"Sic Semper Tyrannis" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Thus always to tyrants

Some have speculated that this Latin pronouncement was originally uttered by Marcus Brutus during the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C.E. Plutarch, the most widely accepted historian of the time, does not confirm this. However, the popular mythology persists, and there is no doubt the phrase has been used worldwide over the years to call out tyranny and rally people against perceived tyrants.

It appears on the seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia, a patriotic rejoinder to the British during the Revolutionary War, adopted as the state motto in 1776. Most notably in American history, it was shouted by Southerner and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth after he shot president Abraham Lincoln on the evening of April 14th, 1865.

Answer: He was shot by Union troops whilst hiding in a barn

After delivering his famous line about tyrants and shooting President Lincoln, who was attending a play at the Ford Theater, Booth did in fact jump down onto the stage, possibly breaking his leg in the process. He was still able to get out the back of the theater and escape on horseback, leaving the fatally wounded president, his horrified wife, and the stunned theater audience behind as he fled toward southern Maryland. There he hoped to find safety among fellow Confederate sympathizers. The date was April 14, 1865, five days after General Lee had surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.

Booth, with an accomplice named David Herold, was able to get his leg treated, row across the Potomac River to Virginia, and evade capture for twelve days. But Union military were swarming the area, further motivated by a reward which eventually rose to $100,000. With the help of a tip, they tracked him down at Richard Garrett's farm, where he was sleeping in the barn. With the barn surrounded, Herold gave himself up, but Booth refused to come out. The soldiers set the barn on fire, and Sergeant Boston Corbett, who had gone in the barn to flush Booth out, ended the suspense by shooting him in the neck. Although he claimed Booth had raised a pistol at him, Corbett was disciplined by his commanding officer for "acting without orders" and preventing the troops from taking Booth alive. The nation was in mourning, and even most southern news sources, who generally despised Lincoln, decried the assassination. History has definitively judged Booth harshly, as he clearly failed in his attempt to rally the Confederacy, and only exacerbated the deep divide in the country.

Answer: Cerebral hemmorage/ stroke

A certain degree of mystery still surrounds the death of Stalin on March 5th, 1953. No serious historian has put forth any of the incorrect options as the cause. Unquestionably, his demise ended his iron-fisted rule over the Russian Communist state after three decades, mercifully closing out one of the most brutal reigns the world has ever seen. Most of the evidence suggests some sort of stroke or brain hemorrhage as the ultimate cause. However, many have pointed out how fear and even hatred toward the man permeated his inner circle, so there was strong motivation among certain individuals close to Stalin to see his reign ended. There were reports and rumors suggesting that he may have been poisoned.

In his final years, as his health deteriorated, he had developed a paranoid distrust of doctors, and had begun a purge, especially of Jewish doctors, who ironically were the best he had. What seems clear is that on the night of his death, he had met at his dacha (retreat) outside of Moscow with his four closest ministers, as was the custom. They left him in the early morning. He did not come out of his bedroom the next day, and his attendants were too scared to disturb him. When they finally did, at 10PM, they discovered him on the floor, soaked in urine and unresponsive, evidently the victim of a stroke. Despite fears of reprisals from Stalin, doctors were eventually summoned and they pronounced him dead. The scramble to fill the ensuing power void, in which Nikita Khrushchev ultimately prevailed, is a fascinating study in pettiness, jealousy and brutality. It is bitingly re-imagined in the startling and darkly comic 2017 movie, "The Death of Stalin", directed by Armando Iannucci. See it for the laughs if not the strict historical accuracy.

Answer: Pablo Escobar

Escobar's death is memorialized in history by a photograph, taken on a barrio rooftop in the heart of Medellin, Colombia. "Search Bloc" members in army fatigues, agents of a Colombian task force, smile and hold guns as they crouch over his lifeless body. Escobar's family maintains that he took his own life so he wouldn't be captured. Their evidence is his earlier alleged avowal that he'd shoot himself through the ear rather than be taken alive, and that was the site of the fatal wound. But does it really matter? It only shows that even a seemingly obvious death can be controversial when such a notorious, powerful and despised man meets his end.

Earlier, Escobar had escaped from a "maximum security" prison. The trouble was that Escobar's mob associates had constructed the edifice, to his own specifications, and with a built-in escape tunnel. Talk about a fox guarding the hen house. What kind of government lets its worst criminal design his own prison? To this day, it's estimated that at the height of operations in the late 1980s, Escobar's cartel was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine into the US daily, enriching him by $70 million per day.

