They Went Into Exile Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron (1788 - 1824) was a very popular poet in England, and an important figure in English high society. Among his best-known works: "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage", published in 1812, and "Don Juan", incomplete when he died.

He was as well-known for his sexual adventures as he was for his poetry, and had many scandalous love affairs, including an affair with his half-sister. He finally left England to escape British society's disapproval of his behavior, and went to live in exile in Italy and Greece.

Lord Byron became involved in political causes in both countries. He fought in the Greek War of Independence against the Turks, and is still thought of as a national hero by the Greeks. He died of fever at a young age in Greece.

Answer: Bao Dai

Bao Dai (Prince Nguyen Vinh Thuy) became Vietnam's emperor in 1926, though he was mostly a puppet for the French colonists, as Vietnam was then part of French Indochina.

After World War II, the Viet Minh, headed by Ho Chi Minh, began an attempt to take power in Vietnam; Bao Dai abdicated. The Geneva Accords partitioned Vietnam into North and South, and armed conflict began between the French and the Viet Minh. The U.S. was strongly opposed to a Vietnam run by the communist Ho Chi Minh, and sent troops to Vietnam, soon the conflict escalated into a full-scale war.

Emperor Bao Dai remained in exile in Paris for the rest of his life; he died in Paris in 1997.

Answer: Ramon Mercader

Leon Trotsky (Lev Davidovich Bronstein) was born in 1879 in Ukraine. He was a revolutionary, the founder of the Red Army in the Soviet Union, and an original member of the Soviet Politburo. Upon the rise of his rival Josef Stalin in the 1920s, Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party and sent into exile. He continued to oppose Stalin while in exile, and was eventually murdered in Mexico by a Soviet agent named Ramon Mercader.

Mercader was born in Spain in 1914. In 1939 he entered Mexico with a false Canadian passport, befriended Trotsky's secretary, and through her became acquainted with Trotsky. Mercader stabbed Trotsky with an ice pick at Trotsky's home in Coyoacan, Mexico. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in a Mexican prison. Upon his release he traveled to Cuba, and then to Moscow, where he was greeted as a hero. He spent the rest of his life in Russia under the protection of the KGB, the Soviet secret police. It was not until fourteen years after Trotsky's murder that his true identity was revealed.

Charles Guiteau assassinated U.S, President Garfield, Jose de Leon Toral killed President Alvaro Obregon in Mexico, and Mario Aburto Martinez assassinated Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.

Answer: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 in Kislovodsk, Russia. In 1945, he was arrested for criticizing Joseph Stalin, and sentenced to eight years in prison. He spent his sentence in work camps, and in state-run research facilities. He then went into internal exile in Kazakhstan, and began to write of his prison experiences.

He based much of his best work on his life in the prison camps: "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich", "The First Circle", and "The Gulag Archipelago". Soon he was in trouble with the Soviet authorities for what he wrote. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

In February 1974 he was stripped of his citizenship and deported by Soviet authorities for what they considered to be subversive activities. Solzhenitsyn went to United States, and lived there for seventeen years. He was outspokenly critical of many aspects of Western society and culture.

In 1990, his Soviet citizenship was finally restored, and in 1994 he returned to Russia with his wife. The other three men were all well-known Russian authors.

Answer: Ferdinand Marcos

Ferdinand Marcos (1917 - 1989) was president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He was an intelligence officer during World War II, and was one of the survivors of the notorious Bataan Death March.

After the war he chose a career in politics; he was elected president in 1965 and again in 1969, amid accusations of electoral fraud. Marcos declared martial law in 1972; it lasted for nine years. Everything finally began to go wrong for Marcos: he had health problems, his government was accused of repression and corruption. The United States no longer supported him. The opposition to Marcos united behind Corazon Aquino; even the military supported her.

Marcos was driven into exile by the "People Power Movement", and Aquino became president. The Marcos family went to live in Hawaii. (Imelda Marcos famously left over 2500 pairs of shoes in her closet in the presidential palace in Manila.) Ferdinand Marcos died in Honolulu in 1989.

Answer: Jean-Claude Duvalier

Jean-Claude Duvalier (nicknamed Baby Doc) was born in 1951, the son of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier. He succeeded his father as the dictator of Haiti in 1971, until he was overthrown by a popular uprising.

