People who Changed the World Trivia

1. Known as the "Queen of Soul" what entertainer began gaining R-E-S-P-E-C-T singing in the Baptist church where her father was the pastor?

From Quiz PKs (Preachers' Kids) Who Made a Difference

Answer: Aretha Franklin

As a child, Franklin began singing, at the New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. Her father, C.L. Franklin, preached there from 1946 until his death, from gunshot wounds by burglars, in 1979. Throughout her career Franklin credited much of her success to her church background. This Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient is also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the UK Music Hall of Fame and the National Women's Hall of Fame.

From Quiz A Sandwich Short of a Picnic

Answer: Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a famous Greek orator and speech-writer who lived from 382 to 322 BC. What usually comes to mind first when thinking of him is the story the Greek historian Plutarch recounted of how Demosthenes overcame a childhood stutter by speaking with pebbles in his mouth. Plutarch also wrote that Demosthenes wrote many of his speeches in an underground bunker and that he shaved half of his head so he would not be tempted to abandon his work to go outside.

From Quiz Paradigm Nudge

Answer: Fast food

Vitale realised a miniature version of her plastic garden table would be the perfect thing to stop the lid of a pizza box from sagging into the pizza. She patented the idea and the pizza saver was born!

From Quiz Zoned Out Brilliant

Answer: Ernest Hemingway

"The Old Man and the Sea", published in 1952 is a wonderful telling of the tale of Santiago, a quiet and weather beaten fisherman who seemingly endures Christ-like suffering in his life. He wrestles for days on end with a giant marlin only to see it eaten by sharks as he makes his way into port. One must wonder if Hemingway was looking into a mirror as he wrote the story. Ernest, not unlike Santiago, suffered a series of misfortunes and freak occurrences during his life - the Paris skylight accident, the tearing of his cornea when his baby son poked a finger into his eye, the plane crash whilst on safari and the subsequent crash of the plane that rescued him. Hemingway suffered from depression and whether or not the above incidents were part of the cause is difficult to say but they certainly didn't help. He turned to hard drinking but this only deepened his disease and, in the process damaged his liver and may have been a trigger to his diabetes. Despite this Hemingway's contribution to American literature is outstanding, not just in the impressive body of his work but in the inspiration that he provided to a countless number of other writers. As Hemingway often wrote "il faut d'abord durer" - first, one must last.

From Quiz Questioning the Authorities

Answer: Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson remains one of the United States' most enduring historical figures. He embodied the American Revolution's challenge to the established British authority. Born April 13, 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia, he was an architect, inventor, educator and writer. He is, however, best known for his stirring rhetoric in support of the American revolt against the British Empire. Jefferson was the principal author of the American Declaration of Independence and an outspoken advocate for democratic choice by the citizenry. Jefferson, at root, was mistrustful of centralized government in all forms and remained a proponent of local decision-making. Despite being both the second Vice President and third President of United States, he remained a critic of a strong central government. In November 1787, while serving as the fledgling US's Ambassador to France, he was able to chronicle the French Revolution. In the oft-quoted passage above, written in a letter to his friend and fellow Virginian, James Madison, Jefferson expressed his concern over the provision in the new US Constitution that created a chief executive branch with defined constitutional powers. Jefferson emphasized his position by exclaiming that to avoid tyranny required the "natural manure" of the blood from both tyrants and patriots.

From Quiz Challenge Accepted!

Answer: Archimedes

Hiero II, king of Syracuse, commissioned a gold crown for a temple, as an offering to the gods. When he became suspicious of the goldsmith's actions, he challenged Archimedes to find a way to verify the purity of the crown without damaging it: after all, you wouldn't want to damage an authentic crown. Archimedes had a flash of inspiration while taking a bath. He noticed water spilling over the top when he got in, and this suggested the principle of density or buoyancy to him. He became so excited that he ran through the streets naked, shouting "Eureka!," and this is what he is most notorious for today. The crown was found to be debased, and the goldsmith dealt with accordingly.

From Quiz People Who Push The Envelope

Answer: Zola

It was a major scandal of its time; it took courage.

