They Called Her Mata Hari Trivia Quiz

Answer: Netherlands

Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born on August 7, 1876 to a hat maker named Adam Zelle and his wife Antje van der Meulen. She was the second child and only daughter of four siblings.

Answer: Navy

Mata Hari married Rudolph Macleod when she was only a teenager and her husband was two decades her senior. She and Rudolph met through a personal ad in the newspaper. They had two children together, a boy named Norman John and a daughter named Jeanne Louise.

Answer: To escape desertion charges

Because Rudolph had been transferred from the Netherlands to Java in Indonesia, Mata Hari packed up her belongings and moved with Rudolph. While Rudolph was stationed in Java, Mata Hari learned to speak the Malaysian language.

Answer: Poisoning

While in Java, Mata Hari gave birth to daughter Jeanne Louise, named after Rudolph's sister. One night, Mata Hari found Norman and Jeanne Louise deathly ill in the nursery. By the time a doctor had reached them, Norman had died. Jeanne Louise survived the poisoning which was thought to have been done purposely by a disgruntled worker of the Macleod's.

Answer: False

Mata Hari and Rudolph returned to the Netherlands after their son died and it was there that they divorced. The judge that granted the Macleods a divorce also gave custody of their daughter to Mata Hari and made Rudolph support his daughter. When support payments didn't come and Mata Hari couldn't find work, she returned Jeanne Louise to her father so he could support her.

Answer: France

Mata Hari took to dancing at the Musee Guimet in Paris, France where she learned to dance exotic dances. Along with her dancing, came her new name Mata Hari and a new identity.

Answer: World War I

While dancing, Mata Hari met a German man named Traugott von Jagow in 1914. Supposedly, Traugott sent her to a spy school in Belgium, but Mata Hari denied it.

Answer: H-21

The codename H-21 was the official codename for Mata Hari given to her by Germany. While spying for Germany, Mata Hari fell in love with a Russian officer named Vadim. It was while trying to visit him in a hospital that she was approached and asked to spy on Germany for France. She did. France didn't know that Mata Hari was also already a spy for Germany.

Answer: France

On February 13, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested for being a double agent and sent to Saint Lazare prison until her trial. She was imprisoned for five months before being tried by a military court in July of 1917.

Answer: Firing squad

The firing squad killed Mata Hari on the morning of October 15, 1917. After she was shot, one of the twelve-man squad shot her in the head just to make sure she was dead. Mata Hari's death came at the age of forty-one.