All You Need is Al Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alfred

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS (1809-1892) was British Poet Laureate from 1850 until his death, which made him one of the towering figures of the 19th century literary scene. His name is usually styled as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, indicating the fact that he was awarded a hereditary peerage in 1884. On his death, his oldest son Hallam became the 2nd Baron Tennyson. Hallam, Lord Tennyson was Governor of South Australia from 1899 through 1902, after which he served as the second Governor-General of Australia until 1904.

Tennyson's poetry is often studied in schools, and lines from his poems are frequently quoted (or misquoted) in a range of contexts. "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all" comes from the poem 'In Memoriam A.H.H.'; "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die" can be found in the 1854 'Charge of the Light Brigade', a narrative poem about the Battle of Balaklava. The latter was one of the poems Tennyson recorded on a wax phonograph cylinder in 1890. The former is said to have been a personal favorite of Queen Victoria, who found it deeply comforting as she mourned the death of her beloved Albert.

Answer: Alfred

Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833-1896) was a Swedish chemist who made a number of significant contributions to that field, including the awarding of 325 patents, including the 1867 patent for dynamite, designed to be a safe way of using nitroglycerin to produce a stronger explosive than the available alternatives at the time. It has often been said (but without any solid historical evidence) that Nobel's regret at having contributed to the development of so many military weapons was the motivation for establishing the Nobel Prizes which have made his name familiar to many who have no idea of his scientific work.

His will, in part, read: "All of my remaining realisable assets are to be disbursed as follows: the capital, converted to safe securities by my executors, is to constitute a fund, the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The interest is to be divided into five equal parts and distributed as follows: one part to the person who made the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics; one part to the person who made the most important chemical discovery or improvement; one part to the person who made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; one part to the person who, in the field of literature, produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction; and one part to the person who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses."

The award for Literature has been especially controversial over the years, as the meaning of the requirement that the work be 'in an idealistic direction' has been interpreted by some to mean it needs to be explicitly about a romanticised or idealistic subject, while others consider that a more realistic work which provides insights into the human condition and how individuals and society can better themselves would also fulfil the requirement. The trend over time has been towards the latter.

Answer: Albert

Ludwig Philipp Albert Schweitzer OM (1875-1965) was indeed a theologian, but his achievements covered a wide range of areas. He was a Lutheran minister, and wrote extensively on theological topics, addressing the controversies of the day, especially in the area of Christology. He completed a PhD in Theology in 1899, was ordained in 1900 and became Principal of the Theological College of Saint Thomas in Strasbourg in 1903. In 1906 he published the book known in English as 'The Quest of the Historical Jesus'.

Along the way he gained a reputation as an expert organist and musical scholar, using a theological lens to analyse the work of JS Bach in a book published in French in 1905, then rewritten and published in German in 1908; this version was translated into English in 1911.

In 1905 Schweitzer decided to become a missionary, in preparation for which he resigned his theology post ad started studying again - this time, medicine. In 1913 he and his wife set off to establish a hospital near the Paris Missionary Society's mission at Lambaréné on the Ogooué river, in what is now Gabon. This was then a French colonial area, and during World War I the Schweitzers, being from Alsace (then German), were scrutinised closely before eventually being interned. They were released after the war, and he alternated his time between raising money in Europe for the African hospital and working there. He spent World War II in Africa, unable to return to Europe where his family were residing in the Black Forest part of Germany.

A number of Schweitzer's writings on ethics tried to explain his personal philosophy, which he described as Reverence for Life. His work in Lambaréné was intended as a graphic demonstration of this philosophy in action. In 1952 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and used the money from the award to set up a leper-treatment facility at the hospital. He was buried on the hospital grounds, after dying there.

Answer: Albert

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist - but I didn't really need to tell you that, did I? His reputation as one of the most significant figures of 20th century science is such that his name is used as a code for genius, and his appearance and behavior during his years in Princeton have become the stock image of the absent-minded professor. You may not understand the Special and General Theories of Relativity or appreciate the significance of explaining the photoelectric effect and mass-energy equivalence, but you have heard of them, one way or another.

Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895 and studied at the University of Zurich, submitting his PhD thesis in 1905, the year that made his name with the publication of his four most famous papers at the age of 26. He pursued an academic career at a number of universities while continuing his research, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. That, and the experimental vindication of General Relativity in a 1919 eclipse, turned him into something of a celebrity. In 1933, while he was on a two-month visiting professorship at Caltech, he found himself a refugee, unable to return to Germany due to the rise of the Nazi party. He took up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, a research facility in Princeton NJ where he was to be based for the rest of his life.

Although he was a confirmed pacifist, Einstein was sufficiently worried that the Germans might be on track to develop atomic weapons that he signed a letter written to President Roosevelt by Leó Szilárd urging the US to do so first; from this came the Manhattan Project. Shortly before his death, biographer Ronald Clark records him as saying, ""I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made; but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them."

Answer: Another Al

Alphonse Gabriel Capone (1899-1947) was a 'businessman' notorious for running the bootlegging industry of Chicago during Prohibition before being sent to jail for tax evasion rather than for any of the brutal crimes with which he had been involved.

Born to an Italian immigrant family in New York, he became involved in organised crime as a teenager before moving to Chicago in 1919 to join Johnny Torrio, a man he considered his mentor. They set up the bootlegging business which Capone took over in 1925. Their feud with the North Side gang reached its climax in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, following which Chicago's civic and political leaders appealed for federal assistance in quelling the lawless behavior that was rife in their city. This was the beginning of the end; a series of trials for criminal activities led to some short prison sentences, but it was the conviction for evasion of taxes that sent him to a federal penitentiary in 1932, before being transferred to Alcatraz until 1939. Following his release due to failing health (late-stage syphilis he had contracted at the start of his time in Chicago) he spent his time in and out of hospitals before dying from a hemorrhagic stroke.

Answer: Alfred

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (1899-1980) was one of the most respected directors of suspense films of the 20th century. He directed over 50 films, both in England and in Hollywood, which received a total of 46 Academy Award nominations in various categories. Although five of these were for Best director, he never won that award. However, a number of his films have been selected for inclusion in the US National Film Registry, a list of films considered to have significant historical, cultural or aesthetic value. These include 'Rebecca' (winner of Best Film for 1940), 'Rear Window' (a 1954 film starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, with Raymond Burr as the bad guy), 'North by Northwest' (memorable for Cary Grant fleeing across the sculptures on Mount Rushmore in 1959), 'Psycho' (the 1960 film that was said to have kept people out of their showers) and 'The Birds' (which showed the 1963 audiences just how malevolent those beady-eyes feathered monsters are).

Hitchcock was known for always making a cameo appearance in each film, and the fun of spotting him can provide a bit of light relief in the middle of the growing tension he creates. It is made easier if you know what he looks like, which is simpler if you have already watched episodes of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents', a mystery/suspense anthology television series that originally aired between 1955 and 1965. The title sequence for each episode starts with an outline of him in profile, which he slowly blocks as he walks into view to the sounds of 'Funeral March of the Marionettes', before delivering his opening monologue about the upcoming show.

Answer: Albert

The Arrernte painter Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) was named Elea when he was born and raised on the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission in central Australia, about 125 km from Alice Springs. He adopted the art techniques of contemporary Europeans, and became very popular - which also means commercially successful. While he earned a lot of money from his art, he had a large extended family (over 500) with whom he shared it; as a result, he lived in virtual poverty despite his fame.

In the first half of the 20th century he became something of a poster boy of assimilation, being included in Who's Who in Australia and receiving a Queen's Coronation Medal in 1953. Following his death, there was a period in which his work was criticised as a betrayal of his cultural roots; that has since been revised to a view that his work is a personal vision that brings two different traditions into play, making his understanding of Land accessible to a larger audience.

His celebrity did not make life easy, as he was still subject to the (from a 21st century perspective) very harsh constraints placed on Aboriginal people. Even when he was exempted from being considered a ward of the state (and given the right to vote, own land, build a house and buy alcohol, all illegal for Aborigines in the Northern Territory where he lived) in 1957, the exemption applied only to him and his wife, not the rest of the family. Even his children were still technically wards of the state. This difference between what was legal for him and for the rest of his extended family led to conflicts with the law, and eventually a short jail term for providing alcohol to an Aboriginal person.