He assumed the presidency of Haiti at the age of 19, making him the world's youngest president at that time. He showed no interest in national affairs, and left the running of the country to his mother, Simone Duvalier, while he lived the high life. Widespread discontent began in March 1983, when Pope John Paul II visited Haiti and urged that there be change in the country.

In January 1986, the U.S. began to pressure Duvalier to resign and leave Haiti. Jean-Claude finally departed, his family's legacy a country in ruins. The Duvaliers went to live in exile in France.

Answer: Nadia Comaneci

Nadia Elena Comaneci was born in Romania in 1961. She was the winner of five Olympic gold medals. At the age of 14, Comaneci became the star of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. During the team portion of the competition, her routine on the uneven bars was scored at a perfect 10. It was the first time in Olympic gymnastics than a competitor received a 10.

Comaneci retired from competition in 1981. Also in 1981, her coaches, Bela and Marta Karolyi, defected. Upon her return to Romania, Comaneci's actions were strictly monitored. She was granted leave to attend the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles but was supervised for the entire trip.

In November of 1989, a few weeks before the Revolution, she defected with a group of other young Romanians. Her journey took her through Hungary, Austria, and finally, to the United States. In 1994, she became engaged to US gymnast Bart Conner. The couple were married in Bucharest on April 27, 1996.

Answer: Celia Cruz

Celia Cruz (1925-2003) was born in Havana, Cuba. In 1950, she was hired as lead singer of the Sonora Matancera, a popular Cuban orchestra. She soon had a large following throughout Cuba, and stayed with the Matancera for fifteen years. Cruz was known for her trademark shout "Azúcar", (Spanish for "Sugar"), which was the punch line for a joke she told her audiences. Later she dropped the joke and just greeted her audiences with - Azúcar!

In 1960, after Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba, Celia emigrated to the United States. Soon Cruz and the Matancera were performing all over New York City. In 1965 she left the band to embark upon a solo career, guided by her husband, trumpeter Pedro Knight. She became a U.S. citizen and never had the opportunity to return to Cuba. Celia had a long and illustrious career in salsa music, with an devoted following. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton.

In July 2003, Celia Cruz died of cancer at her home in New Jersey. One of her last wishes was that some Cuban soil that she had gathered on a visit to Guantanamo Bay be used in her burial.

Answer: Alberto Fujimori

Alberto Fujimori was born in Lima, Peru in 1938. He was President of Peru from 1990 to 2000. Throughout his political career, Fujimori has been a controversial figure. He has been credited with bringing economic stability and peace to Peru. He dismantled the leadership of the Sendero Luminoso, a violent guerrilla group. But he was also accused of authoritarian leadership.

In late 2000, with growing criticism over human rights violations, he left Peru to attend a conference in Brunei and from there went to Japan; from there he then officially resigned his presidency. Fujimori remained in self-imposed exile in Japan, where his citizenship as a foreign-born Japanese was confirmed; his parents had registered him with the Japanese consulate in Peru when he was born (there is a large and close-knit Japanese community in Peru). He was barred from holding any elective office in Peru for ten years.

In 2005, he announced that he would be a candidate in Peru's 2006 presidential election, despite the ban. His family officially registered him before the proper authorities, but he was disqualified. He flew to Chile, and was detained by Chilean authorities from November 2005 to May 2006, when he was released on the condition that he stay in Chile. He was extradited to Peru in September 2007. In April 2009 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison (for human rights violations in the killings and kidnappings by the Grupo Colina death squad in the 1990s).
The other men named here were also presidents of Peru.

Answer: Saudi Arabia

Idi Amin was president of Uganda from 1971 until 1979. He came up the ranks of the Army in the 1960s, and took over the country in a coup against Uganda's president, Milton Obote. His tenure as president was filled with brutality and torture. Prison camps were filled with innocent people.

It is believed that over 300,000 people were killed by Idi Amin's forces, and many more Kenyans of Asian-Indian descent were deported from Uganda. In 1976, Amin declared himself president for life. He invaded Tanzania in 1978, in an attempt to divert attention from Uganda's staggering problems. Amin's troops were defeated by the Tanzanians, and Amin was forced to flee into exile in Saudi Arabia. He died there in August of 2003.