Sparkling Cyanide Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jim Jones

Jim Jones was the leader of The Peoples Temple that was known for the mass murder/suicide of over 900 people in Georgetown, Guyana in November of 1978. Many subjects willingly drank cyanide mixed into grape-flavored Flavor-Aid.

Answer: Eva Braun

Eva Braun swallowed cyanide in a suicide pact with her husband. He took cyanide and shot himself when it became clear that the war was lost and they were soon to be taken captive.

Answer: Tylenol

James Lewis was the prime suspect in the case. He served 13 years in prison for extortion after he sent a letter demanding one million dollars or else he would keep putting cyanide in isolated Tylenol bottles. Neither he, nor anyone else, was ever charged with any of the murders.

The FBI continued to investigate Lewis for more than 25 years after the crimes in an attempt to charge him with the murders.

Answer: Grigory Rasputin

The Tsarina believed that Grigory Rasputin, also known as "The Mad Monk", could cure her only son of his hemophilia. She would do almost anything he told her to. The Russian aristocracy hated him. When their attempt to poison him with cyanide failed, they shot him and threw his corpse into the Malaya Nevka river.

There was no trial and within three months the Tsar abdicated. Within a few months of the abdication, the Tsar's entire family was murdered.

Answer: Nylon

Wallace Carothers was a brilliant organic chemist who was credited with the discovery of nylon. As with many geniuses he was troubled with mental illness. His invention of nylon made silk stockings a thing of the past, and made stockings readily available to the middle class.

Answer: False

Dr. Kevorkian did serve eight years for second degree murder but he never used cyanide. He often used carbon monoxide. Dr. Kevorkian was found guilty after assisting Thomas Youk to commit suicide. Mr. Youk was in the end stages of ALS sometimes known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Answer: Physician

Yazeed Essa was an Ohio physician who received a life sentence for putting cyanide in his wife's calcium supplements. When she died she had four times the lethal amount in her system. The doctor received a life sentence with no chance for parole.

Answer: True

The answer is true, but that is something that is changing. Many of the states that used gas chambers to carry out executions did use hydrogen cyanide. It was also used during the Holocaust and was possibly in use in North Korea at the beginning of the 21st century. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1976, only 11 people were executed using this method in the first 34 years.

It is unlikely that it will be used again but anything is possible. Most states with the death penalty have switched to lethal injection.

Answer: Homosexuality

In Great Britain in 1952, homosexuality was illegal. There were serious repercussions to "coming out of the closet". After he was arrested, he was given female hormones and chemically castrated before taking his own life. Mr. Turing played an important part in the creation of computers and the idea of an algorithm. Fifty-five years after his death, Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a public apology for the government's treatment of this man.

Answer: Excedrin

In this case, Stella Nickell poisoned her husband with cyanide that she added to his Excedrin. She then attempted to make his death look like it was caused by a serial poisoner by adding cyanide to other bottles of Excedrin which she then took back to other stores.

She killed another innocent person who bought one of the tampered bottles. She was convicted and given 90 years in prison. She was the first person in the U.S. to convicted of murder in a product tampering case.