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Quiz about Defiant to the Last
Quiz about Defiant to the Last

Defiant to the Last Trivia Quiz


According to the Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, "Character is who you are in the dark." The following questions deal with people who took a defiant stand in the face of powerful pressure to abandon their position.

A multiple-choice quiz by Correspondguy. Estimated time: 8 mins.
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Time
8 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
316,002
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
15
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
10 / 15
Plays
2461
Awards
Top 10% Quiz
- -
Question 1 of 15
1. In 1940, during the fall of France, Adolf Hitler made a "peace offer" to Great Britain. In a great moment of defiance, Sefton Delmer rejected the offer with a statement saying in part: "Let me tell you what we here in Britain think of this appeal of yours to what you are pleased to call our reason and common sense. Herr Führer and Reichskanzler, we hurl it right back at you, right in your evil smelling teeth ..." Who the heck was Sefton Delmer? Hint


Question 2 of 15
2. Before Delmer had his great moment, Winston Churchill gave a speech in which he listed several of the places Britain would fight, ending the with the rallying cry "We shall never surrender". Which of these was NOT a place that Churchill said the British would fight? Hint


Question 3 of 15
3. In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an open letter to some clergymen who had objected to the use of civil disobedience. The clergymen, all of whom were white and resided in the Deep South, argued that demonstrations were improper and that the courts or direct negotiation were the proper course. King's response, which includes the statement "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored," has justifiably become famous. Where was Dr. King when he wrote the letter? Hint


Question 4 of 15
4. In 1944, the Germans launched a counter-offensive that became known as the Battle of the Bulge. A key event in the battle was the Germans' failure to take the town of Bastogne. The defenders of Bastogne, consisting of most of the 101st Airborne and combat teams made up of bits and pieces of smashed units, were commanded by Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, whose one-word response to the Germans' demand for surrender earned him a place on this quiz. What was it? Hint


Question 5 of 15
5. Established religions sometimes have trouble with scientists who want to rock the boat. In 1632, Galileo Galilei was put on trial for having the audacity to argue that the Earth went around the Sun, not the other way around. Galileo was forced to recant (the alternative was being put to death as a heretic, something everyone should want to avoid). According to popular legend, he whispered "Eppur si muove" under his breath after his public recantation. What does "Eppur si muove" mean? Hint


Question 6 of 15
6. In 1692, Giles Corey was accused of being a witch during the Salem Witch Trials. He refused to enter a plea. (His options were "guilty" or "not guilty.") Under common law at the time, a person refusing to enter a plea could be subjected to the horrible process of "Peine forte et dure." In Peine forte et dure, progressively heavier weights were placed on a person until they either entered a plea or died. According to the story, Corey lasted three days and made only one two-word statement, although he repeated it several times. What was it? Hint


Question 7 of 15
7. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, settled a long-running dispute between Bugs Moran and Al Capone over who would run the rackets in Chicago. When the police arrived, they found six corpses and one mortally wounded man. The dying man, Frank Guesenberg, gave what unlikely answer to the police who asked him who had inflicted the fourteen (or twenty-two, depending on which Wikipedia entry you believe) bullet wounds? Hint


Question 8 of 15
8. The most feared enemy of the Romans managed to defeat several Roman armies and run rampant in Italy for quite a few years, only being defeated on his home turf after fifteen years of war. The Romans were so concerned about him that they forced him into exile and became obsessed with capturing him. Before they could, he took poison, saying "Let us relieve the Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced, since they think it tries their patience too much to wait for an old man's death." Who was the general who gave generations of Romans nightmares? Hint


Question 9 of 15
9. Sometimes, what gets written down is better, or at least less obscene, than what actually gets said. For example, at the Battle of Waterloo, the Old Guard of Napoleon's army was given a chance to surrender, but refused. General Cambronne claimed to have refused the offer with an obscenity. What actually got written down? Hint


Question 10 of 15
10. In the War of 1812, the Americans were serious underdogs to the British. Nowhere was this more true than in terms of naval power; the Royal Navy was immeasurably superior to the Continental Navy. In one engagement, the USS Chesapeake was defeated by HMS Shannon, but not before her mortally wounded captain gave an order that has become part of US Navy history. What was that order? Hint


