Famous Documents Quiz: the Answers - Part 3

We continue with the answers to the famous documents opening lines challenge:

8. “A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of communism.”

A: Communist Manifesto: February 21, 1848. That was the date that this document by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was published in London. Originally titled “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, the document was commissioned by the Communist League, and was an attempt to codify the historical materialist idea, i.e., that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”, in which social classes are defined by the relationship of people to the means of production.

9. “The International Committee of the Red Cross has, from the outset, been the sponsor of the Geneva Convention for the protection of wounded military personnel, and of the humanitarian Conventions which supplement it.”

A: Geneva Conventions: August 12, 1949. This is a series of four international treaties and three additional protocols that form the core of international humanitarian law. They establish legal standards for humanitarian treatment of non-combatants in war, and protect people who are not or are no longer actively taking part in hostilities, e.g., civilians, civilian populations, prisoners of war, and fighters rendered hors de combat due to injury, illness, shipwreck, or surrender. The conventions were adopted in response to the inhumanities of World War II. Aside from the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions are among the most widely ratified international agreements, having been ratified, in their entirety or with reservations, by 196 countries.

10. “We the peoples of the united nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”

A: United Nations Charter: June 26, 1945. The foundational treaty of the United Nations, the document establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the organization. It is an important part of public international law, and is the foundation for much of international law governing the use of force, pacific settlement of disputes, arm control, and other important functions of the maintenance of international peace and security. According to the Charter, the purposes of the United Nations include reaffirming fundamental human rights, maintaining international peace and security, and promoting the economic and social advancement of all peoples.

11. “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…”

A: United States Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776. It was on that date that the document was adopted unanimously by the Second Continental Congress, although only John Hancock, President of the Congress, is known to have signed it on that date. Most of the other 55 delegates signed it on August 2, 1776, with the remainder adding their signatures later. In an 1811 letter, Benjamin Rush recounted the signing on August 2 as a scene of “pensive and awful silence”, as the delegates were called up, one after another, and then filed forward somberly to subscribe what each thought was their ensuing death warrant.

12. “When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as a naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America…”

A: On the Origin of Species: November 24, 1859. On that date Charles Darwin published his book fully entitled On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The book is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. It introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection, and presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. It was written for non-specialist readers, and attracted widespread interest upon its publication.