Is It Quitting Time Yet? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Winston Churchill

Whilst Winston Churchill was born into British aristocracy, he suffered from a speech disorder and did not so well at school, having to do remedial work to get into Harrow. It took three attempts to enter Sandhurst, the military academy. He was reluctantly elected Prime Minister by his party in 1940 but led Great Britain to an unlikely victory over Germany in WWII to become one of the most revered statesmen in history.

Some of his stirring parliamentary speeches galvanised Britons into fighting above their weight with his policy of "We will never surrender".

Answer: Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey (her birth certificate states "Orpah" after the biblical character), overcame adversity as a child to co-anchor the "Six O'Clock News" at Nashville and Baltimore when she was 19, and at the time was the first black female to do so. She was given her own show in Chicago in 1983 and despite negative feedback from critics took her show to be one of the biggest rating successes in US history, eventually getting her own TV network. One of the most influential people of her generation, she is credited with delivering over one million votes to Barack Obama in the close 2008 Democratic Primary.

Answer: Aron Ralston

When he was 27, Aron Ralston, an engineer and mountaineer, was descending in Bluejohn Canyon near Moab, Utah when a 800 pound boulder pinned his right arm. He could not dislodge it. After five days he could see that the pinned arm had started to decompose. Without tools to cut through bone, he broke both bones in his arm and then cut off his lower forearm with a multi-tool with a two inch blade and used the pliers for the tendons.

His state of dehydration prevented excessive blood loss. After he freed himself he rappelled one armed down a 65 foot sheer canyon wall and ran towards his vehicle 8 miles away.

He met Dutch tourists after six miles and they assisted him to get much need health services. Mr Ralston went onto become a motivational speaker. James Franco portrayed him in a movie (called "127 hours") about the incident. "

Answer: Sylvester Stallone

Sylvester Stallone had a difficult childhood with an abusive father. He lived in poverty as an adult, at one stage living in the NYC Port Terminal as he was homeless. At one point he told Michael Watson in a televised interview, he sold his beloved dog Butkus for $50 because he could not afford to feed him.

Inspired by the Muhammad Ali-Chuck Wepner fight in 1975 where Wepner knocked down Ali before ultimately losing, Mr Stallone wrote the Rocky script in three days. A studio was interested and incrementally offered Mr Stallone up to $360,000 for the script... as long as he was not the star, as the studio had bankable stars like James Caan, Robert Redford and Burt Reynolds in mind. Mr Stallone held out, and starred in the movie himself (with a much reduced budget).

It won the Best Movie Oscar in 1977 and netted Mr Stallone $2.5 million. He also managed to buy his dog back ($3000 and a bit part in the movie for the owner). Butkus was featured in the movie. Mr Stallone never looked back and a sterling movie career was assured from that point forward.

Answer: Shania Twain

Shania Twain was born Eileen Regina Edwards in 1965. Her parents divorced when she was two but her mother remarried soon after to Jerry Twain. Ms Twain was the eldest of five children in the extended family. The family were poor and Shania, the eldest helped out by singing in bars late at night when she was only eight.

She wrote her first song at ten. After graduating from high school she was keen to follow a music career and she was started to get noticed by Toronto music producers. One, Stan Campbell, took her to Nashville in 1985 to record some demos.

She captivated Mary Bell, an Ontario Country singer who became her mentor. In 1987, aged 20, her big break came when she performed in Toronto with Bernadette Peters, guitarist Don Ross, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

However soon after her parents were killed in a car crash and Shania left the industry to look after her four siblings, then in their teens. Late in 1993 she recorded her self-titled album. While it was not a commercial success it did get good critical reviews so when her second album was released in 1995, "The Woman in Me (1995)", it sold 20 million copies worldwide, gave her a hit single, and earned her a Grammy.

Her third album, "Come On Over" (1997), became the best-selling studio album of all time by a female act at the time. It sold nearly 40 million copies worldwide.

Answer: Stephen King

Stephen king always wanted to be a writer but it was difficult to break into the market . Mr King had over sixty rejection slips before he sold his first story, "The Glass Floor", for $35 in 1967. He still collected reject slips and was on his fourth unpublished novel when he tossed it in the trash. His wife Tabitha retrieved it and convinced him to finish it. Doubleday gave him a $2,500 advance and sold the paperback rights to New American Library for $400,000 which gave Mr King $200,000 when split with Doubleday. That book was "Carrie". It was made into a successful movie starring Sissy Spacek, further enhancing Mr King's career. He has written over 65 books, all best-sellers.