Answer: Alfred

Alfred Gerald Caplin (1909-1979) would be familiar to many as Al Capp, the cartoonist who produced the satirical comic strip "Li'l Abner", a newspaper comic staple from 1934 until 1977. Set in Dogpatch, somewhere in America's south, the strip featured a variety of memorable characters. These included the 6-foot-plus simple-minded title character and his parents, the shiftless Pappy Yokum and the scrawny but fighting fit Mammy Yokum, as well as the voluptuous Daisy Mae, madly in love with Abner, who he finally married in 1952. The family name has been said to be derived as a portmanteau of yokel and hokum (a type of blues music). Al Capp has also claimed that it came from a phonetic rendition of the Hebrew Joachim (a name meaning roughly "he whom Yahweh has set up"), and it was just a nice coincidence that it conveyed a rustic feel.

Al was born in Connecticut to a family of East European Jewish descent, with his parents having been born in Latvia and moving to the Us as children. He had an impoverished childhood, and the accident that led to the loss of his left leg at the age of nine was deeply traumatic. He later used that trauma as a reference point when visiting injured servicemen during World War II. The consequent sense that he was different from everyone else played a large part in his development of a cynical sense of humor, and the outlet of drawing to express and ease his emotions guided him to a career as a cartoonist.

Answer: Albert

Albert Camus (1913-1960), born in Algeria while it was still a French colony, was author and philosopher who is often described as an existentialist, although he did not agree with that categorisation. He certainly explored absurdism in his work, but rejected the nihilism that is often found there, stating (in essence) that we need to accept that life is essentially meaningless, and get on with making the best of it. He had a strong belief in the ability of the individual to make a difference, and supported the concept of pacifism and communism (while rejecting Marxist totalitarian aspects of that philosophy). In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, for which the citation read, in part: "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times."

Camus considered his writing to fall into periods which he called cycles, named after classic mythological figures. First were what he called the Sisyphus cycle, with a theme of alienation. These included 'L'Étranger' (translated into English as 'The Outsider' or 'The Stranger'), his first published work, about a man who kills someone he does not know for reasons he cannot explain clearly, and then contemplates his coming execution, before coming to grips with what he sees as the universe's indifference. Because it is short, and includes many elements of the philosophy he was to continue to develop, it is often the single work selected for study in survey courses of literature or philosophy.

Answer: Another Al

Alois Maxwell Hirt (1922-1999) was a trumpet player and bandleader who performed as Al. His biggest hit was the instrumental 'Java', released as a single from his 1963 album 'Honey on the Horn'. The number made it to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned him a Grammy Award for Best Performance by an Orchestra or Instrumentalist with Orchestra in 1964.

The son of a New Orleans policeman, Al was given a trumpet at the age of six, and started performing in the Junior Police Band. By 16 he was working professionally, and after World War II (during which he had a position as bugler in the army) he became part of a number of the big-name Swing Bands and landed a recording contract with RCA Victor. In 1966 he was chosen to perform the theme for the television show 'The Green Hornet', a high-energy piece based on Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Flight of the Bumblebee' which gave him a chance to demonstrate his technical skill. This recording was used again for the soundtrack of the movie 'Kill Bill' in 2003.

Answer: Another Al

On 5 May 1961 Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (1923-1998) became the first American in space (following Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin three weeks earlier) when Freedom 7 made a 15-minute flight that reached a maximum altitude of just over 185 km. Shepard's flight, which had originally been scheduled for January, had to be postponed several times. He was a member of the teams for the rest of the Mercury program, and was scheduled to make a second flight when the program was terminated. He developed an inner ear problem that meant he could not fly in the Gemini program, but had a position in charge of astronaut training.

In 1969 surgery corrected his ear problem, and he returned to flight status as part of the Apollo program. He was originally slated for Apollo 13 (famous for its crew's safe return following a serious malfunction), but the directors moved his team to Apollo 14. Shepard was therefore part of the third mission to land men on the moon, becoming the only person from the Mercury program to do so, and (at 47) the oldest man to walk on the moon, as well as the only one to hit a golf ball (for a distance of 37 m) while there.

