Dog and Pony Show Trivia Quiz

Answer: The League of Nations

The League of Nations was the brainchild of President Woodrow Wilson, who, in his January 1918 speech "The Fourteen Points" argued that "A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike." The League was in place between 1919 and 1946, when it was replaced by the modern United Nations. Although the organization had modest successes, it failed at somewhat major tasks, such as preventing World War II. Much of its power was diminished by America's failure to join. Wilson's campaigning for the League earned him the Nobel Prize in 1919, but not Senate approval. Opposition to the treaty was primarily led by unofficial Senate Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge Sr., as well as a group of thirteen senators known collectively as the "irreconcilables", who wouldn't accept the treaty even with compromise.

That in mind, Wilson decided to go on a cross-country tour to promote his agenda. Perhaps the president didn't realize that convincing ordinary Americans of his ideas was unlikely to be effective, as the Senate approved the treaty, and senatorial elections were only held every six years. Popular election of senators was an entirely new concept, introduced in the Seventeenth Amendment that same decade.

The tour was a spectacular failure, especially because Wilson had several horrible strokes, brought on by fatigue, beginning in September 1919. The president was left incapacitated for the rest of his term; his wife Edith ended up making several executive decisions on his behalf. For that reason, she has been called the "Secret President" and even the first female president of the US.

Answer: Grigory Potemkin

The Russian Empire reached one of its greatest peaks under Empress Catherine the Great, who served between 1762 and 1796, acceding to the throne after the death of her husband Peter III. Catherine was a model "enlightened despot." Despite ruling with a tight fist, she allowed the arts to flourish, opening the Hermitage museum in present-day St. Petersburg, and carrying on a lengthy correspondence with Voltaire. Nevertheless, Catherine grew infamous for her sexual dalliances. Although some have been debunked--her alleged death under a horse is definitively false--perhaps none of her lovers has gained as much fame, and infamy, as Grigory Potemkin.

Potemkin helped Catherine's ascent to the throne and was rewarded with a governorship in Crimea, then southwestern Russia, after he captured land from the Ottomans in war. When Catherine came to visit, he allegedly spent large amounts of money constructing fake "villages" which appeared far more wealthy and prosperous than was actually true. Whether or not Potemkin actually built new towns and facades is historically uncertain, but he has become an eponym for fake decorations designed to distract foreigners. A century later, Sergei Eisenstein called his dramatic propaganda film about the horrors of the tsarist regime, "The Battleship Potemkin."

Answer: Dreyfus was Jewish.

Perhaps no historical event better defines "political pandering" than the disgraceful affair of Alfred Dreyfus, who was imprisoned on Devil's Island, off the coast of South America, for no reason other than the fact that he was Jewish.

When the French military learned in 1894 that military secrets had been sold to Germany, blame immediately fell on the Jewish captain. He was summarily tried and convicted without any real evidence at all. Two years later, another French officer, Lt. Colonel Picquart, revealed that the treason had been committed by a Major Esterhazy. Picquart's finding was rewarded with a one-way ticket to Tunisia. France, not eager to let the news spread about the obvious anti-Semitism in the upper echelons of the military, then punished one of the best-known authors of the nineteenth century, Emile Zola. Zola had published an open letter in a newspaper titled "J'Accuse", in which he pointed out the obvious injustice done to Dreyfus. Zola also got kicked out of France, for libel, but he went to Britain instead.

Astoundingly, the dog and pony show went on for years. Dreyfus was convicted AGAIN in 1900, even though there still wasn't any legitimate evidence he had done anything wrong. He wasn't fully exonerated until 1906, more than a decade after he had first been sent to prison.

Answer: Anastasia Romanova

150 years after Catherine, another Russian female royal gained international fame, but for an entirely different reason, Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanova, the daughter of unpopular Russian Tsar Nicholas II, was among the targets of the Bolshevik coup in November 1917 (usually called the "October Revolution"). When the Communists seized power, the royal family was moved around Russia and on 17 July 1918 it was gunned down mercilessly in Yekaterinburg. Mythically, the family was holding so many jewels that the bullets deflected--at first. Anastasia's remains weren't immediately identified, so rumors in the West surfaces that one member of the royal family had survived the killings.

