Exit With a Flourish Trivia Quiz

Answer: Killed by a hippopotamus

Narmer, also known as Menes, was the ruler of Upper Egypt, and conquered Lower Egypt, unifying the country under one ruler for the first time in its history. According to Manetho, he ruled for 62 years, and was killed by a hippopotamus.

Modern archaeologists discount much of what Manetho wrote, but Narmer does seem to have been a real person who ruled sometime between 3100 and 3000 BC. Because the historical record is incomplete, some people identify Menes with Narmer's son, Aha. Regardless, the account of Narmer's death is not as absurd as it sounds. Hunting hippopotamuses was a favorite sport of Egyptian royalty, and hippos still kill about 3,000 people every year in Africa.

Answer: Crassus

Marcus Licinius Crassus was famous for two reasons: he put down the slave revolt of Spartacus, and he was the richest man in Rome. In 60 BC, he joined with Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great to form the First Triumvirate.

In 55 BC Crassus was named governor of Syria, and he was soon at war with the neighboring Parthians. He was defeated at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, one of the worst defeats suffered by Rome in its entire history. How Crassus met his death is a matter of dispute. Most accounts say that he was killed when he met with the Parthian general, Surena, to discuss a truce (never trust a Parthian). Others say he was killed by his own troops. But one account says that he was captured and killed by having molten gold poured down his throat (an alternative version says that the Parthians first cut off his head, and then did this after he was already dead). There are other reports that the Parthians cut off Crassus' head and used it as a prop in a play put on for the amusement of their king, Orodes II.

The story of Crassus' death by molten gold should not be summarily dismissed. Another Roman general, Manius Aquilius, was executed by King Mithridates VI of Pontus in exactly this way in 88 BC, some 35 years before Crassus met his end.

Answer: Nosebleed

Attila was born sometime around 406 AD. Along with his brother, Bleda, he became joint leader of the Huns, a fierce tribe of barbarians, upon the death of his uncle, Rugila, in 434. The Huns are first mentioned around 370, when they invaded the territory of the Goths, and forced them across the Danube River into the territory of the Roman Empire. The Huns eventually came to control large areas of northern and eastern Europe. The Romans at first tried to deal with the Huns by paying them a modest tribute, and hiring the Huns as mercenaries to serve alongside their own troops.

In 440, however, the Huns invaded the Balkans, sacking several cities, and the Eastern Emperor, Theodosius II, was unable to mount an effective resistance. In 443, he was forced to agree to pay the Huns an annual tribute of 2100 pounds of gold.

Attila's brother, Bleda, died around 445. Attila then turned his attentions towards the Western Empire. The Western Emperor's sister, Honoria, had sent a letter and a ring to Attila requesting his aid to avoid being forced into a marriage with a man called Bassus Herculanus, a senator chosen by her brother, Valentinian III. Attila considered this a proposal of marriage, and demanded half the Western Empire as a dowry. After capturing or sacking several cities, Attila was defeated by the Roman general Aetius at the Battle of Châlons in 451.

Sometime in early 453, Attila was celebrating his marriage to his sixth wife, a Gothic princess named Ildico. After a night of heavy drinking, Attila and his new wife retired to their honeymoon chamber. The next morning she was found weeping over his bloodstained body. Sometime during the night Attila had suffered a severe nosebleed and suffocated on his own blood.

Answer: Roasted and eaten alive

György Dózsa was born in Transylvania in 1470. In 1514, in response to a bull issued by Pope Leo X, Dozsa organized an army of peasants for a proposed crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Instead of fighting the infidels, however, Dozsa's army began exacting revenge against the Hungarian nobility who had oppressed them for centuries. After some initial successes, Dozsa was defeated and captured, and on July 20, 1514, he was put to death.

An iron throne was built, and a fire lit underneath it. Dozsa was stripped naked and forced to sit on it until it grew red hot. A red hot iron crown was then placed on his head, and a hot iron scepter thrust into his hands. Before he died, nine of his supporters were brought before him. Hot pincers were forced into Dozsa's skin, and his starved followers were ordered to bite where the pincers had burned him, and swallow the charred flesh. Those who refused were hacked to pieces (do not get a Hungarian angry). It is estimated that 70,000 peasants were eventually killed for their participation in Dozsa's revolt.

Answer: George, Duke of Clarence

George, Duke of Clarence (1449-1478), was the younger brother of Edward IV, and the elder brother of Richard III. After taking part in a rebellion against his elder brother, he was convicted of treason by Parliament, and executed on February 18, 1478. He figures prominently in Shakespeare's play, "Richard III."

