History Quizzes and History Trivia

I found a large collection of history quizzes at http://www.funtrivia.com/. Obviously, I have seen many history quizzes on the Web. However, this site impressed my by the large number and variety of quizzes in the history categories. I spent several hours browsing and taking quizzes.

The description on the page notes, "Fascinating facts and tantalizing tidbits of history from all over the world, highlighting individuals, nations, conflicts ... anything and everything you're looking for is here for your playing pleasure. Quizzes on Royal Families and Dynasties are located in the People category."

I will list a few here as examples:

Modern Lao History

USAAF Aircraft of the Pacific

Bohemia and Moravia, 800-1620

Aztec Sacrifices

Wicked Women in the Ancient World

The quizzes are created by site users. As such, they may contain errors. However, the quizzes I took seemed to be factual. This site could also be used by teachers to create history themed quizzes for a course.

History of Stonehenge

The BBC has a short video clip up on the History of Stonehenge. This animation from BBC Timewatch reveals the 4,500 years of history behind Stonehenge. It is very nicely done. Hat tip to Ralph Luker.

History Carnival LXIII

Melissa Bellanta has hosted History Carnival LXIII at The Vapour Trail. There are a lot of good posts. There is a heavy emphasis on women's history this time.

The next host for the Carnival will be Felix (aka Fiona Thompson) at Bay Radical, and will appear on 1 May 2008.

NASA Admits Moon Landing Hoax

NASA today admitted what many historians have long suspected. All of the Apollo Moon landings were hoaxed.

"It is true," NASA spokesman John Deveres announced. "All of the lunar footage was shot at a studio in Roswell, New Mexico."

Deveres continued, "Frankly, I am amazed that NASA was able to pull this off for so long. You would have thought that the Russians would have caught on with them having been monitoring radio transmissions from the Moon that never were transmitted. Heck, I thought someone on the production crew would have let it slip by now. I am amazed at how well this has been covered up."

There is some controversy within NASA over why the hoaxes were done in the first place. Deveres noted that NASA administrators today are baffled as to what their predecessors were thinking. "Was it for funding? Was it about beating the Soviets in the Cold War? Maybe the idea was to entertain people."

Deveres also pointed out that under interstellar law, the United States is bound by treaty to stay on the Earth. "We can't go to space except to orbit the planet. The Moon is a no-go zone due to Earth being a quarantined planet. That treaty with the Greys is pretty specific on that point. It would take a new treaty with the Others to allow us to land on the Moon."

Noted Moon landing skeptic Ricard Sanchez was elated at the admission. He said, "I have devoted my whole life to debunking this event. I told you so twenty years ago! You can stop calling me a lunatic now. I was right and history will always remember this."

The White House had no comment. The international community had a stronger reaction. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "This is yet another outrageous example of American leadership. We all agreed to keep this covered up for the good of the planet and yet the Americans on their own have decided to let everyone know about the staged Moon landings. I do not see how this helps anyone."

Deveres encouraged Americans to be optimistic. "Someday, a man will walk on the Moon. We can do it. Just have faith."

Autism and History

April is Autism Awareness month in the United States. Here are a few quotes to acknowledge the month:

"Autism is the fastest growing developmental disability in our nation." Mary Bono

"I decided to study special education and fell in love with working with individuals with autism. That's what I planned to do with my life." Clay Aiken

"What it boils down to is that parenting a child with autism is a difficult job; writing about it is far easier." Elizabeth Moon

"Autism may indeed spark creativity in some people. It is not unreasonable that some of these people are famous in history." Miland Brown

"It has been presumed that before the discovery of the pattern of symptoms now known as autism, that people did exist with the syndrome, and were lumped together either with the mentally retarded or the insane. We might expect to have inherited sufficiently-detailed descriptions of such people that we would be able to see a pattern suggesting autism among them, but there have not been many descriptions that suggest autism." John Wobus

"Autism is not a modern problem, even though it has only recently gained vast recognition. It is difficult to discuss the history of autism treatment without paying particular attention to the history of autism as a concept and the ways in which autism has been conceptualized and theorized about over the past 100 years." Robert Williams Jr.