Answer: Alfred

Alfred Oerter Jr. (1936-2007) became the first athlete to win a gold medal in the same individual event in four consecutive Olympic Games when he won the discus event in Mexico City (1968), setting a new Olympic record. He had previously won the event in Melbourne (1956), Rome (1960) and Tokyo (1964). As a teenager in New York, he discovered his aptitude for throwing a discus accidentally, when one landed at his feet and he tossed it back - way past the spot where it had originated. (At least, that's the story.) His prowess earned him an athletic scholarship, NCAA championship, and membership of the US Olympic team at the age of 20.

Although he retired after Mexico City, he did try to make a comeback in 1980, but finished fourth in the qualification event. He carried the Olympic Flag in the 1984 games and carried the Olympic flame into the stadium in 1996, when Muhammad Ali lit the flame in Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Stadium.

Al Oerter was a keen artist, despite choosing to avoid formal training in case it stifled his sense of creativity. One of his favorite techniques involved throwing a discus onto a paint-covered tarp, then catching the splash on a nearby canvas. In 2006 he set up a program called Art of the Olympians, which aimed to display the art produced by Olympic and Paralympic athletes in an effort to promote the Olympic values.

Answer: Another Al

While he may be familiar from his performance name, Alan Alda, his birth name was actually Alphonso - making him doubly 'Another Al'. Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo (1936- ) was born in Manhattan, but spent much of his youth traveling around the country, as his father (Alfonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D'Abruzzo) was a performer who used the name Robert Alda. After gaining a BA in Literature, he began performing in improvisational theatre, while getting small parts in regular theatre productions and on television. By the 1960s he was an established actor on Broadway and television, making his film debut in 1963. But his career-making role was that of Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the television show 'M*A*S*H' between 1972 and 1983. He won a number of awards for the show, some as an actor, others for episodes he wrote and/or directed.

Following 'M*A*S*H', Alda continued to act and direct, with much of his work in film during the 1980s and '90s. In 2005 he received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Senator Ralph Owen Brewster in 'The Aviator'. Between 2004 and 2006 he appeared on 'West Wing' as Republican Arnold Vinick, a presidential candidate. This role saw him win yet another Emmy, for Outstanding Support Actor in a Drama Series, in 2006.

Answer: Another Al

Alfredo James Pacino (1940- ) is an American actor who trained at the prestigious Actors Studio under Lee Strasberg, often considered the father of American method acting. His career started on stage, and even after he achieved international fame from film, he regularly returned to his live theatre roots. He made his Broadway debut in 1969's 'Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?'; although the play was a commercial failure, his performance won him his first Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play. The second came in 1977 for 'The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel'.

Pacino's film debut in 1969, Tony in 'Me, Natalie', was a minor and unmemorable role, but in 1971 his work as a heroin addict in 'The Panic in Needle Park' led directly to Francis Ford Coppola casting him for the part of Michael Corleone in 'The Godfather' (released in 1972) and celebrity arrived with a bang. During the 1970s Al Pacino was nominated for five Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor for 'The Godfather' (a nomination that outraged him, as he had more screen time than Marlon Brando who was nominated for Best Actor in the title role), Best Actor for 'Serpico' (1974), Best Actor for 'The Godfather Part II' (1975), Best Actor for 'Dog Day Afternoon' (1976) and Best Actor for ' ...And Justice for All' (1980). That year's winner was Dustin Hoffman for the role in 'Kramer vs Kramer' that Pacino had turned down. His first Oscar win came in 1993, for 'Scent of a Woman'.

Answer: Albert

Whether you thought of Albert Arnold Gore Sr (known as Albert in his later years, to avoid confusion with his more prominent son) or Albert Arnold Gore Jr (1948- ), the US Vice President between 1993 and 2001, the answer is Albert. Al Jr served in a series of elected positions for 24 years, starting as a US Representative from Tennessee (1977-1985) then as a Senator from that state (1985-1993) before becoming Vice President in the Clinton administration (1983-2001). He was the Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2000, but lost a close election (in which he actually won the popular vote) to George W. Bush.

Following this loss, he stayed in the public eye as an environmental activist, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, an award shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change". The 2006 documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth', which won an Academy Award, brought his slide show presentation on the issue to a global audience. He subsequently wrote a book on the subject, 'An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It', which won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2009.