Question 11 of 15
11. Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi was one of the most committed leaders ever to lead any movement. Gandhi lived simply, spun thread for his own clothes, and often went on hunger strikes to achieve his goals. In 1930, Gandhi led a 240-mile march from his residence to defy the British Government's monopoly on the production of a necessary staple. What was it? Hint


Question 12 of 15
12. Thanks to the movie "300", one of the classic last stands in history has become part of pop culture. In case you don't know, it has to do with the last stand of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. Herodotus, the "Father of History", reports that when the Persians bragged that they had so many archers that their arrows would block out the sun, one Spartan replied that he was happy to hear it. Why? Hint


Question 13 of 15
13. Also in World War II, the Allies launched a huge airborne attack on a set of bridges over the Meuse River and two branches of the Rhine. Part of the plan went well, but the British 1st Airborne's attack on the bridges in Arnhem went badly. They ended up in a small pocket pinned against the river. As things got desperate, the Germans offered them a chance to surrender. The British gave a defiant response. What was it? Hint


Question 14 of 15
14. In 1963, a man named Robert Kearns invented a device that became a feature on nearly every car. He'd offered his invention to the car manufacturers, but had been rebuffed, as the car makers preferred to use devices they claimed their own designers had invented. In a fairly predictable plot twist, Kearns disassembled one of the car maker's "original" devices and discovered that instead of inventing their own device, the car makers had simply copied his. He defied the odds (car manufacturers can hire battalions of excellent attorneys) and filed suit. After decades of litigation and millions in legal fees, he won two patent infringement lawsuits, and would have won more had he not developed Alzheimer's disease and died. What did he invent? Hint


Question 15 of 15
15. During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force equipped some fighter squadrons with a two-person fighter named the Boulton Paul Defiant. The Defiant turned out to be a really bad idea (although it had some success as a night-fighter and could score victories when expertly handled). What was wrong with it? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. In 1940, during the fall of France, Adolf Hitler made a "peace offer" to Great Britain. In a great moment of defiance, Sefton Delmer rejected the offer with a statement saying in part: "Let me tell you what we here in Britain think of this appeal of yours to what you are pleased to call our reason and common sense. Herr Führer and Reichskanzler, we hurl it right back at you, right in your evil smelling teeth ..." Who the heck was Sefton Delmer?

Answer: He was a broadcaster with no official position in the Government.

I remember the wording of this from a book I read, but I had a really hard time finding the exact quote. Sefton Delmer was a well-known journalist and had interviewed Hitler in 1932. He just happened to be in a BBC studio when Hitler's "offer" came in and spontaneously responded, without government approval of any kind. Delmer later masterminded the British "Black Propaganda" program.
2. Before Delmer had his great moment, Winston Churchill gave a speech in which he listed several of the places Britain would fight, ending the with the rallying cry "We shall never surrender". Which of these was NOT a place that Churchill said the British would fight?

Answer: The rooftops

Churchill said this when the British Army had just been evacuated at Dunkirk. While most of the soldiers were saved, they lost much of their equipment. France was on the verge of collapse, and Britain was going to be standing alone in the very near future. And, here's a guy standing up and saying that he'll continue to fight in spite of all that. It's a great moment.
3. In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote an open letter to some clergymen who had objected to the use of civil disobedience. The clergymen, all of whom were white and resided in the Deep South, argued that demonstrations were improper and that the courts or direct negotiation were the proper course. King's response, which includes the statement "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored," has justifiably become famous. Where was Dr. King when he wrote the letter?

Answer: The Birmingham Jail

To really understand why Dr. King felt it necessary to respond as he did, one has to understand that the clergymen were really saying that nothing should change. It's easy when you're the one who is a member of a privileged group to say that other people should wait patiently to be treated equally.

