You Know Me, I'm Famous Trivia Quiz

Answer: Marie Curie

Maria Sklodowska was born in Poland in 1867. She left for Paris, France in 1891 and completed her studies in chemistry, mathematics and physics there at the University of Paris. She married Pierre Curie in 1895, becoming a naturalised citizen by marriage. Madam Curie achieved many firsts in her life.

She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win it twice and the first to win it in two different sciences. Together with her husband, she discovered radium and ultimately paid the price for it by dying of aplastic anaemia from exposure to the radiation.

Answer: Marilyn Monroe

Marilyn Monroe, born Norma Jean Mortenson in 1926, died of a barbiturate overdose in 1962 at the tender age of thirty-six. She was married three times, the first time in 1942 at the age of sixteen to Jim Dougherty. It was then she started modelling and achieved her first film role a few years later.

Her second marriage to baseball legend Joe DiMaggio took place in 1954 and only lasted a year. The playwright, Arthur Miller was to be her third husband, but they divorced after five years. Monroe went on to make twenty-nine films, some of the most notable being "Some Like it Hot", "The Seven Year Itch" and "The Misfits".

She posed for the first ever edition of "Playboy" magazine and her rendition of "Happy Birthday", she sang at President John F. Kennedy's 1962 birthday celebration.

Answer: Steve Irwin

Steve Irwin, fondly known as "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian conservationist and zoo keeper. His wife Terri and children Bindi and Robert would often accompany him on his exploits and he was involved in filming a number of wildlife television series namely "The Crocodile Hunter", "Croc Files" and The Crocodile Hunter Diaries". Irwin died doing what he loved and was stabbed by a stingray barb in the heart while taking part in filming a documentary series "Oceans Deadliest" in 2006.

Answer: Nadia Comaneci

Nadia Comaneci is a world renowned Romanian born gymnast who made history at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, by becoming the first gymnast to ever receive a perfect 10.0 score. She went on to do that six more times at the same Olympics and won five gold medals in total and this all at the tender age of fourteen.

She repeated this feat in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, by receiving two more perfect tens, but won only three silver medals. She defected to the USA in 1989 and went on to marry Bart Conner, an American Olympic gold medallist.

She was inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame in 1990 and the International Gymnasts Hall of Fame in 1993 and was twice awarded the Olympic Order, in 1983 and 2004.

Answer: Salman Rushdie

Ahmed Salman Rushdie was born in India in 1947 and is the author of the Booker Prize winning 1981 novel "Midnight's Children" and the controversial "The Satanic Verses"(1988). He wrote eleven novels between 1975 and 2017 and is the recipient of numerous prizes including the Norman Mailer Prize, James Joyce Award and had the knighthood bestowed on him by Queen Elizabeth II. Ayatollah Khomeini proclaimed a fatwa in 1989 for the execution of Rushdie, due to the "irreverent" depiction of the Prophet Muhammed in "The Satanic Verses".

A fatwa can only be lifted by the one who proclaims it. Ayatollah Khomeini died in that same year without lifting the fatwa, so the threat to Rushdie's life still exists.

Answer: Idi Amin

Idi Amin was the third president of the African country Uganda. He took power by military coup in 1971 as commander of the army. His full title, self bestowed, was "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular".

He had also publicly stated that he was the uncrowned king of Scotland. He went as far as to confer a law doctorate on himself from Makerere University as well. Amin's brutality began soon after taking power with the massacre of the Lango and Acholi ethnic groups.

He then went on to have people of other ethnic groups and a wide variety of professions killed. Amnesty International estimated that more than a half million people were killed in Amin's eight year reign.

He died in Saudi Arabia in 2003 where he had been in exile since 1979, offered sanctuary by the Saudi royal family.

Answer: Hillary Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in 1947 and married former President William "Bill" Jefferson Clinton, 42nd President of the United States in 1975. She graduated from Yale Law School and was involved with politics from that time, when in 1974 she was member of the impeachment inquiry staff which advised the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Nixon Watergate scandal.

She would go on to be First Lady for eight years, a U.S. Senator and then made her first unsuccessful run for the presidency against eventual winner Barack Obama.

She served as the 67th U.S. Secretary of State under Obama and made her second unsuccessful presidential bid against eventual winner Donald Trump. She became a grandmother in 2014, when her daughter Chelsea gave birth to her daughter Charlotte.

Answer: Lucky Luciano

The American Mafia or Mob has five major crime families, Lucchese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Genovese. Luciano was the first official crime boss of the Genovese family. Born in Sicily in 1897, his family emigrated to the U.S. when he was nine years old.

He took power in 1931 from old gang boss Joe Masseria. He went on to form the Commission, a mob governing body, developed the National Crime Syndicate and has widely been regarded as the father of modern organised crime in the U.S. He died of a heart attack in 1962 in Naples, Italy and was buried in Queens, New York City.

Answer: Henry Ford

Henry Ford (1863-1947), joined The Edison Illuminating Company and began personal experimentation on gasoline engines in 1891. He founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Although he did not invent the automobile, he did develop the first affordable motorcar.

The Ford Model T, known as Tin Lizzie, was produced from 1908 to 1927 and was named as the "the most influential car of the 20th century" in the 1999 Car of the Century competition. He famously made a remark regarding the Model T in 1909, stating that "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black". Aviation seemed like a natural progression to Ford in WWI and his company built the Liberty engines.

He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1946 and was unusually enough awarded the "Grand Cross of the German Eagle" from Nazi Germany in 1938, which was given to foreigners sympathetic to Nazism.

Answer: Roy Orbison

Roy Orbison, affectionately known as "The Big O", was born in 1936 and died in 1988 at the age of fifty-two. Some of his most famous songs are "Oh, Pretty Woman", "Blue Bayou", "Crying" and "Only the Lonely" and twenty-two of his songs reached the US Billboard Top 40.

He released twenty-eight albums one of which was with the group Travelling Wilburys. He has been honoured with six Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987), the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1987), Songwriters Hall of Fame (1989) and the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2017.

He was known for wearing sunglasses during his performances which, as mentioned in the clue, were usually completely devoid of frills and gimmicks.