Stories Of A Life - In Their Own Words Quiz

Answer: Nelson Mandela

Rolihlahla Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, and got the name "Nelson" when he went to school. He was the first in his family to do so.

After his father died when Mandela was aged 12, he was brought up by a tribal leader and developed an interest in African history. From the age of 16, a political awareness began to waken and he was a member of student council at university. He joined the African National Congress in 1942 and began to campaign against the apartheid policies of the South African government. Mandela insisted the protests should be peaceful. In 1961, he was jailed for five years for organising a strike and in 1963 with other leaders was jailed for life for political offences.

Mandela was to spend 27 years in prison until February 1990, most of those years on Robben Island. During this time he wrote his memoirs which were published as "Long Walk to Freedom" in 1994.

On release, his political activism continued and this eventually led to the ending of the old white-led political system. As a result, he and President de Klerk were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their work in dismantling apartheid.

Mandela died on December 5, 2013.

Answer: Mohandas Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2nd 1869, and died on January 30th, 1948. After attending local schools and marriage at the the of 13, Gandhi secured a place at the University of Bombay. He subsequently attended university in England and qualified as a lawyer. He returned to India but found work hard to come by and moved to South Africa. There he encountered the apartheid system at first hand and began to activate against it. In 1915, Gandhi and his family returned to Bombay and he worked his way up through the political opposition to British rule. Although he became a leading figure, his route was not easy, His party split and he also served a jail sentence. By the end of WW2, the situation in Britain had changed and the Labour Party was more amenable to independence for India. While that was to come in 1947, it was at the price of the separation of Hindu and Muslim areas; separations that dismayed Gandhi.

Gandhi espoused peaceful protests throughout his career and left behind a legacy of much-quoted observations (many of which show no evidence of having been said by him).

Answer: Anne Frank

Annelies Marie Frank was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 12, 1929 and died in Stalag XI-C, Germany, in February 1945. She was a member of a Jewish family that fled to Holland in 1933 as the National Socialist Party began to make life in Germany increasingly difficult for Jews. In 1942, the family went into hiding in a secret apartment behind her father's business in Amsterdam. In all, eight people eventually lived in the small space and Anne began to keep a diary. After two years in hiding, the family was betrayed to the Nazis and the members were taken to a concentration camp. Anne and her sister died of typhus.

The dairies she had written were eventually given to Anne's father, the only member of her close family to survive the war. He compiled them into a manuscript that was published in the Netherlands in 1947. It was published in the USA as "The Diary Of A Young Girl" in 1952; this is sometimes referred to as "The Diary of Anne Frank". It was made into a Hollywood movie in 1959, and remade into a TV mini-series in 2009.

Answer: Sally Field

Sally Field was born in Pasadena, California, on November 6, 1946. "In Pieces" was a detailed and brutally frank memoir in which she exposed the trauma of an abused childhood.

In 1965, Sally Field made her acting breakthrough in the TV sitcom "Gidget". A busy career on the small screen and in Hollywood followed. Field won Academy Awards for "Norma Rae" (1979) and "Places In The Heart" (1984). Field was aged 18 when she starred in the short-lived TV show "Gidget". It was to be the platform for a role in "The Flying Nun", which became a big hit. As well as acting, Field was a screenwriter and director.

Answer: Andre Agassi

Andre Agassi was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 29, 1970. From the age of seven, Agassi concentrated on a tennis career and, in his obituary, noted that his father was a hard taskmaster. Agassi went on to win eight grand slam titles and marry another tennis pro, Steffi Graf. The winning did not always make him happy. "Despite being good at it I had a deep resentment and even hatred of tennis," he told Donald McRae in a "Guardian" interview in 2017.

He set up the 'Andre Agassi Foundation for Education' at the age of 24. Tens of thousands of young people went through the foundation in the years that followed. One of the aims was to support young people at public schools in the Las Vegas area and to better prepare them for their continuing journey through the education system. Working with an investment fund, Agassi also oversaw the provision of more than 80 charter schools across the United States. During interviews, Agassi was candid about his reasons. Describing himself as "an eighth-grade dropout", he recognised that tennis was a life-changer for him, but other young people might not have the same chances, or choices.

Answer: Stephen King

Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, on September 21, 1947. In 1974, his first novel "Carrie" was published. He had been teaching and writing short stories when "Carrie" was published. "Carrie" was made into a movie in 1976 and again in 2013. By the time this quiz was written in 2020, he was said to have authored at least 95 books. It was reported in 2019 that at least 50 books had received movie or TV adaptations.

In March 2020, menshealth.com reported that King had earned at least $500m from his writing. In 2019 King was said to be the world's fifth top-earning author of the year, with sales of $17m.

In his memoir, King wrote: "Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy."

Answer: Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was born on ‎July 21, 1899 in ‎Oak Park, Illinois‎, and died on ‎July 2, 1961 in ‎Ketchum, Idaho‎. When America entered the First World War, Hemingway served in an ambulance unit with the Italian Army. After the war, he worked as reporter for newspapers in the USA and Canada. He returned to Europe to work and wrote, "The Sun Also Rises", his first major work, in Paris in 1926.

Ernest Hemingway was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 for "The Old Man and the Sea". It also earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Some sources have described Hemingway as "the twentieth century's most influential writer".

Answer: Barack Obama

Barack Obama was born on August 4 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles and then at Columbia University in New York City. In 1983, he graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. In 1991 he graduated from Harvard University's law school.

Obama became involved with the Democratic Party while working as a lawyer in Chicago. During this period he wrote "Dreams From My Father", which was published in 1995. The following year he was elected to the Illinois Senate and in 2008 was selected as the Democrats' presidential candidate. He won and served two terms in the White House.

Answer: Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama was born on January 17, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois. Obama came from a humble background in which the power of education was emphasised. She attended Princeton University, graduating in 1985 with a B.A. in Sociology. She gained a degree in law at Harvard, and during this period was involved in student activism. She met her husband-to-be be, Barack, when he was an intern at the Chicago law firm where she was employed. They married 1992 and had two daughters.

FLOTUS is, of course, an acronym for First Lady of The United States: wife of a serving president.

Answer: David Niven

David Niven was born in London on March 1, 1910 and died in Switzerland on July 29 1983. Niven was born into a military family and it seemed only natural that he should attend Sandhurst Military Academy. He served as a lieutenant in the Highland Light Infantry. But Niven was also artistically minded and, by the mid-1930s, was working an as extra in Hollywood. His first major role was in "Dawn Patrol", appropriately a war movie, in 1938. The following year he appeared in "Wuthering Heights".

As his star seemed set to rise, WW2 broke out. Niven was one of a few established British actors to return from Hollywood to serve their country. He finished the war as an Army Commando and returned to Hollywood. Noted for his dapper appearance and his way with gentle humour, Niven found work plentiful. He won an Oscar for "Separate Tables" (1958). Other notable roles included "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956), "The Guns of Navarone" (1961), "The Pink Panther" (1963), and "Death On The Nile" (1978). His final movie was "Curse of the Pink Panther", which was completed just a short time before his death in 1983.

David Niven was also a novelist and published two autobiographies, "The Moon's a Balloon" (1971) and "Bring on the Empty Horses" (1975).