Die and Rise Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alexander the Great

Nectanebo II ruled Egypt from 360-342 BC. He was defeated in battle by Artaxerxes III of Persia, and fled south to Nubia, where he disappears from history. Although Nectanebo probably died in Nubia, after Alexander the Great's death, rumors began spreading that Nectanebo had actually fled to Greece instead, and that he had made his way to the court of Philip II of Macedon disguised as an Egyptian magician.

Then, while Philip was off campaigning, he seduced Philip's wife, Olympias, claiming that he was the god Amun.

There are many other stories about Alexander's supposedly divine parentage; this one would have made it easier for the Egyptians to accept him as their ruler after he had conquered Egypt in 332 BC. None of this makes a lot of sense, however, since Alexander was born in 356 BC, some 14 years before Nectanebo's overthrow.

Answer: Bethany

Bethany was a village only a mile or two from Jerusalem. The story of the raising of Lazarus is told in the Gospel of John; many people witnessed the event, and it may have been one of the key reasons that Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin decided that Jesus had to be put to death. Jesus is later mentioned as dining with Lazarus only six days before his own death.

The modern West Bank city of al-Azariya is supposed to be the site of ancient Bethany. The purported Tomb of Lazarus is a popular tourist attraction.

Answer: Tiberius

Tiberius was the stepson of Augustus, the first emperor. He doesn't seem to have really wanted to rule the Roman Empire, but was forced into becoming emperor by his overbearing mother, Livia. He doesn't enjoy a very good reputation, although he was a competent soldier, good administrator, and put Rome on a sound financial basis. Much of the bad press is attributable to the fact that he had several members of the Senate put to death, and our surviving histories were all written by members of the senatorial class.

On March 16, 37 AD Tiberius was in the city of Misenum, near Naples, when he fell ill. As he was 77 years of age, this was not unexpected. He fell into a stupor, and was pronounced dead. His nephew, the infamous Caligula, took the signet ring representing the imperial power from Tiberius' finger, and announced that that the old emperor was dead. Unfortunately, Tiberius suddenly woke up, and began shouting loudly for his servants to bring him some food. The commander of the Praetorian Guard, Naevius Sutorius Macro, then smothered Tiberius with a pillow. Caligula was not grateful; a year later, he had Macro put to death.

Answer: Perkin Warbeck

The story of Perkin Warbeck is a fascinating one. When Edward IV of England died in 1483, his brother, Richard III, usurped the throne and declared Edward's children to be illegitimate. The two young princes were shut up in the Tower of London and disappeared. Rumor had it that they had been murdered, either by Richard III, or someone else who had reason to wish them out of the way, but nothing was ever proven.

In 1490 a young man appeared at the court of Burgundy, and claimed he was the younger of the two boys, Richard, Duke of York. He claimed that his brother, Edward V, had been murdered, but that he had been spared because of his young age, and that he had been sheltered by people loyal to his father. He was recognized by Margaret of Burgundy, Edward IV's sister, and many European monarchs acknowledged him as the rightful heir to the English throne.

After an unsuccessful invasion of Ireland in 1491, he wandered around Europe for a while, and then, in 1495, invaded England, but was defeated, and fled, first to Ireland, and then to Scotland. James IV of Scotland not only accepted Warbeck's claims, he actually married him a one of his cousins, and raised an army to invade England on his behalf. This invasion was also unsuccessful, so Warbeck returned to Ireland once again, but he wasn't done yet. In 1497, he landed in Cornwall and this time he was a bit more successful. His forces captured Exeter, and he was crowned Richard IV. But his army fled at the approach of loyalist forces, and Warbeck was soon captured and made a prisoner.
While in captivity he signed an elaborate confession, stating that he was born into a Flemish family in what is now Tournai, Belgium, and that certain enemies of the King Henry VII had convinced him to pose as the young prince.

Usually I am skeptical of such stories, but Warbeck's tale could actually have been true. It is said he bore a remarkable resemblance to Edward IV, and he must have convinced Margaret of Burgundy and others that he was the Duke of York, because they continued to support him long after he had any political usefulness. And it is unlikely that James IV would have allowed him to marry into Scotland's royal family if he had not been totally convinced. In addition, Henry VII treated him as a serious threat. There had been a number of earlier "pretenders." One of them, Lambert Simnel, was pardoned by Henry, and actually given a job in the royal household. But Perkin Warbeck was kept imprisoned in the Tower of London. His "confession" could well have been signed in an attempt to save his wife, who was also a prisoner. In any event, Perkin Warbeck was hanged after he attempted to escape from the Tower in 1499, so we'll never know the truth.

