Call Me Crazy Trivia Quiz

Answer: Caligula

It's hard to know what to believe about Caligula, whose real name was Gaius. He was given the name "Caligula," or "little boots," by his father Germanicus' soldiers. All the surviving histories of his reign were written by members of the senatorial class who were vehemently opposed to his policies. But every ancient source agrees that Caligula was a bad one. A very bad one.

Despite rumors that he had smothered Tiberius to death, his reign began smoothly, and for the first six months or so he governed well. Then he fell ill, and, after he had recovered, his entire personality changed. He may have suffered brain damage from a fever. At any rate, he went from being a benevolent ruler to a tyrannical despot nearly overnight.

Caligula was accused of incestuous affairs with his sisters, ordered the execution of many distinguished Roman citizens on trumped up charges, was said to have routinely raped the wives of his dinner guests, and killed off most of his relatives. He plunged the empire into financial chaos by squandering the the nearly three billion sesterces left in the imperial treasury by Tiberius. He ordered the people to worship him as a god, and, to show his contempt for the Senate, tried to get his favorite horse, Incitatus, named consul.

Caligula's biggest mistake was to alienate several officers in the Praetorian Guard, notably Cassius Chaerea, a battle-hardened veteran whom he would taunt by devising passwords such as "Venus" (Roman slang for a eunuch) and "give us a kiss." Eventually Cassius Chaerea had had enough. In 41 AD he and some fellow officers stabbed Caligula to death in an underground passage leading to the imperial palace as the emperor was returning from the theatre. They also killed his wife and infant daughter.

While some of Caligula's vices and misdeeds may have been invented or exaggerated, there is little doubt that most people would regard him as crazy.

Answer: Diogenes

Diogenes of Sinope (412-323 BC) would be locked up in an insane asylum if he were alive today. He belonged to the philosophical school called Cynics, whose name means "dog-like." He appears to have been banished from his native city of Sinope for debasing the coinage.

He then went to Athens where he lived in a large clay wine jar in the marketplace. He earned his living by begging, and performed all his bodily functions in public. He was said to carry a lantern even during the daylight, and if asked why, he would say he was looking for an honest man.

He seems to have had a habit of spitting and urinating on people. Most of what we know of him are anecdotes which may or may not be true. Plato described him as "a Socrates gone mad."

Answer: Isaac Newton

A lot of scientists are a bit eccentric, but Isaac Newton was rumored to be as nutty as a fruitcake. His fellow scientists certainly regarded him as odd. His scientific and mathematical studies were a bit of a sideline; he actually spent most of his time looking for secret codes in the Bible, and studying astrology and alchemy.

He claimed to have calculated the exact date of Christ's crucifixion (April 3, 33 AD) and the Apocalypse (2060 AD). He spent much of his life searching for the philosopher's stone, which could convert lead into gold and ensure eternal life; some believe the exposure to lead and mercury in his experiments may have shortened his life. Newton was evidently somewhat paranoid, and published little during his lifetime.

He was also afraid of women, and is believed to have died a virgin though he did admit to having "lewd dreams".

Answer: Charles VI

Charles VI became King of France at the age of 11, in 1380. As a young man, he seemed perfectly normal, and his wise and prosperous rule earned him the nickname of "Charles the Beloved." Then one day when he was 20, he suddenly went insane and killed four of his own knights, and tried to kill his own brother. It was all downhill after that.

For the next 32 years, Charles alternated between periods of sanity and lunacy. He would often forget he was king, sometimes forgot his own name, and failed to recognize his wife and children. Sometimes he would run around howling like a wolf. But what sets Charles apart from other crazed royalty was a recurring delusion that he was made of glass, and that he would shatter if anyone touched him. He even had iron bars sewn into his clothing to prevent damage. In 1405 he refused to wash or change his clothes for five months. Naturally, Charles' mental problems allowed his enemies, the English and the Burgundians, to to take advantage of the situation. Charles was forced to sign a treaty naming England's Henry V as his heir. It all worked out in the end, though. Henry V married Charles' daughter, Katherine of Valois, and their son, Henry VI, went mad as well, so the French were able to recover their independence and territory during his troubled reign.