From Quiz You May Say I'm a Schemer

Answer: John Wilkes Booth

American actor and supporter of the Confederacy, John Wilkes Booth (1838-1865), assassinated President Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday of 1865, around the same time as the aftermath of the American Civil War. Booth was hellbent on committing the assassination and was even in attendance at Lincoln's inauguration for a second term, which took place only 41 days before the assassination. Lincoln's assassination took place at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. during a play. Booth shouted "sic semper tyrannis" upon fatally shooting the president. "Sic semper tyrannis" is a Latin phrase meaning "thus always to tyrants." The line is sometimes said to have been said by Brutus after he assassinated Julius Caesar, but there are no findings of ancient sources to back this up, making the phrase more of a modern invention. "Sic semper tyrannis" was also adopted as Virginia's state motto since 1776 (as shown on the Virginia state flag).

From Quiz PKs (Preachers' Kids) Who Made a Difference

Answer: Jane Austen

Austen was born in the small village of Steventon in Hampshire County, England. Although there is not much known about her childhood, we know that she came from a large family (six brothers and one sister). The family was considered happy and close, but not wealthy. Her father, George Austen, was the rector at the Anglican church in Steventon, where she wrote her two most successful novels, "Sense and Sensibility" and "Pride and Prejuduce". Although a successful writer, she was taken advantage of financially and after the death of her father, in 1805, Austen and her mother and sister struggled financially. Austen never married and died in 1817.

From Quiz A Sandwich Short of a Picnic

Answer: Pythagoras

Pythagoras was the Greek philosopher and mathematician credited with discovering the relationship between the lengths of the three sides of a right triangle. He and his followers were some of the earliest recorded vegetarians. Pythagoras believed that human souls transmigrate into the bodies of animals after death. What is strange is that he also forbade his followers from eating fava beans. He thought that the gas that resulted from eating them took away part of the soul or breath of life. His followers had to adhere to other strange rules, from always having to put on the right shoe first to requiring new initiates to pass the first five years in silence.

From Quiz Zoned Out Brilliant

Answer: A tendency to melancholy

Speculation leans toward Lincoln developing his melancholia from a number of issues that he endured as a child. The incidents generally put forward include the passing of his new born brother, though Lincoln was only three at the time, and the death of his mother when he was nine. At the same time he also lost an aunt and uncle who were dear to him. The image that is generally painted of Lincoln is that of a man with a morose exterior and one with a belief in fatalism and superstition. Lincoln, however, was a man of great humour and delighted in telling tales that generated belly laughs and, whilst he may well have been afflicted with some form of depression, there is doubt that it manifested itself as clinical depression. Those who favour this argument indicate that if he was as such it would have made him incapable of running the country though the alternate argument is that the President was able to evolve with his turmoils and developed methodologies to manage them.

From Quiz Questioning the Authorities

Answer: Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was a modern anarchist "jack of all trades". Trained as a physician, Guevara saw first hand the deplorable conditions suffered by the poor of Latin America. His experiences coalesced in a belief that only through a violent Marxist revolution would the plight of the underprivileged improve. Guevara was a key figure in the Cuban revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959. The once healing physician became a ruthless military commander. After the revolution, Guevara served as commander of the infamous La Cabaña Fortress prison where hundreds of Batista loyalist were tortured and killed. Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to try and spread the Marxist ideology to mainland South America. In 1966, he went to Bolivia and attempted to rally support for a coup of the government. Despite the instability that existed within Bolivia, Guevara's ideas were not well received. Backed by only a token force, Guevara was defeated and killed by the Bolivian army on October 9, 1967. Guevara's good looks and forceful personality made him an enduring, iconic rallying symbol for Marxist revolutionaries all over the globe.

From Quiz Reminder

Answer: Frank Wills

Frank Wills was a security guard in the Watergate complex. He noticed one night, during his patrol,that there was tape stuck to the locks of one of the doors to the Democratic National Committee headquarters. He removed the tape and moved on. He came back to see that there was tape again on the door. He then realised a robbery was going on and called the police. The burglars were caught and this set in motion the uncovering of a scandal that achieved sensational sensational proportions, involving President Richard Nixon. This scandal is now called the Watergate Scandal. At the end of it all, Nixon resigned and President Gerald Ford took office. He then later pardoned Nixon, which precluded prosecution for his role in the affair. Reminder: He was instrumental in one of the largest scandals in history! A lot of worlds were changed after that!

