Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Suicide was widely practiced in the ancient world as a means of ensuring a dignified death when all other options had been extinguished. The great mathematician and geographer Eratosthenes of Cyrene measured the tilt of the Earth's axis with great accuracy and served as the third librarian of Alexandria - and according to some sources, he also committed suicide in the 2nd century BCE. Why?
2. Robert Stewart, known for most of his career as Viscount Castlereagh, was a talented but unpopular British politician in the early 19th century. He masterminded Britain's foreign policy for ten years, during which time the influence and power of that nation expanded considerably. However, he suffered from fits of paranoia and became unstable in the last year of his life. Following an interview with the King, he cut his throat with a pen-knife in August of 1822. What did Castlereagh reveal to the King during that interview?
3. Simone Weil was a philosopher, a mystic, an activist - and to some, a saint. Born in France to a middle-class Jewish family, she dedicated her life to examining and sharing in the afflictions of the poor. After distinguishing herself at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, she taught, wrote, worked in a factory, and served as a cook for the militias fighting against the fascists in Spain. Fleeing Hitler's armies, she worked tirelessly for the Free French in London, where she committed suicide in 1943. How did she kill herself, and why?
4. The first US Secretary of Defense, James V. Forrestal, oversaw the very difficult task of unifying the armed forces following WWII. The stress and fatigue of this monumental effort, foreign crises such as the Blockade of West Berlin and the coup in Czechoslovakia, and perhaps an underlying mental illness all conspired to provoke a nervous collapse. Committed to Bethesda Naval Hospital in March of 1948 - possibly against his will - he threw himself from a hospital window two months later. His suicide note was published and attracted much attention; which ancient Greek did Forrestal quote in his final message?
5. One of the greatest writers that Japan produced in the 20th century, Yukio Mishima was also a fanatical patriot who reverenced the ancient code of Bushido - the way of the warrior. In 1970 he publicly committed ritual suicide, or seppuku, in unusual circumstances. What were they?
6. Virginia Woolf's novels and essays show a refined, intellectual mind open to all the nuances of existence - but they also show that she knew great emotional pain and suffered from chronic anxiety and depression. It's well known that she tragically ended her life by filling her pockets with stones and wading into the River Ouse in 1941, but she also had plans to kill herself in another way. What was her alternate method?
7. The poet Gérard de Nerval was born in 1808 as Gérard Labrunie. He renamed himself 'Nerval' in the belief that he was somehow descended from the Emperor Nerva. He translated Goethe's 'Faust' into French, earning praise from Goethe himself, and wrote a number of original poems filled with strange, dreamy, and macabre images. However, he gradually lost the ability to distinguish fact from fantasy, and became notorious for his bizarre activities. He was committed to an asylum, and eventually hanged himself. Which of the following was one of the peculiarities attributed to Nerval in the years before his death?
8. Many great painters were afflicted with depression or outright psychosis, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that intense creativity and the desire to annihilate the self are frequent companions. Which of the following artists did NOT kill himself?
9. George Eastman seemed to have everything - the inventor of roll film, he was thereby the father of both the motion picture and modern photography. As founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, he was an immensely wealthy man, and he devoted much of his later life to philanthropy (including the establishment of the prestigious Eastman School of Music). Yet he shot himself in 1932, leaving a very terse suicide note. What did it say?
10. On 11 June, 1963, a 66 year-old Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc sat in a meditative posture in a busy intersection of Saigon, the capital of what was then South Vietnam. He had himself covered in petrol and set himself ablaze. He maintained his posture and continued to meditate while the flames consumed his clothes and body, and he died without moving or showing any signs of suffering. What provoked him to this incredible act of protest?
Source: Author
cosmonaut
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
bloomsby before going online.
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