The Rose Garden Trivia Quiz

Answer: Rosalind Franklin

Franklin, initially, made a name for herself as a researcher for the British Coal Utilisation Research Association. The work here enabled her to get her PhD which, in turn, attracted the attention of the Laboratoire Central des Services de l'Etat in Paris, where she achieved renown as a x-ray crystallographer.

However, it was her work in creating x-ray diffraction images of DNA, in particular, one famously labeled "Photo 51", for which she will be best remembered. It was these images that led to Crick, Watson and Wilkins to discover the double helix structure of DNA and sharing in the 1962 Nobel Prize. Watson would go on to suggest Franklin should have been awarded the prize as well, however, she had passed away before 1962, at the tender age of 37, and the Nobel rules, at the time, dictated that the award could not be presented posthumously.

Answer: Oren Rose

Captain Oren "O.J." Rose joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1917, and was assigned to the 92 Squadron based in France. In the three month period from the end of July to the start of November in 1918, he was credited with sixteen aerial victories, destroying fourteen enemy planes, and driving two others to crash out of control. He completed his tour as 92 Squadron's leading ace.

During World War II he advanced the cause as an operations and training officer, before being discharged in 1946, and becoming the Commander of the Aircraft Assignment Base in Wright Field.

Answer: Rosemary West

Heather West, the daughter of Rosemary and Fred West, disappeared, and was never reported missing. Her sisters were told that Heather had gotten a job and had simply packed her bags and left. Some years later, a line said in jest to a social worker by one of Heather's sister - "suppose dad killed Heather and buried her in the garden" - led to a report to the police.

A search by the police, of what was to become known as the "house of horrors", would uncover the bodies of Heather and eight other women. All of them had been the objects of acts of sexual depravity and torture at the hands of Fred and Rosemary West before they were killed, and then buried in the yard. At the time of this writing (2024) Rosemary West is now 70 years old and is serving a whole of life order at HM Prison in West Yorkshire. Her husband, Fred, had taken his own life some 30 years earlier.

Answer: Curtly Ambrose

Sir Curtly Ambrose played 98 Test matches for the West Indies, taking 405 wickets at the amazing average of 20.99.

Blessed with great height, unerring accuracy, and significant bounce and speed, it made him an extremely difficult proposition for the best of batsmen. A man of action and very few words, he was named one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year in 1992 and was endorsed into the International Cricket Council's Hall of Fame upon his retirement.

Answer: Julius Rosenberg

Julius, along with his wife Ethel Rosenberg, was convicted of espionage in 1951, and executed two years later at Sing Sing Prison in New York. This made them the first Americans to be executed on such a charge during peace time.

For many years after their deaths there were numerous calls from within the public forum that they were innocent, however, these promotions were dispelled when declassified information was released by the US government in the early 1990s. The documents provided evidence of Julius' work as a courier of information, that provided the Soviets with top secret data about US nuclear weapon designs, radar, sonar, and their advancements in jet propulsion engines.

Answer: Lionel Rose

Lionel Rose was the first Australian aboriginal to win a World title in "any" sport and only the second Australian to win a World title as a teenager.

At fifteen he was Australia's flyweight champion (1963), but a narrow defeat to Bill Booth in the bantamweight class cost him a trip to Tokyo to contest the 1964 Summer Olympic Games. This prompted him to turn professional, claiming the Australian bantamweight title two years later. In 1968, at the age of nineteen, he challenged Japan's Masahiko "Fighting" Harada for the World title, defeating him with a unanimous points after fifteen rounds.

Rose returned home to a heroes' welcome as over 250,000 supporters jammed the streets of Melbourne to greet him upon his arrival. He would defend his title twice before retiring in 1971.

Answer: Rachel Harel (nee Roos)

Rachel Roos (surname being German for rose) was born in Rotterdam, and graduated to become a kindergarten teacher. In 1943, as a twenty year old, she became involved in the Dutch Resistance movement, initially operating as a courier in the Ederveen-Bennekom region. She would hide Jews and conscientious objectors, worked at sabotaging German couriers and assisted in the Battle of Arnhem.

Arrested by the Germans, she was tortured severely. Despite this, she still managed to hide her Jewish origins, her association with the Resistance, and did not reveal the names of any of her comrades. All of these factors worked toward keeping her from facing the firing squads. As the Allies got closer to freeing the Netherlands, Rachel was placed on one of the Nazi's death marches. She managed to escape and remain hidden until rescued by the Allies.

Rachel was awarded the American Medal of Freedom at a ceremony in 1946 and, two years later, received the British King's Medal for Courage in the cause of Freedom.

Answer: Rosa "Rose" McGowan

Rose was barely noticeable in her film debut in "Encino Man" in 1992, but she gained a lot more attention for her superb work in the 1995 dark comedy, "Doom Generation". The performance saw her nominated for Best Debut Performance at the Independent Spirit Awards. This, in turn, led to her breakout role as Dewey's sister, Tatum Riley, in the 1996 horror classic "Scream".

Television audiences got acquainted with Rose as Paige Matthews in the series "Charmed" (2001-06), a role she embraced for 112 episodes, before starring in Quentin Tarantino's "Grindhouse" double feature of "Planet Terror" and "Death Proof" in 2007.

In the wake of the 2020 guilty verdict delivered on Harvey Weinstein for rape, McGowan has been recognized as one of the group known as the "Silence Breakers", women who speak out against sexual harassment and assault. Their name was taken from the group that was anointed "Person of the Year" by Time Magazine in 2017. (Footnote: Rose was listed as part of that 2017 group).

Answer: Ambrose Burnside

Burnside was many things during his 57 years on this Earth, some went well for him, some didn't. He was an industrialist, an inventor, a politician, and, as mentioned above, a three time governor of Rhode Island.

Sadly, the most spectacular part of his legacy is likely to be his striking growth of luxurious whiskers which became known as sideburns, a name derived from the two words in his surname. Many considered him to be unfortunate, having invented a very successful cavalry firearm and then losing the rights for it. He was also a Union army general who was responsible for some early victories in the eastern theatre of the Civil War. That led to him to getting a number of rapid promotions, unfortunately, these proved to be well beyond his capacity to handle. Consequently, he would lose his credibility as a leader at the base of two disastrous campaigns, one at Fredericksburg and the other at the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg.

Answer: Ken Rosewall

In 1985 Ken Rosewall was inducted into the Australian Sport Hall of Fame and, 24 years later, was elevated to legend status.

The start of his spectacular rise in the world of tennis began in 1953 when, at the age of eighteen, he won the Australian and the French Men's Open Singles titles. However, even more impressive, was his combination with a fellow eighteen year old Lew Hoad, to gain a remarkable victory in the final of the Davis Cup against a US team, heavily favoured to win.

He complete his career in 1976, at the age of 46, as the winner of eight Grand Slam singles titles - four Australian Opens, two French Opens and two US Opens. The one that eluded him was Wimbledon, on whose centre court he would finish as the runner-up on four occasions.