From Quiz Challenge Accepted!

Answer: Carl Gauss

This problem was supposed to give children practice with addition, but why take hours when all you need is seconds? Instead of just adding all the numbers together, Carl Gauss noticed a pattern, taking numbers from opposite ends of the given series: 1 + 100 = 101, 2 + 99 = 101, and so forth until 50 + 51 = 101. Because there are fifty pairs of 101s, the sum of them all is 5,050. This problem is commonly used today to teach children the importance of looking for patterns. Carl Gauss decided to become a mathematician and later, an astronomy professor. He took on numerous challenges that stumped people at the time, such as rediscovering the planetoid Ceres after it had been discovered but lost. Gauss is considered to be one of (if not the) greatest mathematicians of all time, and made prolific contributions to physics and astronomy as well.

From Quiz Great Minds

Answer: Friedrich Engels

Marx, key figure in socialism and communism, co-authored "Das Kapital" with Engels. The book had huge impact on political thought and in the longer term also in politics, too.

From Quiz People Who Push The Envelope

Answer: Aldous Huxley

Huxley, of 'Brave New World' fame.

From Quiz A Sandwich Short of a Picnic

Answer: Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790} was a true Renaissance man - diplomat, politician, scientist, inventor, writer, and philanthropist. He was one of the drafters of Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution and helped to negotiate the Treaty of Paris. He raised funds for the first public hospital and helped to start both the first lending library and the first all-volunteer fire brigade in the USA. His inventions ranged from bifocals, a lightning rod, a flexible urinary catheter, and swim fins to the "Franklin stove" a metal-lined fireplace that reduced smoke. In addition to his "air baths", some of his scientific experiments raised more than a few eyebrows. The most famous is when he ventured into a storm armed with a kite and a metal key to prove the existence of electricity. Another, which almost cost him his life, was when he tried to kill and cook a turkey for guests using electrocution. Unfortunately, he was holding some of the wires; instead of electrocuting the turkey, he sent the current through his own body. He often carried out electrical experiments with guests and is said to have once rigged a portrait of King George to give those touching it a jolt.

From Quiz Paradigm Nudge

Answer: Viagra

Pfizer scientists Andrew Bell, David Brown, and Nicholas Terrett were scientists looking to cure heart-related illnesses. Early takers of the drug that would be known as Viagra did not disclose the effects the drug had on them, but the researchers noted a desire for more of the pill!

From Quiz Reminder

Answer: Henry Dunant

Henry Dunant was a businessman from Switzerland who during a business trip was deeply affected by the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino. He translated these emotions into a book he called 'Un Souvenir de Solferino'. In this book, he described the toll that the war took on human life and the widespread injuries that war inflicts. He also appealed for an organization to be started that would aid soldiers and casualties of war. Then. in 1863. the Red Cross came into existence inspired by his writings. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. Reminder: We wouldn't have the Red Cross helping our soldiers out if not for the wise thoughts of Henry Dunant!

From Quiz Challenge Accepted!

Answer: Gordian Knot

An old legend states that the ancient city of Gordium (near modern-day Ankara, Turkey) was once without a king. An oracle had predicted that their king would come riding in a wagon, and as it happened a peasant named Gordius came to the city in an oxcart. Gordius became king, and dedicated his cart to Zeus. He tied it with an intricate knot, and a prophecy arose that whoever undid the knot would conquer the world. Some time later, Alexander the Great chanced upon Gordium and the knot. After failing to undo the knot by regular convention, he simply took his sword and cut it, thus 'undoing' it. Alexander is said to have gone on to conquer the world (though in actuality, he only got to India, and there was clearly much land beyond India that he never set foot in).

From Quiz Great Minds

Answer: He became a U.S. citizen as an adult

Einstein, best known for his "Theory of Relativity" (although he had much more to say in physics) was born and grew up abroad. He became a citizen of the U.S. in 1940--after the war in Europe had started, but before America entered it. Truly, he changed the face of the world.

