The quiz gives you this attention-grabber to start you off…
I’ve mentioned before my fondness for the NYT’s Flashback history quiz (of course I love it — I usually ace it, because it’s about historical context rather than details). But this week it offered kind of a weird one. Weird in the sense that it was even easier than usual.
I don’t always ace this quiz. When I don’t, the thing that trips me up is usually something that happened in the early Middle Ages, or in the eons before Christ. Often, I’m not sure whether some dynasty I’ve barely heard of started in 500 B.C. or 1500 B.C. And when they get into geological eras, fuggedaboudit.
But for this one all the answers — all of them — were in the 20th century. That’s like an allegedly citywide scavenger hunt in which all the items are in your own backyard.
Of course, that can be trickier — the quiz is about knowing what happened before and after what, and if you don’t know the century well, that can be harder than if they’re spread apart. If these had all happened in the 8th century, I’d have been in trouble (that would be the rise of Charlemagne, and… I can’t think of anything else). But not the 20th. Five of the eight answers happened in my own lifetime!
Now that I’ve given that much away, have at it, if the NYT will let you in…
Related Posts
To make it clear what the quiz is about… It is NOT about having dates memorized. That’s something loads of people say they hate about learning history — and supposedly, educators used to overemphasize that, although I don’t remember that happening.
It’s not about whether something happened in, say, 1944. It’s about whether it happened before after some other thing. You don’t have to have dates memorized. You DO need to grok the flow of events, the big picture of history. The forest rather than individual trees.
That’s what makes me love it…
Perfect score.. 28
Alright!
I only missed the one for Uncle Sam but surpised myself with getting all the other ones correct!
I suspect you spend less time than I do studying WWI propaganda posters. 🙂
That was a great age for poster artists. About 10 years ago, the Relic Room (one of ADCO’s clients, for which I do a good bit of work because of my interest in military history), had an exhibit of posters from that era. It was impressive.
Some images I took back then, including Uncle Sam himself…