Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. I am an Augustinian monk from Rotterdam, but best known as philosopher, writer and humanist. My essay "In Praise of Folly" (1511), which sharply criticized the Church, was written on the estate of my good friend, Sir Thomas More, and influenced Martin Luther.
2. I painted "The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq" or, as people prefer to call it, the "Night Watch", as well as numerous self portraits. No further introduction needed: I am considered one of the greatest painters in European art history and the personification of the Dutch Golden Age.
3. I was a hardline Director-General of the Dutch colony New Netherland until that rotten ole English Captain Richard Nicholls forced me to cede the colony in 1664. Wall Street and a canal that is now Broadway were constructed under my direction.
4. I am a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish descent and am considered to have laid the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment. My best known work is called "Ethica" and influenced Goethe, Hegel, and Shelley.
5. I am a famous painter from Delft, even though my legacy comprises only about 36 paintings. Surprisingly little is known about my life. My best known paintings show intimate stills of everyday life, such as a girl wearing my wife's pearl earrings, in a natural, radiant light. I died practically bankrupt.
6. I did not invent the microscope, but made some drastic improvements and have been called the "Father of Microbiology". I was the very first to discover and describe bacteria, red blood cells, and spermatozoa!
7. I am informally known as King Billy ever since the "Glorious Revolution" in 1689, during which I landed in England with a large military force and disposed of my Catholic uncle and father-in-law King James II. My wife Mary II of England and I were crowned "King and Queen of England, Scotland, France and Ireland".
8. I was the eighth President of the United States and the first President without English ancestry. Even though I was an American citizen, English was only my second language. I preferred to speak Dutch in the White House.
9. I famously sold only one painting in my miserable life, cut off my ear and barely succeeded at committing suicide at the age of 37. Nowadays, my post-impressionist paintings, depicting sunflowers or cypresses, are among the most highly valued in the world.
10. As a promiscuous exotic dancer, I became a major hit in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. I performed for the high and mighty everywhere in Europe, even in the Scala of Milan. Because of my intimate relations with several highly ranked officers and diplomats during World War I, I was (wrongfully) found guilty of espionage and executed by a French firing squad.
11. I did not live past the age of 15. Still, my diary was translated in over 65 languages and is one of the best selling publications of all time. I died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, just a few months before the end of World War II.
12. Wearing number 14, my soccer skills could only be matched by Pele and Diego Maradona. I was voted European Soccer Player of the 20th Century. I was also very successfull as manager of FC Barcelona, leading this club to its very first European Cup in 1992.
13. We were the first Dutch musicians to score a Billboard Top 100 #1 hit in the USA, way back in 1969. Oddly enough, our hit single "Venus" didn't even reach the #1 spot in the Netherlands.
14. Holland meets Hollywood. I directed Hollywood blockbusters like RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), Starship Troopers (1997), and Hollow Man (2000). Controversy because of explicit violence and sex scenes seems to surround most of my movies.
15. My name is Hendrik van der Decken and I am captain of a ship doomed to sail the oceans till the end of time, after I cursed God and the devil in the middle of a raging storm in the 1700s. Sightings of what black ship with blood red sails are reported to this very day?
Source: Author
Debarrio
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bloomsby before going online.
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