Whatever Happened to the Heroes? Quiz

Answer: Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was born in Boston Massachusetts and is considered a hero in the eyes of many people from the United States and around the world. What he actually wrote was: "A penny saved is a penny got". Ben was a political figure and inventor who has had many towns, counties, streets, colleges, libraries, hotels, banks and ships named after him. His picture is on the one hundred dollar bill and the 1847 five cent stamp and his many inventions include bifocal eye glasses, swimming paddles and heaters, to name a few. He never patented his inventions because he believed that "ideas should be used to benefit all people".

Ben developed many health problems due to excessive weight and breathing problems and they finally took their toll on him when he was 84. Ben donated one thousand pounds to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia and after 200 years students and mortgage bearers benefited from the interest.

Answer: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (1910-1996) is the birth name of the famous Mother Teresa whose charity work in India is well known and commended worldwide. Agnes loved God from an early age and during her late teens she left home to be with a group of Irish nuns. These nuns had various missions in India and from 1931 to 1948 Agnes taught at a high school in Calcutta. Drawn to the poor, she started teaching the children of the slums and with the financial support and voluntary aid from businesses and the community, she started her own "Missionary of Charity".

Agnes gained international fame with her humanitarian work and advocacy for the poor and helpless. Having suffered heart attacks, pneumonia, a broken collar bone and malaria, Agnes' health suffered too much and she died in 1996. Her work is still carried out today and the quest to make her into a saint had started with her beatification after she died.

Answer: Motorcycle accident

Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935) was born in Gorphwyspha, Gwynedd, North Wales. King Feisal I of Mesopotamia and King George V considered Thomas to be a heroic giant of a man, even though he was quite short at 5ft 3in. The tactics of warfare he introduced into Arabia were so successful that they were later copied by Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam war.

Lawrence has left a mark on the traditions of the Royal Air Force and has been influencial in the forming of the Special Armed Services. He wrote several books including "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" (1922) which was an autobiographical account of his experience during the Arab Revolt against the Turks in 1916-18. A movie was made in 1962 starring Peter O'Toole and which was called "Lawrence of Arabia".

Answer: Win Wimbledon

Evonne Goolagong, MBE was born in Griffith, New South Wales in 1951 and along with her parents and 7 brothers and sisters they were the only aboriginal family to live in town. Evonne showed a liking for tennis and she would practice constantly with a tennis racket made from a wooden fruit box. At age 14 she moved to Sydney and lived with her coach's family and in 1971 she won at Wimbledon and became No. 1 female tennis player in the world.

In 1972 she was made the Member of the Order of the British Empire and in 1988 she was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in the United States. In 1991 she moved to Queensland, Australia, with her husband and children so that she could discover her aboriginal roots and teach her culture to her children. In 1993 she published her autobiography called "Home" and now, as a wealthy and famous person, she tours many months of the year. She is a consultant to the Indigenous Sports Program which raises money for sporting equipment for aboriginal communities. Her nicknames are "Supermum" and "Sunshine Super Girl" which are endearments from her many fans.

Answer: Frederick Hollows

Frederick "Fred" Cossom Hollows, AC was born in Dunedin New Zealand in 1929. He was one of four children and he trained in New Zealand to become an eye specialist. He loved mountain climbing and was a member of the New Zealand Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1965 he moved to Australia and in the 1970s he decided to work with Aborigines in the Northern Territory with very poor eye health. He visited Nepal, Eritrea and Vietnam and started training local technicians to help perform eye surgery. He also started intraocular lens laboritories which started producing lenses after his death in 1993. Eye sight was restored to poor people for as little as ten Australian dollars.

In 1985 Fred declined an honorary Order of Australia Award, but in 1990 he became Australian of the Year. The Fred Hollows Foundation was launched in 1992 with the help of his wife Gabi, and his work continues to provide eye care for underprivileged and poor people. Fred died at the age of 63 from kidney cancer, just five months after his Foundation was established.

