saw as corrupt rule, a restrictive social order, and unfair taxes, stormed London. They killed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor, opened prisons, and destroyed public records. Young King Richard II, age 14, calmly and courageously met with the rebels and agreed to a slate of reforms including fair rents and the abolition of serfdom.
What happened on June 15?
4. In 1382, the city of Sofia fell to the Ottomans. The locals wouldn’t really get it back until they reestablished their national identity in the 1870s. Of what modern country is Sofia the capital?
5. A firm supposedly began operation in Munich in in 1383 that would eventually, after many commercial twists and turns, become an important asset of Anheuser-Busch InBev! Its product is currently sold under this logo:
What well-known product is still made in the Munich city center?
6. I wouldn’t have guessed that John Wycliffe died a natural death, but he did! He passed away after a stroke on the last day of 1384, aged 64. His body was later dug up and ritually desecrated, mind you, but there’s a school of thought that holds that torture loses most of its effectiveness after death.
Who was John Wycliffe?
7. On August 14, 1385, a Castillian army of more than 30,000 was routed by a well-led force of less than 7000 at the Battle of Aljubarrota. This watershed event goes a long way towards explaining why there are two modern countries on a piece of land where you might expect there to only be one. What country put the kibosh on Castille’s claim to its throne on that hot August day?
8. “Timur's armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and were feared throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe, sizable parts of which were laid waste by his campaigns. Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population.” Who was Timur?
9. It begins
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour...
And it was probably begun in 1387. As far as we know, it was never even close to finished, yet it is still in print today. Name that work!
10. General Yi Seong-gye, commanded in 1388 to lead the armies of Goryeo on what he regarded a pointless and reckless invasion to the north, instead “turned back the army from Wihwa Island” (it’s a bit of a proverb) and led them right into the capital. He demanded, and got, the abdication of the very succinctly named King U. This was the beginning of the end for the 475 year reign of the Goryeo Dynasty. When General Yi took the throne himself four years later, he renamed his country the Kingdom of Great Joseon. What do we call it today?
Through History with The New Monday Quiz: the 1370s
1. Oldest Treaty: England and Portugal
2. New city for the Khmer:
Phnom Penh
3. Father and Son tension: the Byzantines
4. Important civil servant: Chaucer
5. the failing Marinids: Morocco
6. Catherine and Gregory: Gregory returned the Papal Court to Rome
7. John of Gaunt: Major British power broker and kingmaker, and not coincidentally father of a future king.
8. The art: (1) Italy, (2) England -- which was probably more 1390s than 1370s, actually, (3) China, (4) Egypt
9. Ayutthaya
+ Sukhothai = Thailand
10. knock the schnozz off of the Sphinx.
Out of the three overt quiz-takers, I do believe the title for Lord Emperor of the 1370s goes to Morgan! Look on his answers, ye mortals, and despair.