Answer: Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe appears to have been recruited by Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster, while he was still a student at Cambridge University. He was the first of the truly great Elizabethan playwrights, writing plays such as "Tamburlaine," "The Jew of Malta," and "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus." In 1593 English authorities were searching the rooms of playwright Thomas Kyd for evidence in a case involving threats against Huguenot immigrants, when they found three pages of what was called a "vile, heretical tract." Under torture, Kyd claimed they belonged to Christopher Marlowe, with whom he had shared a room a few years earlier, and that the papers must have somehow gotten shuffled in with his own.

Marlowe was charged with heresy, a capital crime in Elizabethan England, but was released on the condition that he report daily to the Privy Council. This proves he still had powerful friends in the government. A few days after he was indicted, Marlowe was supposedly killed in an argument at the house of Eleanor Bull in Deptford, a small town on the Thames River just a few miles from London.

The inquest into Marlowe's death was discovered in 1925, and immediately raised a lot of questions. According to the official document, Marlowe had spent the day at Eleanor Bull's house in the company of two fellow spies, Robert Poley and Nicholas Skeres, and Ingram Frizer, a servant of Marlowe's best friend, Thomas Walsingham. Marlowe and Frizer got into an argument over the bill, or reckoning, and Frizer stabbed Marlowe over the right eye, killing him instantly.

There are many unanswered questions. Why was Marlowe in Deptford, when he was out on bail and supposed to be reporting to the Privy Council? Why did Frizer, who supposedly acted in self defense, have only two small scratches on him? Why was the inquest held by William Danby, Coroner of the Queen's Household? Why was Frizer released from prison after less than a month (usually it took three or four months to receive a pardon), and why did Thomas Walsingham take him back into his service after he had killed his best friend?

Almost no one accepts the official account. Some people believe Marlowe was murdered, but there were much easier and less conspicuous ways of killing a man in Elizabethan England. Those who believe Marlowe's death was staged point out that the day before, in St. Thomas-at-Watering, a town only a few miles from Deptford, a man named John Penry had been dragged from his cell and hanged at 4 PM in the afternoon - a most unusual time for an execution. Furthermore, when Penry's wife came to claim the body, she was refused. Penry's corpse had disappeared. Those who think Marlowe staged his death believe it was Penry's body that served as a stand-in at the inquest.

There's one other thing you should know. While Marlowe was alive, not one word had ever been published under the name of William Shakespeare. Only a few weeks after Marlowe's death, a poem called "Venus and Adonis" appeared, with a dedication to the Earl of Southampton signed by William Shakespeare. Coincidence? Or did Marlowe really "rise from the dead" under a different name?

Answer: The Tichborne Claimant

This case remained in the headlines and kept the attention of the British public for over a decade. It started in 1854, when 25 year-old Roger Tichborne, heir to the Tichborne Baronetcy and one the greatest fortunes in England, was lost at sea when a ship called La Bella sank off the coast of Brazil. His mother, however, refused to believe her son was dead. She had heard reports that some passengers on the La Bella had been rescued and taken to Australia; a clairvoyant also assured her that her son was alive. Lady Tichborne began advertising in Australian newspapers, offering a large reward for any information regarding her son. In 1865 a lawyer named William Gibbes wrote to her, claiming he had located her son in the form of Thomas Castro, a local butcher who was filing for bankruptcy. Lady Tichborne sent him money, and the "Tichborne Claimant" sailed for England.

There should have been a few clues that Castro was not the missing Roger Tichborne. Photographs show that the men looked nothing alike; Roger Tichborne had been raised in Paris, but Castro spoke no French; Roger had several tattoos that Castro was missing. Castro also spoke with a Cockney accent. Nevertheless, Lady Tichborne was convinced that he was her missing son, and immediately settled an income of £1,000 a year on him.

The rest of the Tichborne family were unanimous in their belief that Castro was an imposter. He was most likely a man named Arthur Orton, son of a London butcher, who had arrived in Australia in 1853.

Things went well enough until 1868, when Lady Tichborne died. Deprived of his only source of income, Castro attempted to press his claim to the Tichborne estates in court. After a lengthy and sensational trial, he not only lost the case, but was charged with perjury. After being found guilty of that charge at a second trial, he served ten years in prison. Castro/Orton/Tichborne died in 1898. A film about the case, called "The Tichborne Claimant," was released 100 years later, in 1998.

Answer: John Wilkes Booth

This story is so crazy that at first glance one might dismiss it out of hand. But there is actually some evidence that he may have been telling the truth.

