J.F.K. Didn't Die Alone: Famous deaths on Nov. 22 Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Edward Teach was a much feared pirate of the early 18th century. He sailed on a ship called "Queen Anne's Revenge", which he stole from the French. It was called "La Concorde of Saint-Malo" before he purloined it. Despite his murderous ways against other pirates on the high seas, there is no evidence that he ever murdered any of the non-pirates he took for ransom. By what name is this buccaneer of the Atlantic better known?

Answer: Blackbeard

He terrorized the people of Charleston, S.C. in May of 1718, when he blockaded the port and prevented all materials from getting in or out. Finally, Virginia governor, Alexander Spotswood, said "alright, already" and put together a nautical posse of 57 men to hunt him down. The group, under the command of Lt. Robert Maynard, engaged and killed him on you know when in 1718. Maynard survived the bloody battle. "Blackbeard" was believed to have been in his late 30's at the time of his death. His body, from below the neck anyway, was heaved into the ocean and his head became a hood ornament on Maynard's ship.

Interesting fact: When Maynard's mob set upon him they weren't fooling around. Evidence suggests he was slashed/cut/stabbed close to 20 times and just for good measure, he was also shot five times.

2. Henry Wilson was the 18th Vice President of the United States, serving under Republican President Ulysses Grant. He was born with the name Jeremiah Jones Colbath, on February 16, 1812, in Farmington, N.H. Twenty-one years was all he could stand as a Jeremiah, and so on May 4, 1833 he legally changed his moniker. Before becoming the veep, which state did he serve as a senator for a period of 18 years?

Answer: Massachusetts

He had served in the senate from 1855-1873 and resigned when he was elected Vice President. During the Civil War he fought as a colonel in the Union Army.
His heath began to deteriorate in 1873 when he suffered a stroke, but he continued with his duties, until his second stroke two years later. He wound up serving just two years as V.P. (1873-1875).

Interesting fact: He stayed on the job right up to the end, when his body was discovered in the Capitol building where he had been working, in 1875 at the age of 63.

3. Bawdy, buxom, blonde bombshell Mae West was a one-of-a-kind star. She appeared in plays, movies, on TV and radio, both in the U.S. and Europe. She wrote, directed and acted in several daring Broadway shows, including the ribald "Sex" (1926). She and the entire cast were arrested "for corrupting the morals of youth", and spent about a week in the hoosegow. She enjoyed a mold-breaking career that lasted over 70 years. In 1970 she appeared in "Myra Breckinridge" with another famous Hollywood sex symbol of the day. Which one of these lovelies was it?

Answer: Raquel Welch

She was born Mary Jane West on August 17, 1893 and began her vaudeville career at the age of 14 under the name "Baby Mae". Her father was a pro boxer, who fought as "Battlin' Jack West". She appeared in "Vera Violetta" (1911), an operetta which also featured Al Jolson. She made a dozen movies, the first of which was "Night After Night" (1932) with George Raft. Her last film, some 46 years later was "Sextette" (1978) with Tony Curtis. She died in 1980 at the ripe old age of 87.

Interesting fact: Ah, yes, she was named 15th on the American Film Institute's list of Greatest Female Stars of All Time.

4. George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. is not a name that most of us would be likely to recognize. He is the guy who designed a really big wheel that has literally, in all its incarnations, taken countless millions of people around the world for a ride. Yes he's "that" Ferris, the inventor/creator of the original "Ferris Wheel". At which World Fair/Expo did it first appear?

Answer: World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago,U.S.A.

The organizers of the 1893 Expo in Chicago wanted something built to top the Eiffel Tower, which had made its debut at the 1889 Paris Exposition Universelle. Ferris' original design was shot down, due to fear of people being hurled to their deaths from the new contraption. When he returned to speak with Expo honchos a few weeks later, with over $400,000 in backer's dough and a couple of design modifications it was given the go-ahead. It has been reported that it carried over 30,000 intrepid souls a day during the fair. Sadly, the inventive Mr. Ferris succumbed to typhoid fever three years later, at the age of 37.

