How To Build Your Own Monster Trivia Quiz

Answer: North Carolina

Edward Teach (or Thatch), known as Blackbeard, was a pirate who operated in the West Indies and North America from his armed ship "Queen Anne's Revenge", a French merchant vessel which he commandeered. Teach had a fearsome reputation which was enhanced by his appearance.

Despite his extraordinary beard, he would tie lit fuses from under his hat which would make him look frightful and surround him in a halo of smoke. The Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood sent a group of soldiers and sailors under the command of Captain Maynard to capture Teach where he was moored near the island of Ocracoke. Teach fought valiantly and sustained multiple gunshots and stab wounds.

He was decapitated by one of the sailors and his head hung from the bowsprit of Maynard's vessel.

Answer: Moscow Brain Research Institute

Vladimir Lenin, head of the Bolshevik Party, seized power in Russia in 1917. He was responsible for establishing the Cheka, Russia's much feared secret police. He was responsible for forming the USSR (Union of Socialist Republics) and became its first leader.

He would eventually be replaced as leader by Joseph Stalin. Lenin suffered a number of strokes and eventually died of a brain haemorrhage in 1924. The Moscow Brain Institute was established in 1928 and housed a number of prominent brains, including Stalin, author Maxim Gorky and of course Lenin.

The Institute was renamed the Brain Research Department of the Research Center of Neurology. According to 2014 museum director, head of anatomy and architectonics, Irina Bogolepova, "We cut the average brain into only 2,000 or 3,000 slices. Only Lenin got 30,000."

Answer: Horn button

Sammy Davis Jr. was an actor, singer and comedian. He acted in forty films, including the 1960 Rat Pack film "Ocean's 11". He recorded a number of albums and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. He also won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.

He went on to win an Emmy Award in 1990 and was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. The automobile accident in 1954 that caused him to lose his eye, took place on the famous Route 66. The bullet shaped horn button, a feature in 1954 and 1955 Cadillacs, was responsible.

He was fitted with a glass eye which he wore for the rest of his life.

Answer: Merchant ship

Captain Robert Jenkins was the captain of the merchant ship 'Rebecca'. His ear was severed by Spanish coast guards who boarded his vessel who suspected that Jenkins and his crew may have been involved in smuggling. The commander of the guards, Juan de León Fandiño, reportedly told Jenkins, "Go, and tell your King that I will do the same, if he dares to do the same." This was seen by the British as an insult to their honour and an act to provoke war.

The British came off second best in terms of casualties and losses, having almost four times as many dead and more than twice as many lost ships. No evidence supports the tale that Jenkins presented his severed ear to parliament, however.

Answer: Jesuits

Francis Xavier was a Roman Catholic missionary who was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. His missionary work took place predominantly in Asia and he is known as the "Apostle of Japan" and the "Apostle of the Indies". Together with Ignatius of Loyola (canonized at the same time as Xavier), he founded the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits.

He died in China and was originally buried on a beach on Shangchuan Island, but was removed and sent to Goa, India. His body can be found in a glass container in the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Goa.

His forearm was removed in 1914 and has been in Rome ever since, although it did make a tour of Australia in 2012 and Canada in 2017-2018. Another of his arm bones rests in St. Joseph's Church in Macau, China.

Answer: Exploding hand grenade

Boris Yeltsin was president of Russia from 1991 to 1999 succeeding Mikhail Gorbachev and was in turn succeeded by Vladimir Putin. He was the first freely elected leader in Russia's history. As a youth he and friends stole hand grenades from a Red Army supply depot.

The grenade he was disassembling blew up in his hand and he lost the two fingers. Yeltsin resigned as president under suspicion of bribery and new president, Vladimir Putin, gave him lifelong immunity from prosecution. He died of congestive heart failure eight years later in 2007.

Answer: National Museum of Health and Medicine

Major-General Dan Sickles was a controversial character. During the Civil War, he was given command of the III Corps. During the Battle of Gettysburg, he violated orders and marched his troops into an indefensible position which led to the unit being almost completely destroyed. Historians have recently credited Sickles' violation of orders as having a larger impact on the course of events and having "unwittingly foiled Lee's hopes". Thirty-four years later he received the Medal of Honour. Sickles is also credited with being the first to use the 'temporary insanity' plea, after he killed the son of Francis Scott Key, author of the American national anthem.

The American Army Museum, now known as the National Museum of Health and Medicine, houses over twenty-five million artefacts including the brain of Albert Einstein and all the items related to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Answer: England

Thomas Paine has been described as a revolutionary, political activist and philosopher. His pamphlets "Common Sense" and "The American Crisis" were so popular that John Adams once remarked, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain".

Despite all this, he would later fall foul of all his allies including Presidents George Washington and John Adams. Upon his death in 1809, Paine was denied burial in New Rochelle by the Quakers and was buried on his farm. William Cobbett, an English journalist, dug up his bones in 1819 and transported them to England with the idea to rebury Paine in his homeland. Upon Cobbett's own death in 1835, Paine's bones were still amongst his effects. No record has been found regarding the whereabouts of Paine's body, but numerous people have claimed through the years to be in possession of various body parts.

Answer: A church in Poland

Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849) was born in a village west of Warsaw. The reason his names sound French is due to his father who was in fact a Frenchman who emigrated to Poland. Chopin's mother was Polish, however. Despite dying at a very young age, Chopin managed to compose a number of works and was held in high regard as a talented composer while only performing publicly approximately thirty times in his career.

He was buried in Paris, but his heart was returned and buried in Poland at his request. Chopin was afraid of being buried alive and his last words were "Swear to make them cut me open, so I won't be buried alive".

His heart was placed in a jar filled with cognac and has remained unopened and was entombed in the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw, Poland.

His death certificate states that he died of tuberculosis, but a visual examination of his heart suggests that he died of pericarditis which was probably caused by tuberculosis.

Answer: Lizzie Halliday

Lizzie Halliday was convicted of killing two women, Margaret and Sarah Jane McQuillan, but she was believed to have killed her husband Paul Halliday and stepson John Halliday. It was revealed that Halliday had been married five times previously and that two of those husbands had died as well. She apparently tried to poison a third as well. Lizzie also claimed that she had killed a husband in Ireland too and covered up the murder. She was convicted and sentenced to death in 1894, but her sentence was commuted to life in a mental institution after being declared insane by a medical commission. While institutionalised, she stabbed a nurse to death with a pair of scissors, stabbing her two hundred times.

Martha M. Place, murdered her step daughter in February, 1898. She was sentenced to death and was executed a year later in March, 1899. Theodore Roosevelt was asked to commute her sentence, but refused.