Mr King has written over 60 books mainly in the supernatural/horror genre and has sold more than 350 million copies.

Answer: JK Rowling

Joanne Rowling was working as a researcher for Amnesty International when she had an idea for a novel whilst on a train. The next seven years were tough but by 1997 she had completed "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". It was rejected by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury accepted it.

This may well have been fortuitous or serendipity but Bloomsbury's chairman's daughter, Alice Newton, eight, was given the first chapter to review by her father. She reportedly then asked for the rest of the book.

This gave Ms Rowling an advance of 1,500 pounds but the American rights were sold for $US105,000. Six more books followed in the series as well as adult novels and a crime series written under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith. She became the world's first billionaire author with sales in excess of 600 million books.

Answer: Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein had an unremarkable youth. He failed in his first attempt to enter university but was admitted a year later. He received his academic teaching diploma, majoring in Mathematics and Physics from the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School. He was unable to find a teaching position, so in 1900 worked as a clerk at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern evaluating patents.

Whilst there he formed a study group using knowledge gained from some of the engineering patents he evaluated, In 1905 he published four groundbreaking papers on such a broad range of topics as the theory of the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the fourth mass-energy equivalence.

The same year he received his PhD from the University of Zurich on molecular determinations. All this made the academic world take notice and he was invited (and accepted) to teach theoretical physics at the University of Bern in 1908 and University of Zurich a year later, then in 1911 to the Charles University in Prague and the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich in 1912.

He was induced to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in 1914, where he published his work on special relativity. He visited the US in 1933 and because of Hitler's elevation to German chancellor did not return. He advised the US government of the potential for Germany to make "extremely powerful bombs of a new type" and recommended the US pursue similar research but was opposed to the use of fission-driven weaponry being used in warfare.

Answer: Walt Disney

Walt Disney was a commercial artist, mainly cartoon drawing in Kansas City in 1920 when he formed a company with fellow commercial artist Ub Iwerks. There was not enough work for two so Mr Disney worked in another commercial art company. He was joined by his partner when their own company failed.

In 1921 Mr Disney formed an animation company with Fred Harman to produce short cartoons called Laugh-O-Grams for the local cinema. Initially successful, they formed Laugh-O-Gram Studio, and hired more animators including Ub Iwerks.

However this company went into bankruptcy in 1923. Mr Disney moved to Hollywood where he formed the Walt Disney Company with his brother Roy. He earned a contract for six joint live action / animated productions (with an option of six more) plus he pinned his animation hopes on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character Disney wanted to be "peppy, alert, saucy and venturesome, keeping him also neat and trim" according to BBC News.

However because of legal issues, Mr Disney lost the rights to the rabbit character so drew a mouse to be the star of his next batch of animated features.

He called the mouse Mortimer but his wife convinced him to call him Mickey. And that, in 1928, his how the Disney empire started.

Answer: Harland Sanders

Colonel Harland David Sanders (The title 'colonel' was honorary - a Kentucky Colonel - not a military rank, was bestowed upon him in 1930 by the Kentucky Governor.) Had his first commercial success when he was 40. To eke out a living as a gas station franchisee, in North Corbin, KY he served meals in his residence adjoining the gas station. Over the next decade, he perfected his "Fried Chicken Secret Recipe" and pressure fryer cooking method and moved onto bigger premises in North Carolina.

The war intervened, gas was rationed and his premises had to close.

He then worked for government cafeterias during wartime. After the war he returned to his restaurant but he wanted to franchise his secret chicken recipe at a 'nickel a piece'. He struggled until 1952 when he met Pete Harman of South Salt Lake, Utah, owner of one of that city's largest restaurants.

The concept took off and he rapidly had franchises in 600 locations, all known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. The franchise approach became highly successful; KFC was one of the first fast food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in Canada and later in the UK, Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. Col. Sanders obtained a patent for his method of pressure frying chicken in 1962 and trademarked the phrase "It's Finger Lickin' Good" in 1963. An enduring empire was born.