Interesting fact: The original Ferris Wheel from that Expo, carried over 2,500,000 thrill seekers before it was dismantled in 1906.

5. Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers enjoyed a career which ran from 1932-1986. He sang, he danced and he played the guitar and drums as well. He played primarily in the jazz clubs of the midwest at first. One fan who saw him perform, was the well known music lover, Mr. Al Capone. Scatman played the role of "Louie Wilson" on the TV sitcom, "Chico and the Man" which ran from 1974-1978. What was Louie's occupation on the show?

Answer: He was a garbageman.

He was "Louie the Garbageman", who was a friend of Ed Brown ("The Man"), played by Jack Albertson. Throughout his 50 year plus career he made over 45 movies. Two of them were "The Shootist" (1976) which was John Wayne's last film and "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972), about the life of the legendary singer Billie Holiday. He also appeared on numerous TV shows including "Dragnet" (1967), "Bewitched" (1971), "Starsky and Hutch" (1977) and "Magnum, P.I." (1980). He died of pneumonia in 1986.

Interesting fact: The star of four of his films was Jack Nicholson. They played together in "The King of Marvin Gardens" (1972), "The Fortune" (1975), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) and ("here's Johnny")..."The Shining" (1980).

6. Famed American songwriter Lorenz Hart, was born in New York City in 1895. He attended Columbia University where he met Richard Rodgers, the man who would write the music for his words. Together they comprised one of the most famous songwriting teams ever. One of the shows they composed together was "Babes in Arms", which featured 11 of their tunes. Which of the following great songs is NOT from that show?

Answer: This Can't Be Love

"This Can't Be Love" is from their "The Boys from Syracuse" (1938).
Hart met Rodgers in 1919, and their first collaborative success was "Any Old Place With You", which was part of the score for a musical comedy that same year "A Lonely Romeo". For over 20 years they worked on over 25 Broadway shows, including "Pal Joey" (1940) (which featured "I Could Write a Book"), and "On Your Toes" (1936) which introduced "There's a Small Hotel".
The also wrote for a few films including "Love Me Tonight" (1937), which starred Maurice Chevalier and featured, "Isn't it Romantic?". Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday are just three of the great singers to have recorded many of their numbers.

Interesting fact: "My Funny Valentine" has been covered by over 600 recording artists and is part of more than 1,300 albums. Wowzer!

7. American business woman Mary Kay Ash, was born Mary Kathlyn Wagner on May 12, 1918 in Texas. In World War II she earned money by peddling books door-to-door, her first real business experience. Not long after her husband returned from WWII, they divorced. She then worked at a company which she quit in 1945, after hitting the "glass ceiling", when a man she had trained got a promotion she felt should have been hers. That same year, she and hubby number two started Mary Kay Cosmetics. In what Texas city was the first Mary Kay retail store?

Answer: Dallas

Her first store opened in 1963. She was by all accounts a person who truly cared about her employees (remember those pink Cadillacs?), and her company has been cited by "Forbes Magazine" as "One of the 100 Best Companies to Work for in America". She has been honored with The Horatio Alger Award, and is regarded by many as the leading female entrepreneur in American history. She remained active with the company until felled by a stroke in 1996. Her autobiography: "Mary Kay: The Story of America's Most Dynamic Businesswoman" (1987), has sold over a million copies. She passed away in 2001, at age 83.

Interesting fact: When she died, the little company she had started with $5,000 some 56 years earlier, was enjoying retail sales of over $2 billion dollars annually. Now THAT'S an Horatio Alger story!

8. Famed American novelist, short story writer and playwright Jack London was born in CA in 1876. He first lived in the San Francisco area, then moved and attended grade school and high school in Oakland. He enrolled in the University of California Berkeley, but was forced to drop out due to financial concerns before he could graduate. He would go on to pen over 20 novels. Which one was his first commercial success?