It is, in fact, condescending. Keep in mind, by the way, that Dr. King was advocating non-violent protest. I think we can all agree that violent protest isn't as justified.
4. In 1944, the Germans launched a counter-offensive that became known as the Battle of the Bulge. A key event in the battle was the Germans' failure to take the town of Bastogne. The defenders of Bastogne, consisting of most of the 101st Airborne and combat teams made up of bits and pieces of smashed units, were commanded by Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, whose one-word response to the Germans' demand for surrender earned him a place on this quiz. What was it?

Answer: Nuts!

The defense of Bastogne is a great moment in American military history. Just two quick facts: McAuliffe was not the commander of the 101st, he was a Brigadier General in charge of the division's artillery. He was only in command because the divisional commander was temporarily commanding an airborne corps. Also, the ad hoc nature of the defenders can be seen in the name of one of the combat teams: "Team SNAFU." I think the best history of the battle is "A Time for Trumpets." It's a uniquely American battle.
5. Established religions sometimes have trouble with scientists who want to rock the boat. In 1632, Galileo Galilei was put on trial for having the audacity to argue that the Earth went around the Sun, not the other way around. Galileo was forced to recant (the alternative was being put to death as a heretic, something everyone should want to avoid). According to popular legend, he whispered "Eppur si muove" under his breath after his public recantation. What does "Eppur si muove" mean?

Answer: And yet it moves

I always thought this was true, but Wikipedia (what did I ever do without Wikipedia?) says that it's a legend, pointing to the fact that the story's missing from the first biography of Galileo and doesn't appear in the historical record for more than a century after his death.

I would like to point out that this isn't just a case of the church being a bunch of doo-doo heads. Galileo's work had profound theological implications, and it's always easier to fudge the science than deal with the possibility that your theology might be wrong. We still see this problem popping up around the question of evolution.
6. In 1692, Giles Corey was accused of being a witch during the Salem Witch Trials. He refused to enter a plea. (His options were "guilty" or "not guilty.") Under common law at the time, a person refusing to enter a plea could be subjected to the horrible process of "Peine forte et dure." In Peine forte et dure, progressively heavier weights were placed on a person until they either entered a plea or died. According to the story, Corey lasted three days and made only one two-word statement, although he repeated it several times. What was it?

Answer: "More weight."

According to one Wikipedia article, Corey cursed the Sheriff and town of Salem as his last words. I'm not sure that I buy that, because he'd only had three mouthfuls of bread and three swallows of water over the three days. I suspect he knew a winner and stuck with it.
7. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, settled a long-running dispute between Bugs Moran and Al Capone over who would run the rackets in Chicago. When the police arrived, they found six corpses and one mortally wounded man. The dying man, Frank Guesenberg, gave what unlikely answer to the police who asked him who had inflicted the fourteen (or twenty-two, depending on which Wikipedia entry you believe) bullet wounds?

Answer: Nobody shot me

According to Wikipedia, Frank had the nickname "Tight Lips." There's no indication when he earned the nickname, but I'm betting his answer was due to a lifelong habit of not telling the police anything useful.
8. The most feared enemy of the Romans managed to defeat several Roman armies and run rampant in Italy for quite a few years, only being defeated on his home turf after fifteen years of war. The Romans were so concerned about him that they forced him into exile and became obsessed with capturing him. Before they could, he took poison, saying "Let us relieve the Romans from the anxiety they have so long experienced, since they think it tries their patience too much to wait for an old man's death." Who was the general who gave generations of Romans nightmares?

Answer: Hannibal

You can't really blame them. At Cannae, Hannibal managed to wipe out 50,000 to 80,000 soldiers and a big hunk of the Roman Senate, not to mention the other defeats he inflicted on them.
9. Sometimes, what gets written down is better, or at least less obscene, than what actually gets said. For example, at the Battle of Waterloo, the Old Guard of Napoleon's army was given a chance to surrender, but refused. General Cambronne claimed to have refused the offer with an obscenity. What actually got written down?

Answer: "The Guard dies, it does not surrender!"

