Their Lives Overlapped? Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1750s

George Frideric Handel was born in 1685 in the town of Halle in what is now the state of Saxony-Anhalt in central-eastern Germany. One of the greatest composers of the Baroque period, he lived to the age of 74, dying in 1759.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 in the city of Salzburg in western Austria. Although he died aged just 35 in 1791, he left more than 600 works and is widely acknowledged as one of the giants of the Classical era.

Answer: 1570s

Born Tiziano Vecelli around 1488 in the commune of Pieve di Cadore about 70 miles north of Venice, Titian became the most greatest artist in the Venetian school of the 16th-century. He died in Venice aged 88 in 1576.

Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi da Caravaggio was born in 1571 in Milan, then part of the Spanish Empire and now in northern Italy. He was one of the most important painters in the early days of the Baroque era.

Answer: 1730s

Born Daniel Foe in London in 1660, Daniel Defoe was a trader, journalist and spy. Today he is best-remembered as the author of "Robinson Crusoe", one of the earliest English novels. He lived to the age of 71, dying in 1731.

Theologian and grammarian Joseph Priestley was born in 1733 in the town of Batley in central West Yorkshire. He produced more than 150 works of literature although he was a chemist by profession and widely credited with the discovery of oxygen.

Answer: 1940s

George Herman Ruth was born in 1895 in Baltimore, Maryland. After a brief spell with his hometown Orioles in the minor leagues, Baltimore's ace pitcher moved to Boston and made his major-league debut with the Red Sox in 1914. After winning three World Series titles with the Sox (1915, 1916 and 1918), Ruth was famously sold to the rival New York Yankees in 1919 and the rest, as they say, is history. Ruth lived to the age of just 523, and died in New York City in 1948.

Earlier in that same decade, in 1943, in the city of Beaver Falls in western Pennsylvania, another NEw York legend was born, Joseph William Namath. The Alabama quarterback was selected in the first round of both the NFL and AFL drafts in 1965. He signed with the New York Jets and four years later led them to Superbowl III against the highly-favoured Baltimore Colts. Namath not only publicly predicted victory for his underdogs, but famously delivered one of sport's great upsets of the 20th century.

Answer: 1790s

Nicknamed "The Bard of Ayrshire" and "The Ploughman Poet", Robert Burns was born in the former village of Alloway (now a sururb of Ayr) on the southwest coast of Scotland. A pioneer of the Romantic era, he is widely regarded as the National Poet of Scotland, where his birthday (January 25) is traditionally celebrated by Scots around the world. Burns died at the age of just 37, in 1796.

John Keats was born in 1795 in the district of Moorgate in the City of London. Along with Byron and Shelley, he was one of the most important figures in the second generation of Romantic Poets. Keats also died young, from tuberculosis, aged just 25 in 1821.

Answer: 1900s

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born in 1844 in the village of Röcken (now part of the town of Lützen) in Saxony in central-eastern Germany. Critic, poet and philologist, Nietzsche is one of the most important writers in recent Western philosophy. Two strokes in the late 1890s left him immobile and unable to speak in the two years, and a third killed him at the age of 55 in 1900.

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was born in Paris in 1905. A critic, playwright and novelist, he was an important figure in the Existentialist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and a leading Marxist scholar.

Answer: 1960s

Rocco Francis Marchegiano was born in 1923 in the city of Brockton in southeastern Massachusetts. World heavyweight boxing champion from 1952-56, he became the only champion in history to remain undefeated throughout his career. His knockout-to-win percentage (87.75) is higher than any other heavyweight boxer in history and many historians of the sport consider him the best heavyweight boxer of all time. "The Brockton Blockbuster" died in a 1969 plane crash in Iowa on the day before what would have been his 46th birthday.

Controversial during his playing career and beyond, Argentine soccer legend Diego Armando Maradona was born in 1960 in the Buenos Aires suburb of Lanús. Experts and fans alike may argue the case for Maradona or Pele as the greatest soccer player of all time. The 2-1 victory in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final against England summed up the two sides of Maradona: he scored both goals, one with a blatant handball missed by the referee that has become known by Argentina fans as the "Hand of God", whilst his second goal was voted in a 2002 poll on FIFA.com as the "Goal of the Century".

Answer: 1880s

Victor Marie Hugo was born in 1802 in city of Besancon in central-eastern France, near the Swiss border. Known worldwide for "Les Misérables" and "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame", he was a leading poet, novelist and dramatist of the Romantic movement and is widely considered one of the greatest of all French writers. Hugo died at the age of 83 in 1885.

In that same decade, in 1882, James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar in central-eastern Ireland. Poet, novelist and short-story writer, he spent most of his adult life living in continental Europe, but most of Joyce's fiction is set in his home city. Best-known for "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake", Joyce is one of the most influential and important of all 20th century authors.

Answer: 1890s

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg was born in 1815 in the municipality of Schönhausen (now in the province of Saxony-Anhalt in central Germany). He became Minister-President of Prussia in 1862, Chancellor of the North German Confederation in 1867, and the first Chancellor of Germany in 1871. A dominant figure in the affairs of both Germany and Western Europe for almost four decades, he remained in office until 1890. He died aged 83 in 1898.

Mao Zedong was born in 1893 in the village of Shaoshan in Hunan Province in south-central China. A Communist revolutionary and a founding father of the People's Republic of China, he was widely known as Chairman Mao. Chairman of the Communist Party of China from the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949, he ruled China for more than a quarter of a century, until his death aged 82 in 1976.

Answer: 1950s

Norn Denton True Young in 1867 in the community of Gilmore in central-eastern Ohio, Cy Young pitched for 22 season in Major League Baseball. He set numerous records, many of which have stood for more than a century and some that are never likely to be broken: 300 wins is now considered a career worthy of the Hall of Fame, and Young's total of 511 is 94 more than the second-best total ever posted (by Walter Johnson). Young died aged 88 in 1955, and the following year the "Cy Young Award" was instituted to honour the season's best pitcher in each league.

Joseph Clifford Montana Jr. was born in 1956 in the borough of New Eagle in southwestern Pennsylvania. Amazingly, the 82nd player taken, in the third round of the 1979 NFL draft, the Notre Dame QB went on to win four Superbowl titles with the San Francisco 49ers. Montana won three Superbowl MVP awards and was twice named MVP of the league. Former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Terry Bradshaw, whose record of four Superbowl wins Montana tied (since broken by the Patriots' Tom Brady) once said "If you don't think Joe Montana is the greatest quarterback of all time, you don't know anything about football".