Answer: Call of the Wild

"Call of the Wild" originally ran in the "Saturday Evening Post", before being sold to Macmillan Publishers, who turned it out in novel form to great success in 1903. "White Fang" (1906) was set in the time of the Klondike gold rush (as was "Call of the Wild") in the late 19th century. "The Sea Wolf" (1904) was a tale of a tyrannical ship's captain, "Wolf Larsen", and the men who sailed under him. "To Build a Fire", first published in 1902, is considered to be London's greatest short story. "Gold fever" caught up to London himself and he traveled to the Klondike in July 1897, but returned to CA the following year, to pursue his writing career. When all was said and done he had authored over 20 novels, more than 65 short stories and three plays. He died in 1916, on his ranch in the Sonoma Valley region of CA at age 40. Although an exact cause of death was never established, many believe he committed suicide, while others believe renal failure, caused by his alcoholism, was the reason.

Interesting fact: The house in which he had lived in San Francisco was consumed by the fires following the horrific earthquake, which struck the Bay Area in 1906.

9. The woman known as Lana Peters acquired that name when she married an American architect named William Peters in 1970. She was born in the Soviet Union on February 28, 1926, and was the only daughter of a prominent political figure. Her mother died when she was just six and while many believe it was a suicide, others believe she may have been killed by her father, or at least, on his orders. In 1967 she defected to the U.S.A. Who was her infamous father?

Answer: Joseph Stalin

In 1942 Svetlana Stalina (her actual birth name), fell in love with a man who was 24 years older. Daddy dearest didn't care much for that and said "Nyet!" He sent the 40 year old film maker to shoot pictures in the pictuesque landscape near the Arctic Circle, where he had him exiled for 10 years. She re-entered the Soviet Union in 1953 when her father passed on to "Dead Square". She was fluent in French, English and German, as well of the tongue of her motherland, so she earned a living as a translator. She defected to America (1967) and lived in Princeton, N.J. Her marriage to Peters in 1970 lasted just three years. She subsequently returned to Russia in 1984, but family squabbles led to her return to American soil in 1986. She died of cancer in her adopted home state of Wisconsin in 2011 at age 85. Her autobiography, "Twenty Letters to a Friend", was published in 1967.

Interesting fact: Her American husband William Peters worked as an apprentice under one of the greatest architects in history, Frank Lloyd Wright.

10. Pat Dobson, born February 12, 1942 in Buffalo N.Y., was a major league pitcher for 11 years. He posted a career W-L record of 122-129, with an ERA of 3.54. During that time he played for six teams, Detroit (1967-1969), San Diego (1970), Baltimore (1971-1972), Atlanta (1973), the N.Y. Yankees (1973-1975) and finally, Cleveland (1976-1977). When he won his only World Series championship ring, for which team was he pitching?

Answer: Detroit Tigers

In just his second season in the bigs, his Tigers captured the 1968 Fall Classic, beating the St. Louis Cardinals, four games to three. He was an All-Star in 1972 with the Orioles, and also had a 20 game winning season with Baltimore in 1971. When he hung up his spikes following the 1977 season, he spent most of the rest of his career as a pitching coach and scout for several teams. In 1971 he was on a team that was only the second team in history to have four 20 game winners in the same year. Dobson, Jim Palmer, and Mike Quellar all won 20, while southpaw Dave McNally racked up 21. (The first team to do that was the 1920 Chicago White Sox). He died in 2006 at age 64.

Interesting fact: And a sad one at that, Pat learned on November 21, 2006 that he had been diagnosed with leukemia. By the next day, it had killed him.

Source: Author paulmallon

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Those of us who were alive on November 22, 1963 will never forget where we were when we heard the news: President Kennedy has been assassinated! Through the ages many other famous folks died on the same date. Here are 10.

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