Malmsey is a type of sweet white wine made from the Malvasia grape. Nowadays it applies to a wine made in the Madeira Islands, but in Clarence's time it more likely came from Greece. A "butt" was a barrel that held 105 gallons, or about 400 liters. So was Clarence really drowned in a barrel of wine? We don't know. Some historians think the story was a joke, based on the Duke's fondness for his tipple. Others think that his body may have been transported to its eventual burial site, Tewkesbury Abbey, in a vat of wine. It is known that when he was exhumed to have his body moved, his corpse was intact, so he was not beheaded, which would have been the customary method of execution for a member of royalty at the time. So maybe the story is true after all.

Answer: Inhaled (or swallowed) a fly and choked to death

Hope the collapsing roof thing didn't throw you; that's how John XXI (who was really John XX, but that's another story) died. By most methods of reckoning, Pope Francis is the 266th pope. Some of his predecessors have died in unusual ways, including one who was murdered by a jealous husband, several who may have been poisoned, and a couple who died in ways that can't be described on a family-oriented site. But the death of Adrian IV may be the most unusual of all.

Here is what the contemporary account says: "Pope Adrian died by a judgment of God, who permitted him while drinking at a well, to swallow a fly, which stuck in his throat, and could not be extracted by the surgeons, till the patient had expired through the inflammation produced by the accident." Just swallowing a fly wouldn't have killed him; it's pretty clear that he inhaled a fly when he stopped at a well to get a drink of water. What a way to go! By the way, Adrian IV, who reigned from 1154 to 1159, is best remembered as the guy who gave the English permission to invade Ireland, starting a war that has lasted, on and off, for some 850 years.

Answer: Scarf caught in wheel of an automobile

Isadora Duncan was born in San Francisco, California on May 27, 1877. Because of her scandalous lifestyle and Communist leanings, she lived much of her life abroad. On September 14, 1927 she was a passenger in an open motorcar; her friends advised her to put on a coat because of the chilly temperatures, but she only wore a long, red scarf (red to show her devotion to Communism). She shouted to her friends, "Adieu, mes amis. Je vais ŕ la gloire!" ("Farewell, my friends. I go to glory!"). But when the car started, the end of her scarf blew out of the car, and became entangled in the spokes of the rear wheel. The scarf tightened around her neck, throwing her out of the car, and breaking her neck.

One would think she would have been more careful around automobiles. In 1913 both of her children and their nanny were killed when her chauffeur left their car to start it after it had stalled, but forgot to set the handbrake. The car rolled into the Seine, and the occupants all drowned.

Answer: They were forbidden to touch her

Sunandha Kumariratana was a daughter of King Mongkut, the ruler who became famous by being portrayed in "The King and I." On May 31, 1880 she was on her way to Summer Palace in Bang Pa In when the royal barge capsized. Although she was surrounded by courtiers and servants, none could help her because it was forbidden on penalty of death for anyone to touch a member of the royal family - even to save her life.

The 19 year-old princess and her infant daughter both drowned. The "no touching" law was immediately repealed following her death.

Answer: Killed and eaten by a bear

I hope you saw this one coming! Timothy Treadwell was widely known for his fascination with grizzly bears, and had even written a book, "Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska."

In October 2003 Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, were camping in Katmai National Park, filming grizzly bears in their natural habitat. They were evidently setting up their camera to do more filming when they were attacked by a bear. The camera's lens cap was still on, but a six minute audio recording of the attack was found. The bear first killed Treadwell and dragged him off, and then returned to kill Huguenard. Their partially eaten remains were found the next day by a pilot who was scheduled to fly them home. The bear had stashed what was left of them (which wasn't a lot) under some branches near their campsite, evidently planning on returning for a snack later. Park rangers later killed a bear that was found around the campsite, and it was shown to have human remains in its stomach. In 2005, German director Werner Herzog released a documentary about Treadwell's life called "Grizzly Man."

Answer: Set himself on fire

Although Buddhists were the largest religious group in South Vietnam, President Ngo Dinh Diem, a Catholic, consistently favored the Roman Catholic minority. This caused widespread resentment among South Vietnam's Buddhist population. On June 11, 1963 Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc sat down in the middle of a street near the Presidential Palace in Saigon, doused himself with a five-gallon can of gasoline, and set himself on fire. An American photographer, Malcolm Browne, captured the event in a photograph that would win him the World Press Photo of the Year award.

Duc's act inspired other monks to follow his example, and soon self-immolation became commonplace in South Vietnam. The fiery protests helped to bring about Diem's overthrow and assassination a few months later.