17th Century
A group of religious separatists founded the Plymouth Colony in 1620, after sailing from England aboard this ship
What is the Mayflower?
The president of the Second Continental Congress, this man's large signature on the Declaration of Independence is so noteworthy that his name has become a synonym for one's signature
Who is John Hancock?
"Able was [he], ere [he] saw Elba" -- this emperor escaped from his exile on that island, but eventually met his end on a different one, St. Helena, in 1815
Who is Napoleon Bonaparte?
On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped the second atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki; three days earlier, they dropped the first on this city
What is Hiroshima?
On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama defeated this man to become the first African-American president of the United States
Who is John McCain?
Pocahontas died three years after marrying this English settler, who was credited with helping successfully cultivate tobacco as a cash crop in the colony of Virginia
Who is John Rolfe?
The British monarch who lost control of the American colonies; it is now widely known that he suffered from mental illness later in his life
Who is George III?
This former senator from Mississippi became the first (and only) president of the Confederate States of America in 1861
Who is Jefferson Davis?
After serving twenty-seven years in prison, Nelson Mandela helped negotiate an end to this system of racial segregation in South Africa
What is apartheid?
The September 11th attacks were masterminded by Osama bin Laden, leader of this terrorist organization
What is al-Qaeda?
The Thirty Years' War came to an end in 1648 with a treaty signed in this region of modern-day Germany
What is Westphalia?
The "Sun King," his 72-year reign came to an end with his death in 1715
Who is Louis XIV?
Also known as the Congo Conference, an 1884 meeting of European nations to regulate the colonization of Africa took place in this city
What is Berlin?
While some conspiracy theorists disagree, the official story says that this man acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963
Who is Lee Harvey Oswald?
196 nations developed a landmark agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed on April 22, 2016 in this city
What is Paris?
The last Japanese feudal military government, it began in 1600 and lasted until 1868
What is the Tokugawa shogunate?
This very full of himself Russian tsar moved the capital from Moscow to a city that he had built in 1703 and named after himself, kinda
Who is Peter the Great?
China's Qing Dynasty fought two wars with Great Britain in the mid-19th century named for this illegal drug
What is opium?
The immediate cause of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914 in this European city
What is Sarajevo?
In 2013, this man replaced Hu Jintao as the president of the People's Republic of China, a position he still holds today
Who is Xi Jinping?
In 1670, the Bamana Empire of West Africa successfully sacked Niani, the capital of this empire, perhaps best known for its heights under Mansa Musa
What is Mali?
This British explorer fought in the Seven Years' War, was the first European to explore Australia and New Zealand, and was eventually stabbed to death in 1779 while trying to kidnap the king of Hawaii
Who is Captain James Cook?
This US navy commodore played a major role in opening Japan to the West in the 1850s -- maybe he was just looking for some new "Friends"
Who is Matthew Perry?
A 1939 non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, which would ultimately be broken two years later by Hitler, was named for the foreign ministers of the two nations; name either one of them
Who are Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop?
Either of the two men to serve as Secretary-General of the United Nations after Kofi Annan left the post in 2006