What a Way to Go Trivia

61. According to Christian tradition which important person from the apostolic age was beheaded in Rome because of his faith?

From Quiz Heads that Rolled

Answer: Paul the Apostle

Paul was not one of the original twelve apostles. He was originally known as Saul of Tarsus. He was a persecutor of Christians until his conversion on the Road to Damascus. After that he became a firm adherent of the Gospel of Jesus and was martyred for his faith during the reign of Nero.

From Quiz You Know It Can't Live Without a Head

Answer: Thomas More

Thomas More was not only a lawyer, but an author, statesman, philosopher, and Lord Chancellor (an important advisor to the King). He was invited to Anne Boleyn's coronation as a queen in 1533, but he rejected it. King Henry VIII was not pleased with this action, so he was charged with several crimes he was not guilty of. He was finally convicted of treason and beheaded in 1535.

From Quiz Executed!

Answer: Mary I

One of the leaders of the English Reformation during the reign of King Henry VIII, Cranmer helped build the case for the annulment of the King's marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He continued his reforms when the young Edward VI became King, but found himself on the wrong side of the religious argument when the Catholic Queen Mary I succeeded her brother in 1553. Less than a year after Mary became Queen, Thomas Cranmer found himself for the chop, literally. Convicted of treason and condemned to death in November 1553, he spent a further seventeen months imprisoned awaiting trial on heresy charges. Although Cranmer recanted his previously expressed support for the principle of Royal Supremacy and other anti-Catholic doctrines, Mary was determined to make an example of him and he was burnt at the stake in March 1556. Less than three years later "Bloody Mary" herself died of influenza and was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I.

From Quiz Why Me?

Answer: Mercury

Obsessed with his own mortality, Qin Shi Haung was easy prey for tricksters offering the solution to eternal life with various elixirs. Things came to a head in 211 B.C, when a meteor with a message about the death of the first emperor was reportedly found. Given pills made of mercury by his alchemists, instead of giving Qui Shi Huang eternal life they ended up killing him instead.

From Quiz The Shouting End of Life II

Answer: dancing

The Dancing Plague of 1518 occurred in Strasbourg, France, and lasted for more than a month. Started by a single woman, Frau Troffea, the affliction spread, and within a week she was joined by at least 30 others, and within a month more than 400 citizens were dancing. As some dropped dead from exhaustion, heart attack or stroke, the local authorities, baffled as to the outbreak's cause, decided to erect a platform for the dancers, and provide music. Around a month passed before the plague ended, with the dancers falling still bit by bit, with no explanation for the cause of the affliction. Similar cases of the frantic dancing affliction have occurred elsewhere, including Germany in the 1300s and Madagascar in 1840s. And, there have been documented instances of mass laughing, crying and fainting events as well.

From Quiz The Shouting End of Life

Answer: heart

On June 11th, 1963, Thich Quang Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, sat down in the middle of a busy intersection in Saigon, another monk doused him with gasoline, and Quang Duc set himself on fire. He did so in protest of the persecution of Buddhist monks in South Vietnam by the government. His heart survived the immolation. On June 19th, 1963, he was re-cremated during his funeral, and yet again, his heart remained intact.

From Quiz Why Me?

Answer: Pheidippides

Two days prior to the Battle of Marathon, Pheidippides ran one hundred fifty miles from Athens to Sparta to request help against the Persians. When the Greeks won this great battle - against all odds - Pheidippides was asked to run twenty-six more miles to tell the Athenians of the victory. He gave the news then collapsed and died. The Marathon race is run in his honor.

From Quiz Mister Greedy

Answer: So absorbed in studying that he forgot to eat, and starved

Philitas of Cos was a dedicated scholar and poet in Ancient Greece, and lived from 340 to 285 BC. He was always slightly built and thin at the best of times and grew progressively even more so as he grew older. Aelian, a Roman author of the times, wrote, with tongue very firmly planted in cheek, that poor old "Philitas was so thin that he put lead weights in the soles of his shoes to avoid being blown away by a stiff wind". Greek author Athenaeus of Naucratis wrote of the little scholar's death, that Philitas studied the use of words and puzzles so intensely he forgot to eat, and consequently starved to death. Philitas was definitely needy. Moral of this story: Remember to eat when you're playing the Crystal Ball and Word Wizard.

From Quiz I Should have Stayed in Bed!

Answer: The Boston Molasses Disaster

The explosion released the molasses and sent it traveling at 35 mph through parts of Boston. Twenty-one people died and another 150 were injured in the tragic event.

From Quiz Watch Out for that Knife!

