History's Most Famous Trials I Quiz

Answer: Plato

Our only sources of information about Socrates' trial comes down to us through the 'apologies' of Plato and Xenophon, both students of the great philosopher. Socrates was accused of heresy and corruption of the youth of Athens, and he was found guilty on both counts. He took hemlock, carrying out his own execution.

Answer: Golgotha

Jesus was arrested in an olive grove called Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. After the trial, presided over by Pontius Pilate, he was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to execution by crucifixion. His place of execution was Golgotha, a name that means 'the place of the skull' in Aramaic.

Answer: Joan of Arc

There were actually two trials involving Joan of Arc. The first, her Trial of Condemnation, was held in 1431. Joan was found guilty of heresy and witchcraft (apparently having admitted to hearing voices, among other things) and was condemned to death.

Joan's second trial (Trial of Nullification) was concluded in 1456, 25 years after her death. In this second trial, Joan's name and reputation were rehabilitated in France.

Answer: Charles V

Just four years prior, Martin Luther had nailed his 95 Theses on a door of the Wittenberg Cathedral, critiquing, among other things, the practice of indulgences by the Catholic church. Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther in early 1521, and he was summoned before Charles V at Worms where he was commanded to recant. Refusing to do so, he was banished from the Holy Roman Empire by the emperor.

Answer: 1535

Thomas More, statesman and author of such works as 'Utopia', refused to accept King Henry VIII's divorce from his first wife Katherine and the ensuing schism that helped establish the Church of England. He resigned his position as Lord High Chancellor in 1532, and continued to refuse to accept Henry's actions.

More was put on trial in 1535 and found guilty of treason. His execution took place on July 6th, 1535. He was made a saint of the Catholic church in 1935.

Answer: Galileo

Galileo, the great 16th/17th century Italian scientist, was put on trial for the 'crime' of supporting the Copernican notion that the sun, and not the Earth, was at the center of the solar system. During his trial before the Roman Inquisition, Galileo was forced to recant his positions on the Copernican system (which he had laid forth in the book 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems) and reaffirm his 'faith' in the traditional, Earth-centered Ptolemaic system.

It is said that, after reciting his abjuration before the Inquisition, Galileo looked down towards the Earth and said, 'Eppur si muove' (But still, it moves).

Answer: Charles I

Charles I was particularly covetous of his autocratic rule, and made a point of it to keep parliament from meeting during his period on the English throne. Unfortunately, as a result of a lack of personal funds, Charles was forced to summon parliament back to London after an eleven year hiatus.

Not surprisingly, no proper arrangements could be made between the King and a disagreeable parliament, and a civil war ensued. Parliamentary forces having defeated the Royalists, Charles was captured and put on trial for treason in 1649.

The King refused to plead his case, and was soon after found guilty (by a narrow margin) and put to death by beheading at Whitehall Palace. Charles' trial was essentially no more than a show; no man is above the law was the message.

Answer: Hanging

Nineteen people suffered the gallows as a result of their guilty verdicts in the Salem Witch Trials (and one elderly chap was pressed to death because he refused to have his case go to trial). All of the executions took place in a three-and-a-half month period from June 10 to September 22, 1692.

The trials only ended after some key personalities in the Massachusetts colony, including the well-known preacher/scholar Increase Mather, began to write about the need for proper testimony and evidence in criminal trials.

Answer: Freedom of the press

John Peter Zenger was a printer of German birth who had settled in New York in the early 1700s. He founded the newspaper called the 'New York Weekly Journal' with the help of an attorney named James Alexander, in order to voice opposition to the unpopular New York Governor William Cosby (no relation to Bill).

After a number of articles attacking Cosby, the newspaper was shut down and Zenger arrested. Thanks to the eloquence of Zenger's attorney Andrew Hamilton, the printer was acquitted of 'seditious libel' and allowed to freely print his newspaper (which was continued by Zenger's wife during his time in prison).

Answer: John Adams

Apparently, John Adams was rather successful in his defense. All but two of the soldiers accused (Captain Thomas Preston, Corporal William Wemms, James Hartigan, William McCauley, Hugh White, Matthew Kilroy, William Warren, John Carrol and Hugh Montgomery) were acquitted. The two soldiers who were found guilty and sentenced to death (Kilroy and Montgomery) were allowed to invoke 'the benefit of clergy'. Their sentences were remanded to 'thumb branding'.

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