OCCIDENTS OF HISTORY: Europe
1. Zeus. He had a habit of disguising himself to seduce women, also appearing as a satyr and a swan.
2. King Minos of Crete, who sacrificed Athenians to a half-man, half-bull called the Minotaur in the Labyrinth.
3. Jupiter. It was one of the four moons to be discovered by Galileo. At the time of writing, astronomers have discovered 69 moons of Jupiter in all.
4. The president of the European Central Bank. As of early 2018, this was Mario Draghi.
5. Latin, Greek and Cyrillic, added in 2013 after Bulgaria joined the EU.
6. a) Finland b) Italy c) France.
7. Estonia and Iceland. The figures are based on Gini coefficients, which measure the distribution of income; a coefficient of 1 means that all the income is owned by one person. As the coefficient falls towards zero, income is more evenly distributed. Estonia was at 0.36, Iceland at 0.24.
8. Tiny Monaco was the most densely occupied country in the world, never mind Europe, in 2015, with over 25,000 people per square km (64,750 per square mile), according to the UN. Malta was the most densely occupied EU nation, at 1,308 people per square km; lovers of wide-open spaces should head for Iceland, the least densely populated European nation, at 3.3 people per square km, or Finland, the least crowded EU nation at 18.1.
9. 24. Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish. Another 60 regional languages, such as Catalan and Frisian, are also spoken.
10. The latest estimate, as of 2010, was 6%, on the way up to 8% by 2030. This puts the talk in some parts of the press of “Eurabia” into context. Cyprus, once part of the Ottoman Empire, had the highest proportion of Muslims in the EU at 25%. Surveys show that the public wildly overestimates the proportion; in France and Belgium, people thought that around 30% of citizens were Muslim, four to five times the actual figure.
11. Nine: Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. The longest serving (as of May 2017) was Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, on the throne since 1972.
12. a) Charles (or Karl) I (abdicated 1918) b) Umberto II (deposed 1946) c) Manuel II (deposed 1910) d) Constantine II (deposed 1973).
13. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the first Napoleon. He was elected President of the Republic in 1848 and became Emperor Napoleon III via a coup in 1851. (The first emperor had declared his son Napoleon II when he abdicated in 1814.) The second empire ended when France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian war.
14. The Eurovision Song Contest, held every year since 1956. Abba and Celine Dion have been among the winners. Voting is by viewers and national juries, who can be highly political. Portugal won the contest in 2017.
15. Finland with 73%.
16. a) Albania, b) Cyprus and c) Macedonia.
17. Francis II who dissolved the empire in 1806, after defeat by Napoleon. The empire was a patchwork of cities, bishoprics and dynastic holdings with much of its territory in modern Germany; Voltaire quipped it was “neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire”. After its dissolution, the power of the ruling Habsburg family shifted to the Austro-Hungarian empire, which survived until 1918.
18. Finland granted female suffrage in 1906, although in global terms it lagged behind both New Zealand and Australia. A rash of countries granted women the vote after the first world war but Switzerland held out until 1971 and Portuguese women had to wait for the fall of the right-wing Estado Novo regime; they received full suffrage in 1976.
19. Finland at 58%; the EU average was 46.6%.
20. Ireland at 28%.
21. The European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Council and (confusingly) the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. This last post is taken by member governments for six months, on a rotating basis. The President of the European Council is chosen by member states for 2.5 years at a stretch (at the time of writing, it was Donald Tusk of Poland). The Commission is the EU’s civil service.
22. a) The war of the Spanish Succession b) the Napoleonic wars c) the Franco-Prussian war.
23. Charles the Bald (843–77 CE), the Fat (885–88), the Simple (898–922) and the Wise (1364–80).
24. a) The Netherlands. The short-lived Batavian Republic was established under French revolutionary rule; it lasted from 1795 to 1806 until Napoleon established the Kingdom of Holland with his brother Louis as monarch. b) Britain. This was the Kingdom of Strathclyde which ruled over western Scotland and northern England in early medieval times. c) Switzerland. Another of Napoleon’s creations, this lasted only from 1798 to 1803 until the cantonal structure was restored.
25. a) Belgium—it’s a Flemish nationalist group b) Spain—a left-wing party c) Czech Republic—a conservative pro-EU group d) The Netherlands—a socially liberal party.
26. Seven: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo.
27. Joining the EU.
28. a) North Rhine-Westphalia b) Bremen.
29. a) Bavaria b) Bremen.
30. 26. The number has grown over the years; the origins of the structure can be traced as far back as the federal charter of 1291.
31. a) French, German, Italian and Romansh b) Latin.
32. Liechtenstein.
33. a) Bulgaria b) Czechoslovakia c) Hungary.
34. a) He was a chemist who invented a form of plastic known as Bakelite. b) He was a cyclist who won the Tour de France five times. c) When she changed her name to Audrey Hepburn, she became a Hollywood actress.
35. a) Potsdam. It was the summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. b) Munich. It was built in the 17th century for the electors of Bavaria. c) Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. It was built in the late 17th century for William of Orange and Mary II of Britain.
36. Vienna in 1913. Tito and Trotsky were in the city at the same time.
37. a), b) and c) are Stalin; d) is from Hitler.
38. 26. The largest is Cork at 7,457km2 (2,879 miles2); the smallest is Louth at 820km2.
39. a) Loire b) Burgundy c) Bordeaux.
40. France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland.
41. a) Norway and Sweden. Sweden had been awarded Norway as a reward for joining the Allied fight against Napoleon; the two countries had a common monarch and foreign policy but had separate legislatures and currencies. b) Belgium and the Netherlands. Another result of the Napoleonic settlement, the Dutch crown reunited the two areas once ruled by the Habsburg monarchy. But Belgium revolted in favour of independence in 1830. The treaty recognising Belgium’s borders, signed in 1839, was the “scrap of paper” that pushed Britain into the first world war. c) Germany and Austria. The two countries were united by the anschluss of 1938, much to the delight of Adolf Hitler, who was born in Austria. They were separated again after the war.
42. Avignon in France. The powerful French monarchy installed seven successive French popes in the 14th century and, after Gregory XI moved back to Rome, appointed rival or antipopes. The schism only ended in 1417.
43. a) Rotterdam b) Budapest c) Lisbon.
44. a) Alexander II in 1861. This was not as magnanimous as it sounded; the serfs had to buy the land they worked, resulting in a lot of debt. b) Alexander I, who also allied with Napoleon for a while. In 1815 he formed the Holy Alliance with Austria and Prussia to preserve the rights of absolute monarchs. c) Nicholas I. He died in the course of the war—which did not end well for Russia. His successor, Alexander II, had to give up a Black Sea fleet to end the conflict.
45. The European court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, France. The court was set up in 1959 to protect the right of citizens in countries that adopted the European Convention on Human Rights.
46. a) East Germany b) Hungary and c) Czechoslovakia.
47. France (in first place), Spain (in third) and Italy (fifth).
48. a) Spain at 83.3 b) Bulgaria and Latvia at 74.5. Latvian males have a life expectancy of just 69.1 years.
49. a) Nero, who committed suicide in 68 CE, having been declared a public enemy by the senate. b) Trajan, who ruled from 98–117 CE. He conquered Armenia, Dacia and Mesopotamia. c) Valerian was captured after the battle of Edessa in 260 CE. Lactantius told the footstool story. Some sources claim Valerian was flayed alive; others that he was forced to swallow molten gold.
50. Poland, which was divided between Austria, Prussia and Russia. It was divided again between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939.