Answer: Julius Caesar & Gaius Julius Caesar & Iulius Caesar

In 44 BC on the 15th of March, Gaius Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by his best friend Marcus Junius Brutus and other co-conspirators. The reason for the assassination was the growing tension between the Senate and Caesar, especially because they feared that Caesar would soon declare himself king and dissolve the Senate (an act that came about anyway due to the foul deed). Caesar was stabbed 23 times, and the first postmortem in recorded history declared that it had been the second knife stab to Caesar's body that had been the fatal one.

From Quiz And Your Expiry Date Is...

Answer: Gangrene from biting his own tongue

Pinkerton is credited with developing entire new ways to spy on people, including shadowing them. If he had had a camera, he could have been paparazzi!

From Quiz Unhappy Birthday

Answer: N.P. Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis (January 20, 1806-1867) was an American poet, author and editor who worked alongside other notable writers Edgar Allen Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was also, at one time, the employer of former slave and future writer Harriet Jacobs. His play "Tortesa, the Usurer" was described by Poe as "by far the best play from the pen of an American author". He acquired a reputation as a dandy for the attention he paid to his appearance and dress. He was often depicted wearing a beaver hat, a tightly closed coat and carrying a cane. Edgar Allen Poe (January 19, 1809 - October 7, 1849) was an American poet, writer and critic whose most famous poem was "The Raven" which he published in 1845. e. e. cummings (Oct 14, 1894 - Sept 3, 1962) was an American poet, painter, author and playright who won numerous awards for his poetry. His most well-known novels include "The Enormous Room" (1922) and "Tulips and Chimneys" (1923). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Feb 27, 1807 - March 24, 1882) should need no introduction. He was the first person to translate Dante's "The Divine Comedy" into English, which he published in 1867. He also published the novel "Evangeline" (1847) and the poem "Paul Revere's Ride" (1869).

From Quiz Is This Any Way to Run an Airline?

Answer: Graeme "Shirley" Strachan

"Shirley" Strachan, lead singer of the Australian '70s band Skyhooks, was working toward his helicopter licence when he crashed his chopper into a mountain slope on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. It is believed that air turbulence around the mountains caused the rotor to sever the tailboom, causing the chopper to crash.

From Quiz Unusual Deaths No 1

Answer: An elephant fell on him

Maccabeus was fighting at the Battle of Beth-Sechariah between the Jewish Maccabeans and Greek forces. The silly dill rushed underneath an elephant which he thought was carrying one of the leaders of the opposing army, and speared the poor beast in the stomach in an attempt to bring it to its knees to dislodge the rider. Unfortunately his aim was all too accurate and he killed the animal instantly - whereupon it promptly fell on him and crushed him to death.

From Quiz But The Cat Had Nine Lives

Answer: Saddle Mountain

Eighteen year-old, Jacob "Jake" Gillett, climbed to the top of Saddle Mountain where he told friends he would attempt a controlled slide down the mountain and would meet them at the bottom. After friends couldn't find Jake, the authorities were called in. Jake's body was found the following day approximately 1,000 feet below where he attempted his slide. Grass Mountain can be found in Vermont, Laurel Mountain is in Pennsylvania, and Bear Mountain is in California.

From Quiz Sparkling Cyanide

Answer: Eva Braun

Eva Braun swallowed cyanide in a suicide pact with her husband. He took cyanide and shot himself when it became clear that the war was lost and they were soon to be taken captive.

From Quiz I Will Never Do That Again

Answer: A robot

Whilst working at a casting plant in Michigan, Robert was struck in the head by the arm of a one ton robot and was instantly killed. His is not the only recorded death by robot. Kenji Urada was carrying out maintenance on a robot in a Japanese factory. Unfortunately he had not shut it down properly and it activated, pushing him into a grinding machine.

From Quiz One Bullet Away

Answer: Sweden

Nodtveidt was convicted of being an accessory to murder and jailed in 1997. He was released in 2004, when he restarted his band 'Dissection.' Nodtveit was also a journalist for 'Metal Zone,' the magazine that followed the black-metal scene.

From Quiz Done In...By Themselves!

Answer: Jim Jones

Jones poisoned the grape Flavor Aid with cyanide and sedatives and everyone drank it. Some of the reasons Jim Jones gave to his followers were that men with parachutes were going to assault them and torture their children and elders. Jones's final recorded words were "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." Personally, I fail to see the logic behind that statement, but apparently there were more than 900 people who did.

From Quiz A Sleep with the Fishes

Answer: Prime Minister of Australia

Harold Holt, Prime Minister of Australia, disappeared on 17th December 1967. Holt was swimming at Cheviot Beach, near Portsea in Victoria, and sight of him was quickly lost. The search for his body went on for 2 days, after which the government announced that Holt was presumed dead. To this day, Holt's body has never been found.

From Quiz Life is Short, Death is Long

Answer: Princess Diana

Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in horrific car crash in Paris.Some news sources speculated that the paparazzi caused the crash while many others put the blame on the driver. She was a beloved figure whose death somewhat overshadowed Mother Teresa's death which occurred five days later.

