I Was Assassinated Trivia Quiz

Answer: John Lennon

John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool, England in 1940 and raised by his aunt and uncle. Soon after the breakup of The Beatles in 1970, John and his new wife, Yoko Ono, moved to America. On December 8th 1980 Mark David Chapman shot and killed him outside the Dakota Building in New York.

Answer: Leon Trotsky

Lev Davidovich Bronstein was born in Ukraine, Russia in 1879, to Jewish parents. An intellectual, charismatic man, Trotsky (name adopted from a false passport used to escape prison and exile in Siberia)was to become one of the great Marxists of his time.

The last twelve years of his life were spent in exile. Moving from country to country he eventually settled in Mexico where, probably at Stalin's instigation, he was assassinated.

Answer: Abraham Lincoln

Born in Kentucky in 1809, Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States. A few days before his death he apparently dreamed that he had been assassinated. He was so disturbed by this dream that he related it to his wife and several close friends.

Answer: Mohandas Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Gujarat, India in 1869. Named Mahatma (Great Soul), he studied law in London and spent many years in South Afica. Both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi were also assassinated (in 1984 and 1991 respectively). Indira's son, Sanjay, died in a flying accident.

Answer: Claudius

Born in 10BC, a nephew of Tiberius, Claudius married his fourth wife, his cousin Agrippina the Younger, in AD 49, when she had just been accused of poisoning her second husband! Her first husband fathered her son, Nero, who she persuaded Claudius to adopt as his heir.

Answer: Gregory Rasputin

Grigory Yefimovich Novykh was born circa 1872 in Siberia. His given name "Rasputin", Russian for "debauched one", reflected his lifestyle. Having exercised a decade of influence over the imperial family, a group of noblemen, dismayed at the hold Rasputin seemed to exercise over Tzarina Alexandra conspired to assassinate him. Several attempts were made on his life, but in 1916 at the home of Prince Feliks Yusupof he was poisoned, shot and finally drowned.

Answer: Lord Louis Mountbatten

Son of Prince Louis of Battenburg and Princess Victoria (grand-daughter of Queen Victoria), Louis was born at Windsor in 1900. The uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh he became particularly close to Charles, Prince of Wales who was devastated by his tragic death.

Answer: Pancho Villa

Doroteo Arango, known as Francisco (or Pancho) Villa, was born in Mexico in 1878. Orphaned young, he spent his adolescence hiding out as a fugitive after a revenge killing following an assault on his sister. A talented soldier and guerilla leader, Villa retired in 1920 to his ranch in Parral, Mexico where he was killed three years later.

Answer: Martin Luther King Jr

Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1929 Martin Luther King Jnr followed his father into the Church. Leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the USA, he won the Nobel peace prize in 1964. In the spring of 1968 he went to Memphis to support a strike by the city's sanitation workers. Standing on the balcony of his motel he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray, a white escaped convict, who was sentenced to 99 years in prison for his crime.

Answer: James Garfield

The shooting of the 20th President so soon after taking office provoked some serious constitutional questions. After being shot Garfield lay ill for 80 days and, because of ambiguities in the Constitution, it could not be decided how much power should be endowed upon the vice-president. The President died before he could be consulted on the matter.