Cambronne said that his response was "Merde!" Of course, there was some doubt about that. Cambronne was severely injured in the battle and captured, and some people believe that his capture occurred before the incident, which means that someone else could have said the stirring version. But, given the fact that the event happened after a long day of fighting where 47,000 people were killed or wounded, I think some confusion is certain.
10. In the War of 1812, the Americans were serious underdogs to the British. Nowhere was this more true than in terms of naval power; the Royal Navy was immeasurably superior to the Continental Navy. In one engagement, the USS Chesapeake was defeated by HMS Shannon, but not before her mortally wounded captain gave an order that has become part of US Navy history. What was that order?

Answer: Don't give up the ship!

Captain Lawrence's last order ended up being stitched on to a battle flag for Commodore Perry, which he flew in the far more successful (for the US Navy) Battle of Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Perry gave us the memorable report "We have met the enemy and they are ours" which Walt Kelly used as the basis of his satirical comment "We have met the enemy and they are us."
11. Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi was one of the most committed leaders ever to lead any movement. Gandhi lived simply, spun thread for his own clothes, and often went on hunger strikes to achieve his goals. In 1930, Gandhi led a 240-mile march from his residence to defy the British Government's monopoly on the production of a necessary staple. What was it?

Answer: Salt

Gandhi and his followers walked for twenty-three days and started a campaign of illegally making, buying, and selling salt. The British had passed a law in the 1880's that gave the British Government a monopoly on salt and derived a large chunk of its revenue from the salt trade, so the non-violent protest meant a lot. According to Wikipedia, over 80,000 Indians were arrested during the protest.
12. Thanks to the movie "300", one of the classic last stands in history has become part of pop culture. In case you don't know, it has to do with the last stand of the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. Herodotus, the "Father of History", reports that when the Persians bragged that they had so many archers that their arrows would block out the sun, one Spartan replied that he was happy to hear it. Why?

Answer: Because then they could fight in the shade

For sheer bravado, this one's hard to top. Herodotus may have made it up, but it's splendid theater.
13. Also in World War II, the Allies launched a huge airborne attack on a set of bridges over the Meuse River and two branches of the Rhine. Part of the plan went well, but the British 1st Airborne's attack on the bridges in Arnhem went badly. They ended up in a small pocket pinned against the river. As things got desperate, the Germans offered them a chance to surrender. The British gave a defiant response. What was it?

Answer: They told the Germans they couldn't accept their surrender because there was nowhere to put the prisioners

I got this from Cornelius Ryan's book "A Bridge Too Far". It's a great scene in the movie, which stars some great actors, including Eliott Gould, Sean Connery, and Robert Redford.
14. In 1963, a man named Robert Kearns invented a device that became a feature on nearly every car. He'd offered his invention to the car manufacturers, but had been rebuffed, as the car makers preferred to use devices they claimed their own designers had invented. In a fairly predictable plot twist, Kearns disassembled one of the car maker's "original" devices and discovered that instead of inventing their own device, the car makers had simply copied his. He defied the odds (car manufacturers can hire battalions of excellent attorneys) and filed suit. After decades of litigation and millions in legal fees, he won two patent infringement lawsuits, and would have won more had he not developed Alzheimer's disease and died. What did he invent?

Answer: The intermittent windshield wiper

Kearns' struggle was made into a movie, "Flash of Genius," in 2008.
15. During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force equipped some fighter squadrons with a two-person fighter named the Boulton Paul Defiant. The Defiant turned out to be a really bad idea (although it had some success as a night-fighter and could score victories when expertly handled). What was wrong with it?

Answer: All the machine guns were located in a turret.

Putting the entire armament in a turret seems like a good idea (it gave the gunner a huge field of fire) but it overlooks one key problem - it's really hard for a pilot to maneuver so as to give someone with a different perspective a shot. Moreover, in practice, the plane was slower than single-seat fighters, had a minimal ability to fire directly forward, and required expert squadron tactics to have any chance against one-man fighters, although Wikipedia points out that it wasn't quite the utter failure that my earlier reading suggested.It isn't quite in keeping with the theme of the other questions, it was just too much fun to omit.
Source: Author Correspondguy

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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