From Quiz Weird Ways to Meet Your Maker: Part 3

Answer: The Rocket

William Huskisson was born in 1770 and met his maker on September 15th 1830. On that fateful day, he was at the official opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. As his train stopped, he was getting out of the door when 'The Rocket', traveling on an adjacent track, pulled him under her wheels.

From Quiz Weird Ways To Meet Your Maker: Part 2

Answer: A bookcase

Weber was 38 when she disappeared in New Port Richey, Florida, in October 2006. Relatives thought she had been kidnapped, then, weeks later, found her body upside down behind a bookcase at home. It was thought she had fallen there while trying to adjust a television plug.

From Quiz Weird Ways To Meet Your Maker: Part 1

Answer: He tripped over his beard

Han Steininger was famous for having a long beard. One day in 1567, when his beard was four-and-a-half-feet long, there was a fire in the town. In fleeing, he tripped over his beard, fell, and broke his neck.

From Quiz Unusual Deaths

Answer: Ray Chapman

After this incident, baseball banned the spit ball or placing any foreign substance on the ball as this was believed to be the reason that the pitch came inside and Chapman did not see it. However, some 30 years went by before batting helmets were required.

From Quiz They Went That-A-Way Part III

Answer: plane crash due to in-flight fire

The two men were among the 110 fatalities when ValuJet Flight 529 crashed into the Florida Everglades. Less than 10 minutes after takeoff from Miami International Airport, the pilot radioed the Miami Air Traffic Control Center to "declare an emergency" and report that there was smoke in the cockpit and cabin of the aircraft. Shouts of, "fire, fire, fire" were heard on the planes cockpit recorder. While returning to Miami International Airport, Flight 592 disappeared from the radar screens. It crashed on the Brown Farm Wildlife Management area of the Everglades, a few miles West of Miami. There were no survivors. The pilot, Captain Candalyn "Candi" Kubeck became the first female captain to die while on duty. The crash occurred one day after her 35th birthday.

From Quiz They Went That-A-Way Part II

Answer: space capsule training accident

Grissom was killed along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee, when a flash fire raced through their Apollo One space capsule as it sat atop the booster vehicle, on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy. In an official report, NASA announced the fire was the result of a short circuit, accelerated by a pure oxygen artificial environment inside the space capsule. Grissom was a veteran of two previous space missions. At the conclusion of his first space flight (Mercury-Redstone 4), on July 21, 1961, which lasted about 15 minutes, Grissom was criticized for what was first thought to be an action he committed that resulted in the loss of his space capsule. While being picked up following a successful flight and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, the hatch door release explosives of his "Liberty Bell 7" space capsule prematurely detonated, and opened, resulting in the capsule filling up with water and sinking some 16,000 feet to the ocean floor. Grissom was rescued by his helicopter recovery team, but the capsule, loaded with vital data was lost. Some speculated at the time that during the recovery operation, Grissom either panicked, or accidentally activated hatch releasing explosives too soon. Grissom became the first astronaut to return to space, serving as the command pilot aboard the "Gemini 3" space mission, with Astronaut John W. Young in March of 1965. Ed White was the first American astronaut to perform a "spacewalk" (EVA) in June of 1965, aboard the "Gemini 4" space mission, flown with astronaut James McDivitt. The Apollo 1 mission would have been the first space flight for Astronaut Roger B. Chaffee. Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 space capsule was located and recovered 38 years after it sank, in 1999.

From Quiz Famous People in Aircraft Crashes

Answer: Camden, Tennessee

The site of the accident was Camden, Tennessee. The Piper Comanche in which Cline and her two imaginatively named peers departed Dyersburg into the path of a storm. The plane got airborne at 6:07 pm. It entered the bad weather and crashed at 6:20 p.m. This is known to be the the time of the accident as the watch Cline was wearing had stopped. Two years earlier, Patsy and her brother had been involved in a head on car crash in which Cline was catapulted through the windscreen. She narrowly avoided death on that occasion. Two days prior to the fatal plane crash, Patsy's final concert was a benefit concert for the family of a recently deceased disc jockey.

From Quiz The Rest Of My Body, Please!

Answer: Galileo

When Galileo died in 1642, Pope Urban VIII, still bitter about their ongoing feud over the "theory" of the Earth revolving around the sun, refused to allow him to have a proper burial. He was moved to a proper grave in the Church of Santa Croce in 1737, but during the move a devotee of Galileo, Anton Francesco Gori, cut off the middle finger of his right hand. It passed through a few museums, before ending up at the Florence Institute in 1927. Now that we know that Galileo's "theories" have been proven right, and he has triumphed over the Inquisition, his middle finger is raised upward for all those blind to science to see.

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Last Updated Dec 21 2024 5:50 AM

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