From Quiz People Who Push The Envelope

Answer: John Peter Zenger

Zenger, the newspaperman

From Quiz You May Say I'm a Schemer

Answer: The Black Hand

Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918) was a Bosnian Serb who infamously assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in June of 1914 during the monarchs' official visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia. Princip was trained in terrorism by the Serbian secret society known as the Black Hand. The secret society is also called Ujedinjenje ili Smrt, "Union or Death." Princip wanted to destroy Austro-Hungarian rule in the Balkans and unite the South Slav peoples into a federal nation. The assassination of the Austro-Hungarian monarchs gave Austria-Hungary the excuse that it had sought to open hostilities against Serbia. This thus precipitated World War I which would engulf the rest of Europe until 1918.

From Quiz A Sandwich Short of a Picnic

Answer: Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linneaus (1707-1778) first published "Systema Naturae" in 1735. Among the categories he presented was Paradoxa" covering mythical, magical and suspect animals. Among said creatures were hydra, unicorns, satyrs, phoenix, and draco, a sort of winged lizard. A few, like the pelican, were subsequently proved to exist. The "Paradoxa" category was eliminated from the 1948 and subsequent editions.

From Quiz Paradigm Nudge

Answer: Cat-flap

Tired of opening the door of his darkroom to let his cat in and out, and thus affecting the light levels, Newton was inspired to make a door the cat could operate itself!

From Quiz Zoned Out Brilliant

Answer: Absinthe

You mention the name Van Gogh and people's thoughts leap to classic works such as "The Potato Eaters", "Starry Starry Night" and "Sunflowers". Alternatively it may trigger images of "that dude who cut off his own ear and tried to shoot himself". Van Gogh was a man of extremes - on the one hand he produced amazing works of art at an incredible pace and displayed great passion for his religion. At the other end he endured great periods of depression that has led many to suggest that he suffered from a bipolar disorder. Vincent was also a prolific writer of letters (leading to some speculation that he endured hypergraphia) and from these historians have noted his love affair with absinthe. There are also reports that he regularly consumed the oils and the turpentines that he used in his work, which may have also led to his epileptic episodes.

From Quiz Questioning the Authorities

Answer: Karl Marx

Karl Marx did not invent the economic concept of socialism but is inextricably linked to the rise of the socialist state in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Marx himself was the son of a successful German Jewish attorney and married into an upper class family. Marx was trained as a historian and economist, but became increasingly radicalized and took to writing aggressive political tracts. He was convinced that the industrial revolution created the spark for a class conflict between the owners of capital and the laboring classes. His philosophy coalesced in 1848 into a 12,000 word pamphlet called "The Communist Manifesto". Within the "Communist Manifesto" Marx urged the workingmen to rise up and unite to assume power. The radical ideas espoused in the Manifesto ultimately caused Marx to be expelled, country by country, from continental Europe. Marx was ostracized from the universities, unable to secure a teaching post, and at times could not support his family. He spent most of the rest of his life in England, where he continued to publish articles and pamphlets about the coming class war between the workers and the capitalists. His seminal economic treatise "Das Kapital" was first published in 1867. Marx died in 1883 convinced that the cause of worker revolution was inevitable. Marx's ideas served as the political science fuel for the Communist revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam and numerous other countries.

From Quiz Challenge Accepted!

Answer: Jean-François Champollion

Ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics until about 400 AD, at which point it was replaced with a Latin-hieroglyph combination called Coptic, in part due to Christian influence. As early as the 9th century, Arabs attempted to decipher the old hieroglyphics by comparing the script to Coptic. The famous Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, with an inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. The Greek inscription was deciphered by 1803. In 1814, Thomas Young made some headway into translating the Demotic and Ancient Egyptian by realizing that proper names were enclosed in cartouches, and was the first to suspect that hieroglyphics included an alphabetic element, but otherwise had little success in translating them. Jean-François Champollion was an expert linguist and nine years old when the Rosetta Stone was discovered. As a teenager, he had learned Coptic as well as numerous other languages. Starting with a sun-like symbol, which he reasoned must be pronounced "ra" (as the sun god Ra), Champollion used logic and his knowledge of Coptic to decipher most of the hieroglyphic language, publishing his results in 1822.

From Quiz Great Minds

Answer: The wife of a merchant

Da Vinci is always the first to come to mind whenever the phrase "renaissance man" is mentioned. A man of accomplishment in both art and science.

From Quiz People Who Push The Envelope

Answer: Edmund Hillary

Byrd and Peary were polar explorers.

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