Answer: Mary Todd Lincoln

Mary Todd Lincoln has received some favorable press from revisionist historians, particularly those with a feminist bent. It is certainly true that she underwent some very traumatic experiences. But it is also true that her behavior was not that of a sane person.

Mary Todd had been born into a wealthy Kentucky family. After her mother died, Mary had a very poor relationship with her stepmother. She eventually moved to Springfield, Illinois to stay with her sister, and there eventually met and married Abraham Lincoln.

Even before Lincoln achieved national prominence, there were stories about Mary Lincoln's strange behavior. She treated her servants and tradesmen badly, and was said to have threatened her husband with a knife on at least one occasion. After Lincoln was elected President, she went on a spending spree, embarrassing her husband by spending huge sums to redecorate the White House while Union troops lacked even the basic necessities. She soon became notorious for her mood swings and violent outbursts, and these increased after the death of her son, Willie, in 1862. Her mourning was so intense that Lincoln himself threatened to have her sent to an "asylum." She began inviting mediums to the White House in an attempt to communicate with her dead son and other loved ones.

When her husband was shot by John Wilkes Booth, she became so hysterical that she was ordered removed from the room where he was dying. After the death of her son Tad in 1871, Mary Lincoln seems to have become totally unhinged. She began wandering around with money sewn in her nightclothes, suffering from severe depression, going on yet more spending sprees, and imagining all sorts of things. After she tried to jump out of a window to escape from a nonexistent fire, her sole surviving child, Robert, had her sent to a private sanatorium called Bellevue Place in 1875.

Mary Lincoln used her influence to obtain her release from the institution, and after a trip to Europe, she lived out her days at her sister's home in Springfield, sitting all day in a room with the curtains drawn. She died there in 1882.

There is still no unanimous opinion as to whether Mary Todd Lincoln was actually crazy, or just a poor woman who could not deal with all the bad things that happened to her. While our inclination may be to sympathize with her, it must be noted that she began exhibiting odd behavior before she experienced the tragedies that marked her life, and that most of us are able to manage grief more effectively than she did. It should also be mentioned that many of her brothers and sisters suffered from mental illness. So the debate will probably continue, at least for a while.

Answer: Stephen VI

Stephen VI (or Stephen VII in some sources; the Papacy wasn't too sure about its numbering system) was a real piece of work. He became Pope on May 22, 896 after possibly murdering Boniface VI, who had lasted a mere 15 days. His real quarrel, however, was with Pope Formosus, who had preceded Boniface VI. Formosus had reigned from 891 to April 4, 896. Despite being 75 years old at the time of his election, this Pope had taken the name Formosus, which means "handsome" in Latin. Formosus had been censured for his ambitions by John VIII (reigned 872-882). Formosus had eventually been successful in obtaining the Papacy, however, and Stephen VI found this intolerable. He ordered Formosus' body dug up, dressed in his Papal robes, and placed on trial. By this time, Formosus had been dead for nine months.

Stephen VI acted as the prosecution, screaming charges at the dead man, and generally frothing at the mouth. Since Formosus was not in a condition to mount much of a defense, Pope Stephen ordered a teen-aged deacon to crouch behind Formosus' throne and answer for him. To no one's surprise, Formosus was found guilty of "usurping the universal Roman See in a spirit of ambition," perjury, and holding two bishoprics simultaneously in violation of Canon law. Formosus' election to the Papacy was declared invalid, his corpse was stripped of its Papal robes, three fingers of his right hand (the ones he had used for blessings) were cut off, all his appointments and pronouncements were nullified, and his corpse was buried in a pauper's grave. A bit later Stephen had second thoughts about this, and ordered Formosus dug up yet again, and tossed into the Tiber River (the body, now a bit worse for wear, was rescued by a monk and later reburied in St. Peter's Basilica).