The most famous of these Anastasia impersonators was Anna Anderson, an unknown German woman who had attempted suicide in 1920. The mysterious insane woman, who couldn't remember anything about her past, was convinced that she really was the daughter of the Russian emperor, and began calling herself "Tschaikovsky" and speaking with a Russian accent. Even a few wayward associates of the royal family accepted that the woman really could be Anastasia (many more denied the resemblance). Deeper investigations into the matter suggested that "Tschaikovsky" was really a Polish factory employee who was injured physically and mentally by a grenade explosion. Regardless, the woman gained so much attention that she moved to the United States, where there was more sympathy. Acclaimed Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff arranged for her living quarters, and she changed her name to "Anna Anderson".

Soon, Anderson was back in mental institutions, though, and she moved back to Germany. Allegations of her lies spread, and Anderson began a record-setting lawsuit which would last decades accusing newspapers of libel. She eventually gave up, moved back to the US, and passed away in 1984. Posthumous DNA evidence show conclusively what many suspected--Anderson had fabricated the whole story, intentionally or not.

Other women claimed to be the missing daughter of Nicholas II as well, but the missing duchess' remains were found in the early 21st century.

Answer: Idi Amin

Idi Amin led Uganda for less than a decade, serving between 1971 and 1979, but the East African nation suffered miserably under the tyrant. The number of people who were killed because of Amin is in the hundreds of thousands. Coming to power in January 1971, seizing the presidency from Milton Obote in a military coup, Amin lost little time. In August 1972, he issued a bizarre order: eighty thousand ethnic Asians, living in Uganda with British passports, were to be expelled. Only Asian doctors, teachers, and lawyers were allowed to remain. The end result of the policy was nationalization of many of the businesses owned by successful proprietors, which had disastrous consequences.

Frankly, being expelled from Uganda wasn't the worst punishment in the 70s. Amin massacred thousands of Obote's supporters, and all critics of his rule were hurriedly executed. In June 1976, Amin allowed a plane which was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists to land at the Entebbe airfield in Uganda. Israelis aboard the plane were taken hostage. In response, Israel launched a swift airstrike against the Ugandans which succeeded in freeing the hostages with very few casualties. One of the few Israelis to die in the operation was Yonatan Netanyahu, the brother of Benjamin, who became Prime Minister of Israel in 2009. The entire incident brought international condemnation of Amin's rule.

Whether or not Amin was a cannibal is still uncertain, though most historians dispute the point.

Answer: John Scopes

In 1925, the state of Tennessee passed a law called the Butler Act preventing schools from teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. The minor incident ballooned into a nation-wide trial, which American wit H L Mencken would eventually refer to as the "Scopes Monkey" trial for its utter ridiculousness.

Enter John Scopes, essentially a pawn of the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization which promised to legally defend anyone who challenged the Butler Act. A Tennessee engineer and manager of the regional coal company, George Rappleyea, convinced Scopes to teach about evolution in his biology class to bring some attention to the city of Dayton. Scopes accepted. Hilariously, the state-mandated textbook included a chapter on evolution anyway, so Scopes' crime was minimal at the least.

Things heated up, however, when the ACLU managed to acquire nationally-famous lawyer Clarence Darrow, who had gained attention the year before for his ultimately-unsuccessful defense of Leopold and Loeb, the so-called "perfect criminals". The state of Tennessee acquired an even bigger name, though, inviting evangelical Christian, ex-Secretary of State, and three-time presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan.

The minor case took on huge proportions. Darrow succeeded in making Bryan look like an idiot, asking the prosecution when exactly the flood in the Bible took place, and inquiring where exactly Cain got his wife from (Bryan famously responded that he'd let the agnostics hunt for her). Nevertheless, Scopes lost and was forced to pay the enormous $100 fine for the entire episode. The trial was later adapted into the play and movie "Inherit the Wind."

