Then I Saw Her Mace Trivia Quiz

Answer: Anne Bonny

Anne Cormac's father was a failed lawyer, and then a successful merchant in South Carolina. In her early teens she married the pirate James Bonny. That part of her life did not go well either and she ended up in the Bahamas where she married "Calico Jack" Rackham, a successful pirate. Finally captured, Rackham and most of his crew were hanged. Bonny was spared death only because she was pregnant at the time.

Answer: Tru'ng

Tru'ng Trac and Tru'ng Nhi grew up in a military family during the first Chinese domination of Vietnam. When Trac's husband was killed (in 40 A.D.) the sisters raised an army of 80,000, including their mother and 35 other women whom they trained as generals. Vietnamese women had many more liberties at that time than in later years.

The army drove the Chinese out, but after three years of fighting against superior numbers and weaponry, the Tru'ngs and their army were finally defeated.

Answer: Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc began having visions of saints when she was thirteen, telling her to help drive out English invaders and support Crown Prince Charles' attempt to gain the monarchy. At the age of sixteen she somehow convinced Charles to let her attempt to break the siege of Orleans, which had been going on for years.

She rallied the French army and the siege was lifted in nine days. Later captured by the English, she was tried for heresy and burned at the stake in 1431. In 1456, Pope Callixtus III reviewed the trial and declared her a martyr.

The Roman Catholic Church canonized her a saint in 1920.

Answer: Marina Raskova

After deciding opera and drama studies put too much stress on her, Marina Raskova worked as a chemist and then went to work for the Soviet Air Force Academy. In 1933, she was the first woman to become a navigator in the air force. When World War II started, she used her personal connections with Joseph Stalin to convince the military to form three female combat regiments. Her regiments fought well with numerous German aircraft destroyed. She died in a plane crash in 1943. In 2012, Russia honored her with a stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of her birth.

Marina Sirtis played the character of Deanna Troi in "Star Trek".

Answer: Ching Shih

Working as a prostitute in Guangzhou, China, Ching Shih was captured by pirates in 1801 and married pirate captain Cheng Yi. After his death in 1807, she took over the business. Estimates are that between 20,000 and 80,000 pirates were in her fleet. She ruled with an iron fist, beheading those who disagreed with her or nailing them to the deck and beating them senseless.

After the Chinese navy lost 63 ships to her, the government offered her amnesty, which she accepted and retired with most of her plunderings.

Answer: Jeanne de Clisson

Jeanne De Clisson lived a comfortable upper class life in France until 1343, when King Philip VI ordered her husband's execution. In retaliation she sold her family's estates and raised an army, fighting against the French in Brittany. She escaped to England where she bought three warships, which she had painted black and had the sails dyed a dark red. For thirteen years she committed acts of piracy against French ships in the English Channel, usually killing all but a few French sailors so they could return and tell the king who defeated them.

She acquired the moniker "The Lioness of Brittany". Finally, in 1356, she married again and retired to Hennebont, Brittany (under English control at the time).

Answer: Juana Azurduy de Padilla

Juana Azurduy and her husband Manuel Ascencio Padilla were leaders in fighting the Spanish in Bolivia from 1809 to 1825. She achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. She even fought while pregnant, stopping to deliver a baby, and reentering the fight a few days later. She had about 6,000 soldiers under her command.

Answer: Molly Pitcher

As the Continental Army wintered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1777, Martha Washington led a group of women who washed soldiers' clothes and cared for the wounded. One of them was Mary Hayes, whose husband, William, was in the 4th Pennsylvania Artillery.

She served as a water carrier for the artillery troops, bringing water to cool the cannon barrels and to soak the ramrod to extinguish sparks before the next powder charge was put in; she probably earned her nickname from the soldiers calling "Molly! Pitcher!" when they wanted the guns cooled.

In the battle of Monmouth, New Jersey, in June, 1778, her husband was either wounded or collapsed from heat exhaustion (accounts are sketchy), so she took over his post of loading the cannon. Afterwards, General George Washington made her a non-commissioned officer.

She used the moniker "Sergeant Molly" for the rest of her life.

Answer: Sadie Farrell

Sadie Farrell got one of her nicknames, Sadie the Goat, from her violent attacks on people, head-butting them. After fellow tough Gallus Mag bit off her ear, Farrell turned to being a pirate on the Hudson and Harlem rivers around New York City. Besides raiding river traffic, she and her crew sometimes plundered riverfront mansions and farms.

After several months, farmers started shooting at her boat when they saw it coming. Then known as the "Queen of the Waterfront", Farrell made peace with Mag, who returned the ear she had bitten off. Wasn't that nice? Farrell kept it in a locket she wore for the rest of her life.

Answer: Queen Boudica

Boudica was queen of the Iceni tribe of Britain in the first century. Her husband, Prasutagus, left his kingdom to his daughters and Roman Emperor Claudius when he died. Claudius ignored the will and decided to turn the kingdom into a Roman province. In 60 A.D., Boudica rebelled, calling on perhaps 100,000 Celtic tribesmen to fight the Romans, which they did, pushing them out of London and burning the city and two others in the process.

The new emperor, Nero, considered removing Roman troops from Britain but the Celts were finally overcome. Boudica may have succumbed to illness or committed suicide.

The burning of London left a charred layer half a meter thick which can still be found under the city. Her deeds were largely forgotten until the Middle Ages and again during the reign of Queen Victoria.