British Imperialism
A key moment in the imperial age came when British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli made this monarch the Empress of India.
Who is Queen Victoria?
The most important part of the American law code is this 18th century document that replaced the Articles of Confederation and has been amended 27 times.
What is the U.S. Constitution?
"The unexamined life is not worth living," according to this Greek philosopher who was forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock.
Who is Socrates?
Conquering the entire Persian Empire for Macedonia before turning thirty must have been a big roller coaster ride for this leader.
Who is Alexander the Great?
Elon Musk endorsed this rapper to run for president through the Birthday Party in 2020.
Who is Kanye West (or Ye)?
This beleaguered nation suffered the indignities of the "unequal treaties" after the Opium Wars, but stayed independent.
What is China?
The principle of lex talionis, summed up in the phrase "an eye for an eye" is derived from both the Bible and an early law code credited to this Babylonian ruler.
Who is Hammurabi?
A government can be justifiably overthrown after a "long train of abuses, prevarications, and artifices," according to this man's Two Treatises on Government.
Who is John Locke?
This tsarina gave Russia a big boost by patronizing Enlightenment figures like Voltaire while conquering Alaska and partitioning Poland.
Who is Catherine the Great?
The election of 1912 saw John Schrank fail to kill this former president running for a third term, who declared that he was "fit as a bull moose" after getting shot.
Who is Theodore Roosevelt?
The British Empire may have been gone, but there was no way that Margaret Thatcher was going lose any more of it and let Argentina have these islands.
What are the Falklands Islands?
John the Cappadocian and Tribonian created the law code Corpus Juris Civilis, or Code of this Byzantine emperor.
Who is Justinian?
When asked to renounce the devil on his deathbed, this Italian philosopher apocryphally said, "Now is not the time to be making enemies" - reflecting the ruthlessly pragmatic sentiment in his The Prince.
Who is Niccolo Machiavelli?
This King of Wessex deserves credit for defeating the Great Heathen Army of Guthrum at the Battle of Edington, ensuring that all of England would not fall to the Norse.
Who is Alfred the Great?
Al Gore would probably have won the election of 2000 if not for this Green Party candidate and author of Unsafe at Any Speed had not split the liberal vote in Florida.
Who is Ralph Nader?
This head of the De Beers diamond mining company tried to make a railroad and telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo and got a now defunct country named after him.
Who is Cecil Rhodes?
Napoleon implemented his law code in 1804, the same year as the declaration of independence of this nation from France following a successful slave uprising.
What is Haiti?
In a state of nature, according to this thinker's Leviathan, life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
Who is Thomas Hobbes?
This Persian king divided his empire into satrapies, created the Behistun Inscription, and sent forces to quell the Ionian Revolt that lost at the Battle of Marathon.
Who is Darius the Great?
This former president tried for a third term in 1848 through the Free Soil Party; alas the "Little Magician's" career was over thanks to the Panic of 1837.
Who is Martin Van Buren?
The so-called "Black Hole of Calcutta" was avenged when forces of the East India Company under Robert Clive defeated the Nawab of Bengal at this decisive 1757 battle.
What is the Battle of Plassey?
This lawgiver legendarily created just about every important institution in Sparta, from its dual monarchy to its syssitia mess halls.
Who is Lycurgus?
This French thinker possibly voiced his frustration over censorship of his Encyclopedie, by saying that "man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
Who is Denis Diderot?
After unifying Hawaii with his victory at the Battle of Leaping Mullet, this leader issued the Law of the Splintered Paddle, declaring that everyone should be able to lie down by the road without fear of harm.
Who is Kamehameha the Great?
This Constitutional Union Party candidate in 1860 was this former speaker of the House dubbed "The Great Apostate" for leaving the Democrats for the Whigs.
Who is John Bell?