June 19th Through History

Explanation: Juneteenth gets its name from the blend of June and nineteenth. The announcement reached Texas on June 19, 1865, two and a half years after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 because the news arrived so late. Juneteenth became a federal holiday in the United States in 2021.

Explanation: The Savannah was the first ship to use steam to cross the Atlantic, but it ran its steam paddle wheels for only part of the voyage (about 80 hours out of 27 days). It was mainly sail-powered. This crossing opened the era of transatlantic steam navigation, which would revolutionize trade and intercontinental travel.

Explanation: The 1990 Schengen Convention rounded out the original 1985 agreement signed in the same small Luxembourgish town. It laid down the practical rules for abolishing checks at internal borders. The Schengen Area now includes 29 member states and represents one of the most concrete achievements of European integration for ordinary citizens.

Explanation: The CSS Alabama was a fearsome Confederate cruiser that had sunk or captured more than 60 Union ships in less than two years. Its defeat by the USS Kearsarge off Cherbourg ended one of the most spectacular commerce-raiding campaigns in American naval history. The battle was watched from the cliffs by many onlookers, including the Impressionist painter Édouard Manet.

Explanation: Pascal was one of the most versatile geniuses in history. He invented the first mechanical calculator (the Pascaline), formulated the laws of atmospheric pressure and hydraulics, developed probability theory with Fermat, and wrote the famous Pensées, a masterpiece of philosophical and apologetic literature. Sculpture, on the other hand, was outside his work.

Explanation: Pablo Escobar negotiated his surrender by securing a guarantee that he would not be extradited to the United States, where he faced very harsh sentences. He was held in a luxury prison he had built himself, nicknamed La Catedral, from which he escaped in July 1992. He was eventually shot dead by Colombian special forces on December 2, 1993, in Medellín.

Explanation: Soyuz 9, with cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov on board, set a record of 17 days, 16 hours, and 59 minutes in space. The record was partly driven by the Soviet desire to show they could keep cosmonauts in orbit, in the context of the space race with the United States. Both cosmonauts had a hard time readjusting to gravity on their return.

Explanation: The 1990 convention initially involved France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the three Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg). These five countries had already signed a preliminary agreement in 1985. The Schengen Area has gradually expanded to include nearly all European Union countries today, plus several non-member states such as Switzerland, Norway, and Iceland.

Explanation: Kuwait had been under British protectorate since the 1899 treaty, which had been concluded to protect the emirate from Ottoman and German ambitions. Its independence was quickly threatened by Iraqi territorial claims, which pushed Kuwait to join the Arab League and call on British troops for its defense. Iraq would revive its ambitions over Kuwait by invading it in 1990.

Explanation: Nicaea (now İznik, in Turkey) was the capital of the Sultanate of Rum. Its capture was the first major Crusader victory, but the city was actually handed over to the Byzantines rather than to the Crusaders themselves, which created tensions between the allies. The First Crusade ended in 1099 with the capture of Jerusalem and the founding of the kingdom of the same name.