A Note From Bob

Wednesday. On this date in 1099, after a five-week siege in brutal summer heat, the knights of the First Crusade broke through the walls of Jerusalem, the city they had marched three years to reach. It was the climax of one of the most consequential campaigns of the medieval world, and it is exactly why today's featured quiz takes on the whole sweep of the European Middle Ages: the Crusades, the Black Death, the Magna Carta, and a thousand years of knights, popes, and kings. Pour the coffee.

Trivia Question of the Day

The answer is at the bottom of this email.

Today's Featured Quiz

From the fall of Rome to the age of chivalry: castles and cathedrals, crusades and plagues, William the Conqueror and Joan of Arc, and the kings, popes, and serfs in between. A thousand years of history in one quiz. 33 questions.

The Answer

At the Council of Clermont in November 1095, Urban II called on the knights of Europe to march east and retake the Holy Land. The crowd is said to have roared back "Deus vult": God wills it. Nearly four years later, on this very date in 1099, the First Crusade captured Jerusalem. Urban never learned how it ended; he died two weeks after the city fell, before the news could reach Rome. That question comes straight from today's featured quiz, and 32 more are waiting for you.

On This Day

On this day in 1975, a Soyuz lifted off from Baikonur and an Apollo followed from Kennedy Space Center just hours later. Two days after that, Tom Stafford and Alexei Leonov shook hands through an open hatch 140 miles above the Earth. In the middle of the Cold War, the two superpowers proved they could meet in orbit even when they agreed on almost nothing below. Today's second quiz covers the whole standoff, from the Manhattan Project to the fall of the Soviet Union. 30 questions.