E is for Ego Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dale Earnhardt

Dale Earnhardt was a professional NASCAR driver, frustrated by his inability to win the Daytona 500. Finally, his long ambition came true in 1998. Ironically, he was also to lose his life at Daytona two years later.

Earnhardt won 75 races between 1975 and 2000. He was known for his aggressive style that won him the moniker "The Intimidator".

Answer: Wyatt Earp

The gun fight at the OK Corral lasted only thirty seconds but has become the most legendary shoot-out of the American west, portrayed in endless versions in literature, film, television, and the general media. Representing the law were Town Marshal Virgil Earp, special policemen Morgan Earp, Wyatt Earp, and Doc Holliday.

The outlaws were Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury. Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers were killed. Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday were wounded, but Wyatt Earp was unharmed.

Answer: Gertrude Ederle

Gertrude Caroline Ederle (Queen of the Waves) was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. The time was 14 hours and 34 minutes. She was greeted by a British immigration officer who requested a passport from the tired waterlogged teen.

Answer: John Edwards

John Edwards, Senator from North Carolina, was John Kerry's selection for vice president in 2004 but lost to the Bush/Cheney ticket. He conducted two personal primary campaigns for president in 2008 and 2012. His career suffered a blow as he began an affair in 2007 with Rielle Hunter with whom he sired a love child in 2008.

His wife Elizabeth was an asset in the 2004 campaign but was diagnosed with cancer that same year. In the public eye he was viewed as deserting his cancer-stricken wife for the affair. Elizabeth died in 2010.

He was accused of misuse of campaign funds but was acquitted. He returned to private law practice in North Carolina.

Answer: Eleanor

Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages both in terms of wealth and politics. She played a significant role in forming the unsuccessful Second Crusade. Her marriage to Louis VII ended in annulment as she had not produced a male heir in fifteen years.

He second husband was the Duke of Normandy who became Henry II of England. While their son, Richard the Lionhearted, was away during a later crusade, Eleanor ruled as regent during his absence. She had ten children, two daughters with Louis VII and five sons and three daughters with Henry II.

Answer: Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was one of the musicians and jazz band leaders who help to bring jazz out of the back room to an art form. He spent fifty years playing, composing, and promoting his music. The New York elite flocked to Harlem's Cotton Club to hear his music in the 1930s. He seldom used the word 'jazz' but referred to the genre as 'American music'. Ellington's appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1956 revived his career and found his band in demand domestically and internationally.

By the way, how did you get to the Cotton Club? You took the "A Train".

Answer: Evert

Christine Marie Evert is a retired American World tennis player. She won 18 Grand Slam singles championships and three doubles titles. She was ranked as the number one in the world in seven of eight consecutive years between 1974 and 1981. Evert won 157 singles championships and 32 doubles titles.

Answer: Edison

Thomas Edison called to fact that invention was more perspiration than inspiration. He meant that a new invention was the result of many trial and error efforts. Tungsten was not the first element tried for the filament of the light bulb. What would our world be like without motion pictures, sound recording, and other improvements on other inventions? Modern technology has brought many of his inventions to a spectacular level.

Answer: Emerson

Transcendentalism was an idealistic philosophical movement in New England in 1836. It taught that God pervades all nature and humanity. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were central figures. Emerson took the more intellectual approach in his essays, poems, and lectures. His friend Thoreau chose to live those principles by his stay at Walden Pond.

Emerson's most famous essay is "Self Reliance"(1841). Emerson's themes are for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow their own instincts.

Answer: Eden

Barbara Eden's characterization of the genie Jeannie was something of a television landmark in the sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" (1965-1970). Larry Hagman played the astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries. Jeannie has skimpy costumes but the network would not allow her to show her belly button.

The bottle that she lived in and disappeared into with a puff of smoke was actually an old Jack Daniels whiskey bottle.