Even in the Dark Ages, this was a bit much. Soon after the trail had ended, Stephen VI was deposed, and strangled to death in prison. This didn't end the matter, however. It took a couple of decades and three further synods before Formosus was declared to have been a legitimate Pope. Let's hope he's allowed to finally rest in peace.

Answer: Howard Hughes

Hughes inherited a small fortune when his father died in 1924. Hughes proved to be a shrewd business man, and soon expanded his interests to include aviation, motion picture production, and real estate. He was also an avid pilot, and at one time held several speed records.

In 1943, Hughes released the film, "The Outlaw," starring Jane Russell. Hughes had designed a special brassiere that would display the star's ample bosom to best advantage, but, unknown to Hughes, Russell found it uncomfortable and never wore it during filming. He also designed a huge transport plane, the Hercules H-4, popularly called the "Spruce Goose." It was not completed until after the end of WWII, and made only one flight.

Hughes began showing signs of mental imbalance as early as the 1930s, and these were exacerbated following a near-fatal plane crash in 1946. In 1947, he locked himself in a projection room for four straight months, doing nothing but watching movies, and not bathing. He ordered his employees not to look at him or speak to him unless instructed to do so. As a result of the burns he had suffered during the plane crash, Hughes became addicted to opiates that had been prescribed as pain killers.

For the last ten years of his life, Hughes seldom appeared in public, living in hotels that he had purchased. He died on April 5, 1976 onboard a flight to Houston. At the time of his death, the 6'4" Hughes weighed only 90 lbs. His official cause of death was listed as kidney failure, which one of his doctors speculated had been brought on by his habit of taking 20 to 40 aspirin tablets daily. He also suffered from very poor dental hygiene as he refused to see a dentist.

Hughes left an estate valued at $2.5 billion, which was split between 22 relatives. Because of his reclusive and eccentric behavior, a number of hoaxes involving Hughes occurred near the end of his life, including the writing of a spurious autobiography by Clifford Irving, and the production of at least two wills, which the courts eventually ruled to be forgeries.

Answer: Kurt Gödel

Kurt Gödel was born in what is now the Czech Republic in 1906. His contributions to the theory of logic were extraordinary. At the age of 25 he published what is popularly known as his "Incompleteness Theorum," which revolutionized mathematics by proving there are limits to what can be proven using accepted mathematical techniques. In 1938 Gödel fled the Nazi regime and moved to the United States, where he met and became friends with Albert Einstein, who admired him greatly. In fact, Einstein is reported to have said that he went to his office "just to have the privilege of walking home with Kurt Gödel."

There is no doubt that Kurt Gödel was one smart guy. He was also a terrible hypochondriac and hopelessly paranoid. He was obsessed with his diet, and believed he was being poisoned by gasses from his refrigerator. He mumbled about "dark forces" and thought that people were plotting to kill him. He also believed in time travel, telepathy and ESP.

In 1977, his wife Adele fell ill and had to be admitted to the hospital. For years, Gödel had eaten only food prepared by her. Convinced that someone was trying to poison him, Gödel refused to eat - for six months. He died of self-imposed starvation on January 14, 1978. At the time of his death he weighed 65 pounds.

Answer: Hetty Green

Henrietta Howland Robinson was born into a wealthy Massachusetts family in 1834. She showed an early aptitude for figures, and by the time she was a teenager she was helping to keep the family books. Her mother died in 1860, and young Hetty received a modest inheritance of $8,000. Then an aunt died, leaving her another $20,000. In 1865, her father passed away, leaving an estate of $5 million which went to her. Hetty was already enormously wealthy.

Shortly after her father died, another aunt, Sylvia Ann Howland, followed him to the grave. Hetty was outraged that Sylvia had left most of her $2 million estate to charity. She produced another will, which left everything to Hetty. After years of court battles, the second will was declared a forgery, and poor Hetty was facing criminal charges.