Answer: Temple of Artemis

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was first constructed during the Bronze Age, but in the 7th century BCE, it was destroyed in a flood. The famously wealthy Lydian ruler Croesus spent time and money reconstructing the building. However, in 356 BCE, an unknown Herostratos decided to set fire to the temple. His only desire, apparently, was to have his name set down in history books for setting fire to the temple. And he succeeded. The phrase "herostratic fame", or fame at any cost whatsoever, lives on.

Interesting, the burning of the temple corresponded almost exactly to the day of birth of Alexander the Great. Roman historian Plutarch claimed that the gods were so busy with Alexander that they weren't paying attention to Herostratos. Alexander later offered to rebuild the temple, but the inhabitants of Ephesus paid a pretty penny to get a model reconstructed, years later.

Answer: Charles II

In 1649, King Charles I was executed by Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War, which resulted in Lord Protector and staunch Protestant Oliver Cromwell taking the lead of the new Commonwealth. After Cromwell's death in 1658, however, a power vacuum resulted. Charles I's son, the soon-to-be Charles II, was invited back from the Netherlands to take the throne, in what became known as the Restoration.

Understandably, anti-royalists in England were unhappy with the return to the monarchy. Taking advantage of religious and political tensions, a once-accused perjuring Anglican priest named Titus Oates seized national attention when he outlined a "Popish Plot" to assassinate Charles II. Of course, the entire story was made up, and Charles realized it. But Parliament didn't. A witch hunt for Catholics across England resulted in the death of hundreds, and the issue ended up rousing much conflict between Charles and his legislators. Earlier in his reign, Charles had decreed the Declaration of Indulgence ending persecution of Catholics; he was forced to withdraw the declaration and also agree to the Test Act, which forced government officials to observe certain Anglican rituals. In 1679, the House of Commons passed the Exclusion Bill, which prevented Charles' Catholic relatives from ascending the throne. Support for the Exclusion Bill led to the first use of the terms "Tory" and "Whig" in politics. Finally, in 1681, Oates' 17th century McCarthyism ended when the liar was put into jail. Charles' successor James II took power in 1685.

Answer: Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison, noted inventor of the phonograph, electric light bulb, stock ticker, and various other things I can't fit into this sentence, hit the wall when it came to actual implementation of electric current. Edison was a proponent of the use of direct current (DC), and in this regard, he was opposed by the inventor of the air brake, George Westinghouse. Westinghouse believed in using alternating current (AC) instead. Part of the enmity between the two entrepreneurs arose because the European inventor, Nikola Tesla, supported Westinghouse, and invented an AC motor to prove that alternating current was more efficient.

The petty dispute took on epic proportions, though, when Edison was asked by the state of New York what the best way was to execute prisoners. Edison responded by paying Harold Brown to invent the electric chair, which, of course, used alternating current. Even more hilariously, Edison created a movie (another of the inventor's discoveries) of the electrocution, with alternating current, of an elephant named Topsy. The whole controversy became known as the War of the Currents, and unsurprisingly, Edison lost. In 1893, Westinghouse wired the World's Fair in Chicago with AC circuitry. Nearly all appliances today use AC.

Answer: Formosus was dead.

The story of the Cadaver Synod begins with Pope John VIII, who, concerned with the rising popularity of his bishop Formosus, excommunicated the bishop. According to one contemporary account, Formosus was only accepted back by the Church by promising that he'd live the rest of his life as a layman, with no ecclesiastical position.

After John's death, Formosus rapidly rose back through the Church's ranks, ultimately becoming Pope in 891. His reign lasted only five years, as the duress of the office, and distrust of the Pope limited his efficacy. He died in 896, and was replaced by Stephen.

Here's where it gets interesting, though. For reasons which cannot easily be contemplated, Stephen ordered Formosus to be put on trial for his crimes in January 897. The corpse, surprisingly enough, was unable to respond to pointed questions about his crimes, which included usurping the Holy See, and backtracking on a practice to quit his position in the Church. All the actions of the Pope were declared null. Then Stephen and company cut off Formosus' fingers, buried the corpse once more, then dug him up, attached weights to his body, and threw him into the river. To a Pope!

Hilariously, rumors spread around Rome that miracles were being performed by the body of Formosus, whose body washed up ashore. Public outcry led Stephen himself to be deposed and murdered in prison.