As most people know, John Wilkes Booth escaped after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and was the subject of an intense manhunt lasting almost two weeks. He was eventually cornered by federal troops in a tobacco barn in Virginia, and shot to death by a man named Boston Corbett. Booth's body was taken onboard a ship, the USS Montauk, where it was identified by ten people, including Booth's mother, brother, sister, and dentist. The Booth family was eventually able to claim the body, and it was buried in the family plot in Baltimore, Maryland.

There was a story passed down for generations in the Booth family that John Wilkes had escaped justice, and the man killed in the tobacco barn was a look-alike. The man who called himself John St. Helen and David E. George certainly bore a strong resemblance to John Wilkes Booth. The Booth family is so convinced that the man buried in the family plot is not John Wilkes Booth that in 2013 they attempted to have the body of Booth's brother, actor Edwin Booth, exhumed in order to do DNA testing and compare Edwin's DNA with that of tissue samples still preserved from John Wilkes Booth's autopsy. A judge denied the request.

What happened to John St. Helen's remains? A man named Bates claimed the body, which was mummified and made into a sideshow attraction. For years it travelled around the country, and for a small fee the curious could gaze upon the corpse of "the man who killed Lincoln." The body disappeared in the 1970s, and since then its location has been unknown.

Answer: Jesse James

What is interesting is that J. Frank Dalton was believed to have been 100 years old at the time he made his declaration. His story was that Robert Ford had not killed Jesse James; instead Ford had shot another outlaw named Charlie Bigelow who "looked enough like me to be my twin." James supposedly went to Mexico and South America, eventually returning to the United States, and settling in Mexico under the name of J. Frank Dalton.

In 1995, Jesse James was exhumed, and his remains were subjected to both a physical analysis and DNA testing, each of which showed that the body was indeed that of the famous outlaw. That should have settled the matter. Not so fast, say Dalton's supporters. They claim that the testing was done on samples that did not come from James' grave, and that the DNA report was a hoax. So the true identity of J. Frank Dalton is still in doubt, at least in the minds of some people.

Answer: Anastasia

The story of Anastasia is one of the more famous stories of people who have died and then risen from the grave - at least in theory. In 1920, a young woman jumped off a bridge in Berlin, evidently intending to commit suicide. She was sent to a mental hospital, where she remained for two years. While there, she began claiming she was Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, the youngest daughter of the late Tsar.

The woman calling herself Anastasia told a complicated story about how she had escaped with the help of a young soldier named - of all things - Alexander Tchaikovsky. She and Tchaikovsky were married and had a son, who was left at an orphanage. Her husband was later killed. She eventually made it to Berlin, where, filled with despair and with no prospects, she decided to kill herself.

There were a few problems with her story. First of all, she didn't really look like Anastasia. Secondly, she couldn't speak Russian or French. Most of those who had known Anastasia denounced her as an imposter, but Anna Tchaikovsky, as she now called herself, convinced enough people that she really was the Grand Duchess that she was able to sponge off relatives and supporters of the Russian royal family for a decade. Then, in 1928, she changed her name to Anna Anderson, and went to the United States, where at first she was received as a celebrity. Eventually, however, her behavior became deranged, and she was sent back to Germany in 1932.

In Germany, she went to court in an attempt to claim any assets remaining in the Tsar's estate. She was ultimately unsuccessful. In 1968 she returned to the United States, where she married a man named Jack Manahan. "Anastasia" died in 1984. Although her body was cremated, a tissue sample from an operation she had undergone in 1979 was found, and subjected to DNA analysis. It showed that Anna Anderson was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia; she was a Polish factory worker named Franziska Schanzkowska.

How this woman managed to fool so many people for so long is truly a mystery. Innumerable books were written about her, and several movies were made, including a 1956 film for which Ingrid Bergman won an Academy Award as Best Actress. To put to rest any remaining doubts, the remains of the real Anastasia, along with those of her brother, Alexei, were found in Russia in 2007.

Answer: Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley died at his home in Memphis, Tennessee on August 16, 1977. His girlfriend, Ginger Alden, found him lying unconscious on the bathroom floor. The official cause of death was "cardiac arrhythmia." Although numerous drugs were found in Presley's body, they were not thought to have contributed to his death.

Sightings of Elvis began almost as soon as he was buried. The theory seems to be that the singer faked his death so he could live a "normal life." The sightings continue to this day. A google search of "Elvis sightings" results in over 412,000 hits. If Elvis really did try to fake his death, he ought to stay inside more often, or at least trim his sideburns so people don't recognize him. Elvis was born in 1935, so if he is alive, a good place to look for him might be a nursing home.