In 1867, Hetty married a businessman named Edward Green - after making him sign what must have been one of the earliest prenuptial agreements on record. The two had to move to London to avoid legal problems stemming from Hetty's excursion into the world of forgery, and they had two children before returning to the United States in 1875. The children, a son named Ned, and a daughter named Sylvia, endured miserable childhoods. Hetty dressed them in worn-out, secondhand clothes and embarrassed them by arguing with local merchants about the price of every article she purchased. When Ned injured his leg at the age of nine, she refused to pay for a doctor to attend him, and he developed a permanent limp (his leg was later amputated). All this while, Hetty was making millions by shrewd investments in the stock market. Unfortunately, her husband was losing money, and in 1881 they separated, and Hetty and her two children moved to New York.

She could have afforded an elegant mansion, but she and the kids lived in shabby, unheated rooms. Hetty changed her residence frequently in an attempt to dodge tax collectors. One of her few recorded extravagances occurred in 1908 when she moved into the Plaza Hotel and bought herself and her daughter expensive wardrobes, so that she could find a husband for Sylvia. As usual, Hetty was successful; in 1909 Sylvia married Matthew Astor Wilks. He was 25 years older than Sylvia, but he had his own money, which is what counted in Hetty's book.

With Sylvia married and Ned away at law school, Hetty continued to add to her fortune. She had a small office where she conducted business, and brought her lunch (usually oatmeal) to save money. She developed a painful hernia, but when a doctor told her that an operation to repair it would cost $150, she threw him out.

Hetty Green died on July 3, 1916 and left an estate of $200 million, which was divided between her children. Her son, Ned, did not share his mother's frugal ways, and lived the life of a playboy, spending most of his money before dying in 1937. But what Sylvia did would probably have enraged Hetty even more. When Sylvia died in 1951, she left almost all of her vast fortune to charity.

Answer: Emperor Norton I

Not much is known of his early life, but Joshua Abraham Norton seems to have been born in England around 1819. His family later moved to South Africa. He made his way to San Francisco in 1849, at the height of the gold rush, and went into business. He prospered at first, but saw his fortune wiped out by an unwise speculation in Peruvian rice. He was declared bankrupt in 1858.

He disappeared for a while, but later returned to San Francisco. On September 17, 1859 he wrote letters to all the local newspapers proclaiming that he was assuming the title of "Emperor of the United States." He later added "Protector of Mexico" to his title.

Over the next several years, Norton issued numerous decrees which were regularly published in the local newspapers; these included dissolving Congress, and abolishing both the Republican and Democrat parties. Norton walked the streets dressed in an impressive uniform with gold epaulets, carried a sword, and wore a hat adorned with several jaunty plumes. He was allowed to live rent free at the Grand Hotel, and regularly ate at the finest restaurants. Although he was destitute, Emperor Norton issued his own money in the form of notes, in denominations ranging from fifty cents to $10. These were readily accepted by some businesses, or sold to tourists.

In 1867, an overzealous patrolman arrested Norton and attempted to get him confined to a mental institution. San Francisco's Chief of Police, Patrick Crowley, ordered him released immediately, and issued a profuse apology. He also ordered that in the future all policemen would salute Norton when they passed him on the street. Emperor Norton issued a royal pardon to the offending policeman.

Emperor Norton collapsed at the corner of of California Street and Grant Avenue, and was pronounced dead at the scene on January 8, 1880. His death was headline news in both the "San Francisco Chronicle" and the "Morning Call." A group of local businessmen contributed to stage a magnificent funeral, which was attended by 30,000 people. Originally buried in the Masonic Cemetery, in 1934 his remains were removed to Woodlawn Cemetery. His grave is marked by an impressive tombstone inscribed "Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico."

Because Norton was an advocate of building a bridge to connect San Francisco to Oakland, there have been ongoing attempts to have the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge renamed the Emperor Norton Bridge.