Ladies and Gentlemen Trivia Quiz

Answer: Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I was born in 1533. She was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Due to the fact that Boleyn bore Henry a girl, Elizabeth, instead of the son and heir he hoped, a rift opened in their marriage and Henry started developing affections for Jane Seymour, while Anne Boleyn was arrested and executed on charges of adultery and incest. Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, after the death of her father, her half-brother Edward and her half-sister Mary, aka Bloody Mary for her ruthless persecution of Protestants. During Elizabeth's reign, England's status as a great power rose. Because Elizabeth never married and had no offspring, the Tudor dynasty ended after her death, in 1603 and the crown passed to James VI of Scotland, who also became James I of England and thus started the era of the House of Stuart.

Answer: Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Dostoyevsky was born in 1821. He wrote his first novel in the 1840s and its title was "Poor Folk". Other well-known works of him are "The Idiot", "Notes from Underground", "The Brothers Karamazov" and "The Gambler". Because Dostoyevsky was member of the Petrashevsky Circle, a community founded by Mikhail Petrashevsky, who was a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier, he was blacklisted and sent to Siberia, despite the fact that neither Dostoyevsky nor the Circle conspired against the monarchy.

It is said that Dostoyevsky was given a pardon just before his planned execution. He died in 1881.

Answer: Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was born in 1820. She served as a nurse during the Crimean War. She earned the moniker "The Lady With the Lamp" because, at night, she made rounds of the wounded soldiers carrying a lamp. Despite the fact that some of her accomplishments may have been exaggerated by the press, she laid the foundations of modern nursing.

She also wrote a large number of texts relating to religion and mysticism and was a talented statistician. She died in 1910.

Answer: Constantine the Great

Constantine was born in 272 AD. He was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, one of the tetrarchs installed by Diocletian. After his father's death in 306, Constantine was proclaimed Emperor in today's York (then named Eboracum) and started a war against the other claimant emperors.

In the Battle of Milvian Bridge, in 312, he triumphed against Maxentius. In the next year, he issued the Edict of Milan with another claimant emperor, Licinius, a document that ended the persecution of Christians. Constantine later warred against Licinius and beat him at the Battle of Chrysopolis, in 324. Constantine removed the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which was rebuilt as the grand city of Constantinople.

He died in 337. Shortly before his death, he had been baptized as a Christian.

Answer: Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart was born in 1897. Her most famous accomplishment was being the first woman to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean. She also wrote a number of books concerning her aviation experiences, which became best-sellers. Her husband, George P. Putnam, was a publisher.

The mysterious circumstances of her 1937 disappearance have given rise to many conspiracy theories, such as a theory that Earhart was spying on the Japanese for Franklin Roosevelt's administration, but no one can know for sure.

Answer: Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton was born in 1642, the very same year as Galileo Galilei's death. Aside from the law of universal gravitation, he is given credit for discovering calculus, a credit he shares with Gottfried Leibniz. In his book "Philosophiae Naturalis Prinicipia Mathematica", Newton also formulated his three laws of motion. He also constructed the first reflecting telescope. He died in 1727.

Answer: Boudicca

Boudicca's exact year of birth is unknown. Both Tacitus and Cassius Dio agree that she hailed from a royal family. Her uprising happened in AD 60 or 61. Leading a force of 100,000 Iceni, Trinovantes and other tribes she destroyed Camulodunum (today it is called Colchester), a Londinium (today called London) and Verulanium (today called St. Albans), killing over 70,000 Romans in the process.

The victory was short-lived, however. The Romans achieved a decisive victory against the rebelling Britons in the Battle of Watling Street, where Tacitus says that 80,000 rebels died, while the Romans suffered only 400 casualties. Boudicca either committed suicide to avoid capture or died soon after her defeat from a disease.

Answer: Otto von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck was born in 1815, at the same year Napoleon was defeated in Waterloo. His ambition was to unite all of Germany under the banner of Prussia. In the 1860s and 1870s he started three wars: one against Denmark (the Second Schleswig War, fought in late 1864), one against Austria (the Austro-Prussian War, fought in 1866) and the Franco-Prussian War (fought in 1870-71). All three wars ended with tremendous victories for Prussia.

After the Prussian victory against France, Wilhelm I was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles.

He died in 1898.

Answer: Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc was born in 1412. Despite her youth (she was only 17 years old when she lifted the Siege of Orleans), she did not show fear on the battlefield. She believed she had a divine mission to expel the English from France. Her victory at Orleans earned her the nickname "The Maid of Orleans" and encouraged the French to continue the fight.

In 1430, she was captured and handed over to the English, who tried her and found her guilty of heresy, but the trial was a staged one. In 1431, she was burned at the stake in Rouen.

Her martyr's death roused the French and 22 years after her death the Hundred Years' War was over, with France having won. In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

Answer: Charlemagne

Charlemagne was born some time during the 740s. He was the son of Pepin the Short, who in turn was the son of Charles Martel, the Frankish leader who had defeated the Moors in the Battle of Tours, in 732 AD. Charlemagne's reign began in 768. His empire included large parts of today's France, the Low Countries and Germany.

He also conquered parts of northern Italy and saved the papacy from the threat of the Lombards. As a reward, the Pope crowned Charlemagne as Emperor in Rome, on Christmas Day, 800 AD.

After Charlemagne's death, his son, Louis the Pious, succeeded him. Louis' three sons, Charles the Bald, Lothair and Louis the German split the kingdom into three parts with the Treaty of Verdun, in 843.