Answer: John Lennon

John Lennon, OBE was a musician and singer-songwriter who was famous for being a founding member of the pop group "The Beatles". In 1980 John was murdered outside his New York apartment building by Mark Chapman, who is still serving time in 2012. John Lennon's ashes were scattered in Central Park where he has a memorial dedicated to him. He was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Many of John's songs were written about his own sad childhood, drugs and war and after he married Yoko Ono, his second wife, he wanted to stop being angry and start advocating world peace. John is revered by millions of people worldwide who still listen to his songs today, two of them being the iconic songs "Imagine" (1971) and "Give Peace a Chance" (1969).

In 1969 John and Yoko staged a Bed-In Peace stay in at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel to bring to the world's media his thoughts on women's rights, race relations, the Vietnam War and world peace. John's music and messages lives on in millions of people worldwide who are saddened by the way he died.

Answer: Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve was born in New York in 1952 and is well known for his role in the "Superman" (1978-1987) movies. Being an avid sports fan, he was very serious about competing in various events, but in 1995 his competitiveness in an equestrian race resulted in his being thrown off his horse and breaking two cervical vertebrae. Being in the public eye he decided to advertise spinal cord injury and stem cell research so that people would be aware of what he and others go through. Christopher needed a respirator to help him breathe and he couldn't move his arms or his legs so he established the "Christopher Reeve Foundation" which researches spinal cord injury. The research involved occupational, physical and respiratory therapy and has resulted in a number of people walking again who never thought they would.

At the age of 52 Christopher died of a cardiac arrest, so his wife Dana looked after the Foundation until her own death a year later. Christopher's children from his relationship with Gae Exton (modelling executive) are Board directors and Christopher's legacy continues.

Answer: Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was born in 1918 in South Africa and was a black South African political leader and deputy leader of the Arican National Congress. Nelson studied law at University and was a staunch anti-apartheid activist. He was jailed twice for his involvement in sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the then government. The second time he was jailed was for life, but he was released in 1990 after an international campaign led by his second wife Winnie (Numzano) rallied to set him free.

Nelson was South Africa's President from 1994 to 1999 and he was passionate about helping poverty stricken people and orphaned children. During his Presidency he helped change policies on racial elections, land reform and helping to expand the healthcare system. After his term as President he became an elder statesman and a charity worker to fight poverty and HIV/AIDS.

Nelson received many awards and he has received international acclaim for his struggle against apartheid. There is an annual "Nelson Mandela Invitational" charity golf tournament, which started in 2000, which raises money for children's charities. In 2004 he retired from public life. He died in 2013 aged 95. He had written an autobiography called "Long Walk to Freedom" in 1994 and there are various statues and civic tributes that are named after him. In 1992 he had a cameo role in the film "Malcolm X" (1992) which was about and African-American human rights activist called Malcolm Little.

Answer: Lady Diana Spencer

Lady Diana Spencer was well known to most people of the world as Princess Di. She was born in Norfolk, England in 1961 and later married and divorced Charles, Prince of Wales. During her marriage Princess Di was known for her charity work and public appearances in hospitals and schools. After her divorce she spent a lot of time visiting areas where landmines were used and were still injuring people. Diana supported the "International Campaign to Ban Landmines" which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.

Diana has left a legacy of style, compassion and help for her various charities which helps children, AIDS sufferers, drug addicts and the elderly to name a few. It is thought that her support of banning landmines helped the signing of the Ottawa Treaty which is a stepping stone to the international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines. Lady Diana died in a Paris road tunnel in 1997 and there were many conspiracy theories concerning how and why she died.

Answer: Al Gore

Al Gore was born in Washington, DC in 1948. He was the 45th Vice President of the USA from 1993 to 2001 and he is an author, business person and environmental activist. Al has won many awards including the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and has served as a private in the United States Army (1969-1971) and in Vietnam in 1971.

Al has been concerned with the environment since doing a course on climate science in 1967. In the 1970s Al promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications and the Internet which would help with economic growth and improvement of the education system. Al has written a best selling book called "Earth in the Balance" (1992) and a documentary was made to bring to the people of the world the facts about negative environmental issues and ways to combat them: "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006).