Why Did It Have to Be Me? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Henry VIII

Mary of Guise was born in Bar-le-Duc, in Northeastern France, in 1515. She married the Duke of Longueville in 1534, but her husband died in 1537, leaving her with two sons. Later that year she started marriage negotiations with James V of Scotland. Henry VIII also asked for her hand, after having his second wife, Anne Boleyn, executed in 1536.

He said he was a big man and wanted a big woman. Mary is said to have remarked, "I may be a big woman, but I have a very little neck". She married James in 1538, and their only child was the future Mary Queen of Scots.

Answer: Pendle

Alice Nutter was from a well-off family who lived in Pendle, in Lancashire, England. She was one of twelve Pendle women accused in 1612 of witchcraft in one of the most famous witch trials in English history. Her main accuser was a nine year old girl who said that Alice attended a witches' sabbath, and caused the death of a man.

At her trial, held at Lancaster Castle, she was not allowed legal representation and was denied the right to call witnesses. Alice Nutter was found guilty and hanged on 20 August 1612. Recent speculation has suggested she may actually have been a Roman Catholic, reluctant to admit she had attended a Catholic Mass, which would have been illegal at that time in England.

Answer: Emily Davison

Herbert Jones was riding Anmer, the horse of King George V, in the 1913 Epsom Derby, when they collided with Emily Davison. Emily Davison was a highly committed suffragette, who had been arrested ten times for acts of civil disobedience, and been force fed forty nine times when on hunger strike in prison, all in the cause of getting votes for women.

Her protest at Epsom - going onto the racetrack during the greatest classic horse race of the year - was designed to achieve maximum publicity. Whether she threw herself under the horse deliberately is uncertain.

She died four days after the collision.

Answer: Houdini

Renowned magician and escapologist Harry Houdini was in his dressing room in Montreal, when a student fan, Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead, asked him if punches to his stomach wouldn't hurt him. Houdini let Whitehead punch him in his belly, but stopped him after several hard punches. Houdini was to die a few days later, in Detroit, of peritonitis after a ruptured appendix.

It is speculated that the punches may have caused the appendicitis, and Houdini's insurance company certainly paid out on that basis.

Modern opinion is that the blows are unlikely to have brought on the illness.

Answer: Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is a spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, who also served as the head of Tibet's government. The Dalai Lama is believed to be a reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lamas going back to the fourteenth century. The 13th Dalai Lama died in 1933, and, in 1936, search teams of monks were sent to find his successor, interpreting visions and omens.

They heard of a boy, Lhamo Thondup, born in 1935 who was "fearless", and whose location seemed to fit the visions. The boy correctly identified objects that belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama and was selected to be the 14th incarnation in 1937.

He was formally announced as the successor in 1939. He took the religious name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, which is shortened to Tenzin Gyatso.

His official reign started in 1940. In 1959, following the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule, he went into exile in India. The selection of the 15th Dalai Lama based on reincarnation would be illegal in China, and the future of the Dalai Lama role is in doubt.

Answer: France

P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) was one of the most popular British authors of all time, whose books have sold millions and been read all over the world. Wodehouse had the misfortune to be living with his wife at Le Touquet in Northern France when the Germans invaded in May 1940.

Their attempts to escape were unsuccessful, and Wodehouse was interned in France and then Belgium. He was transferred to Tost, in the east of Germany (now Poland) in September 1940. The Germans moved him to Berlin in June 1941 and allowed him to stay in a hotel - just before his 60th birthday.

The Germans tricked him into making some recordings, in which he made some understated humour about his time in captivity. When they were broadcast, the reaction in England was severe, and Wodehouse was called a traitor. Former friends, such as A. A. Milne, excoriated him, while George Orwell said he was only guilty of stupidity. Wodehouse went to the USA and lived there for the rest of his life.

Answer: Meteorite

Ann Hodges was having a sleep on a couch in her home in Oak Grove, near Sylacauga, Alabama, when she was hit by a fragment about the size of a grapefruit that broke off of a meteorite. This was the first documented case of a person being hit by an extraterrestrial object. Ann Hodges was bruised, but not incapacitated.

She donated the meteorite fragment to the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

Answer: Smallpox

The fight against smallpox was the first time a disease has been eradicated in human history. By 1978 the virus was only held in laboratories. It was from one of these laboratories, in the University of Birmingham Medical School, that an outbreak of smallpox occurred that killed Janet Parker.

She was a photographer who worked in the Anatomy Department who used a darkroom that was near the laboratory where the smallpox virus was being studied. She fell ill on 11 August 1978 and died a month later, the last recorded person to die from smallpox. Following the tragedy, all stocks of smallpox virus were moved to two specialist World Health Organisation laboratories, one in the USA and one in Russia (formerly USSR).

Answer: Manchester City

When Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli scored the first goal during an extraordinary 6-1 rout of Manchester United at their home ground of Old Trafford, in October 2011, he folded the front of his jersey over his head to show an undershirt saying "Why Always Me?", one of the most famous goal celebrations in English football history. Balotelli, an Italian born in Sicily, spent three seasons at Manchester City, where his unpredictable behaviour, on and off the field, kept everyone guessing. He was said to have given £1,000 to a homeless man after a big win at a casino.

He threw darts at Manchester City youth players. He set off fireworks in his bathroom and caused a fire. He was in regular trouble with his manager, Roberto Mancini due to his lack of discipline on the pitch.

The choice of "Why Always Me?" as a slogan was surely the right one.

Answer: David Cameron

In 2015, David Cameron led the Conservative Party to their first majority Government since 1992. In the manifesto was a pledge to hold a referendum on the future membership of the UK in the European Union. The referendum date was set for June 2016. Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, campaigned energetically in favour of remaining in the EU.

Other "remainers" among the Conservative cabinet, including Home Secretary Theresa May, were less prominent. When the result came with a firm result in favour of leaving, Cameron had to resign.

After polling among Conservative Members of Parliament, May was chosen as leader without a vote of party members when her last remaining challenger, a staunch "leave" advocate, Andrea Leadsom, withdrew from the contest.

Theresa May became the UK's second woman Prime Minister, with the responsibility of managing the UK exit from the EU. Things didn't go very well for her.