Ordinary People Trivia Quiz

Answer: John Lennon

John Lennon achieved extraordinary fame as a member of The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band, and as an activist. When he was young though, I don't know if the people in his life would've been able to predict such a successful career. He got his first guitar when he was a teenager, and, as he practiced his music, was apparently told, "the guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it", by his aunt.

When he was still a teenager his mom died and her death hit him quite hard. He drank a lot, got into fights, and misbehaved at school. He was described as being lazy and unfocused. He was accepted into Liverpool College of Art only after his aunt and the headmaster intervened on his behalf, but he was kicked out before he graduated because of his bad attitude. He did, though, focus on his music despite the disapproval of his aunt, who didn't particularly like the people he associated with or his focus on music over his art studies.

Answer: Walt Disney

Walt Disney was interested in drawing from a very young age. When he was four, his family moved to a farm in Missouri. While here, he copied drawings from front-page cartoons and was paid to draw the horse of a neighbour. He practiced with watercolors and crayons, and also became interested in the world of motion pictures. Walt and his brother, Roy, had two newspaper delivery routes that kept them incredibly busy. They woke up at 4:30 in the morning to deliver one route, and delivered another after school. This resulted in Walt often falling asleep in class.

But he persevered, delivering newspapers for more than six years. In addition to that, he took art classes on Saturdays and took a correspondence course on cartooning. In high school he drew for the school newspaper and took night courses. While serving in the Red Cross during World War One, Walt continued to draw, having some of his work published in the army newspaper. After the war, he took a job as an apprentice artist. I think the moral of young Walt's story is that hard work truly does pay off!

Answer: Michelle Kwan

Michelle Kwan is one of the most decorated skaters in American history. She was born to Chinese immigrants who moved to the United States from Hong Kong. She ice skated from a very young age and her working class parents drove her to the rink to practice before and after school. But paying for ice time for training cost a lot of money, and this put financial hardship on her family.

By the time she was ten years old, her family could no longer afford a coach for her and they were offered financial assistance from a fellow member of their skating club. This enabled Michelle to train at the Ice Castle International Training Center in California. Good thing too! Michelle went on to win the U.S. championship nine times and the World championship five times.

Answer: Danica Patrick

Danica Patrick has many achievements in the racing world. She is the first woman to win an IndyCar Series race and the first to clinch a pole position in the NASCAR Cup Series. Her interest in racing starting with karting, with her dad acting as crew chief and her mom keeping stats. In her debut karting race, there was a brake failure and she crashed into a concrete wall at 25 mph (40 km/h).

Luckily she was not injured or demotivated and she kept racing. After karting, she also took an interest in snowmobiling, motocross, and midget car racing. She worked hard at her craft with the support of her family, and she participated in development programs. She dropped out of high school to focus on racing and earned her GED certification.

Her foray into Formula One racing was difficult at first, as she was met with opposition and didn't race particularly well. But she continued to persevere and her efforts paid off. Ultimately she won multiple awards, including 2005 Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year and 2012 NASCAR Nationwide Series Most Popular Driver.

Answer: Anne Sullivan

When Anne Sullivan was five years old, she had an eye disease that left her partially blind. As if that wasn't enough of a hardship for a child, when she was eight years old her mom died of tuberculosis. Two years later her father abandoned her and her brother and she was sent to an orphanage. The institution she was at was investigated for reports of horrible cruelty and Anne begged to be moved to a school for the blind.

At the age of fourteen, unable to read or write and with a rough manner about her, she was transferred and began her education. She graduated at the age of twenty and was valedictorian of her class. It was the summer following her graduation when she met and started tutoring Helen Keller.

Answer: Michael Jordan

The great Michael Jordan was born to a bank employee and equipment supervisor. Jordan was quite athletic in high school, playing basketball, baseball, and football. As a sophomore, he tried out for the varsity team, but he didn't make the cut. He was told he was too short to make the varsity team. Luckily, this didn't discourage him but only gave him the fire to prove himself.

He played on the junior varsity team instead, and became the star of the team, scoring forty points in some games. That summer, he grew a number of inches and trained hard for the upcoming season. He then made the varsity team and started on his incredible basketball journey. He was recruited by several colleges and accepted a basketball scholarship with North Carolina.

Answer: Rosa Parks

It was on the first of December 1955 that Rosa Parks changed history by refusing to give up her seat on a bus. But she was fighting for equal rights for years before this event took place. Twelve years earlier, in 1943, Parks started to become active in the civil rights movement. She joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and took on the role of secretary. She helped to organize "The Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor" and worked as an anti-rape activist. She was also a member of the League of Women Voters.

She was not unfamiliar with the bus driver who called the police on her in 1955, as they had met in 1943. In 1943, Parks had entered the bus but not through the back door, as she was supposed to do "by law". When she left the bus to re-enter, the bus driver took off and left her standing in the rain. This driver, James F. Blake, was the very same one who called the police to arrest her in 1955 when she refused to move seats to give up her seat to a white passenger. As a result of her action, she received acclaim and helped to change history but she also lost her job and received death threats for years.

Answer: Jerry Yang

As of February 2022, the co-founder of Yahoo!, Jerry Yang, had a net worth of over $2.7 billion. But his upbringing was quite humble. He was born in Taiwan to an English professor. His father died when he was two years old, and his mom moved him and his brother to California when he was ten. He was looked after by his grandmother while his mom taught English to immigrants.

Ironically, her own son has stated that he only knew one English word upon arriving in the United States. That word was 'shoe'. According to Yang, he quickly learned English and became fluent in three years. After graduating high school he went to Stanford University and studied electrical engineering, earning both a Bachelor and Masters Degree in four years. He founded Yahoo! in 1994.

Answer: J. K. Rowling

Rowling had a tough life prior to the fame and fortune that the "Harry Potter" franchise brought her. She was shy and was bullied as a child. She was unhappy as a teenager, as her mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and her relationship with her father was difficult. She did well at school, being quite studious, but applied to and was rejected by Oxford University. After attending the University of Exeter, she had a number of temp jobs and started writing. Her mom passed away and some of her mom's personal items were stolen, which added to the grief that Rowling was experiencing.

She had a troubled relationship with a television reporter, who she married and ended up divorcing. She had a daughter with him and had to get the police involved in order to get her daughter. She lived for a while on government assistance and was poor, depressed, and considered herself a total failure. But she kept on writing. She has in fact said that writing the first "Harry Potter" novel saved her life and that all her thoughts about "love, loss, separation, death ... are reflected in the first book".

Answer: Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison was born to a family of seven children. Although he only attended school for a short while, he was a naturally curious child and was taught by his mother, a former schoolteacher. When he was twelve years old, he developed hearing problems which are thought to have been a result of scarlet fever. He was completely deaf in one ear and allegedly had issues hearing out of the other ear.

Historians have also suggested that he would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He was an active and resourceful kid, selling items on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit. He was earning fifty dollars a week by the age of thirteen and used the money to buy equipment for chemical and electrical experiments. He, of course, went on to invent numerous items, including a light bulb, an electric pen, and a phonograph. I wonder why he didn't (or if he tried) to invent a hearing aid?