Answer: Khmer Rouge

Adopting "ends justify the means" philosophies, dictators establish parties or organizations which carry out their agendas. Widespread violence and bloodshed often follow.

In the case of the Khmer Rouge or "Red Khmers", the name, which originally celebrated Communism, has taken on an ironic, indelible, and bloody stain. Pol Pot was a Cambodian revolutionary educated in Paris who brought the idea of collective farming back to his country for the purpose of reform. He forced relocations of city folk, tortured dissidents, eliminated anyone of minority ethnicity, forbade practice of religion, and starved uncooperative peasants. An estimated 1.3 million people died in the resulting genocide. Some sources say it was way more.

He had so many of his associates murdered that others finally turned on him. Pol Pot died of heart failure brought on by malaria in a Cambodian jail in April of 1998. He was 73 years old.

Khmer is an ethnic designation and the language of a group of people native to Southeast Asia. Historically, the empire occupied present day Thailand and much of Vietnam and Laos as well as Cambodia. 97% of today's Cambodians are of Khmer ethnicity.

Answer: He was poisoned, shot three times, beaten, and finally thrown in a river while still alive, where he drowned

Self-styled holy man Grigori Yefimovich Novykh (b.1872- d.1916) was a Siberian peasant. Because of his lecherous ways, he was tagged with the surname of Rasputin, which means "debauched one" in Russian. By sheer force of personality, he was able to negotiate the corridors of power in Moscow in the late 1800s, move into the Tsar's inner circle, and involve himself in the most intimate aspects of the royal family's life.

His alleged healing powers are fiercely disputed, but there is no doubt the Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra gave him credit for ameliorating their son's hemophilia. They were mesmerized by his spiritual folk wisdom and let him appoint his cronies and grant them favors. All this alarmed other nobles and politicians in high positions, and they plotted to do him in.

Prince Felix Yusupov, the husband of the Tsarina's niece, was the ringleader, and admitted killer of Rasputin. According to his memoirs, he lured Rasputin to his residence and fed him cyanide laced cakes and wine, which amazingly did not seem to affect him. In a panic, Yusupov grabbed a revolver and shot Rasputin multiple times. Although incapacitated and with a bullet in his heart, he still lived. Reports of water in his lungs indicated drowning as the possible cause of death. Rasputin's daughter disputed this account, claiming her father hated sweet cakes and never would have eaten them. The autopsy, not mentioning poison or drowning, concluded he was shot in the head at close range.

Answer: Idi Amin

Idi Amin, "president for life" of Uganda, was a tyrant of epic proportions. Born sometime in the 1920s, he started as a cook, then rose through the ranks as a soldier in the British Colonial Army, which occupied Uganda until 1962. After becoming army commander of the now independent Uganda, he ousted president Milton Obote in 1971 in a military coup and declared himself ruler of the country for life. Observing his reign of terror and outrageous behavior, Britain broke off diplomatic relations in 1977, at which point Amin added "CBE" (conqueror of the British Empire) to his already grandiose title, and began referring to himself as "the Last King of Scotland."

Despite Secretary Owen's unapologetic antipathy, and many other enemies within and without the country who would have loved to have seen him killed, Amin was able to escape Uganda with his life. He died in exile in Saudi Arabia in 2017, when relatives took him off life support. It was rumored that Amin was afflicted with syphilis, which could have been responsible for his unpredictable and at times downright bizarre behavior.

Not all African leaders were or are dictators, despite conventional western ideas pertaining to "the dark continent." Nkrumah facilitated the establishment of Ghana as free nation in 1957. Jacob Zuma served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009-2018. Revolutionary politician Robert Mugabe fought to overcome the tyranny of Ian Smith and white rule in Rhodesia, and was instrumental in forming the nation of Zimbabwe. Still, he also must face history's judgement for his own tyranny and brutality toward remaining settlers and dissidents among his own people, many of whom he had killed.

Answer: Mussolini

Mussolini almost got out of Italy alive in 1945 at the end of World War Two, but no such luck. Already ousted from power in 1943 as Italy's war fortunes declined, the Fascist dictator and Hitler ally had been temporarily rescued by his German friends and was living in Lombardy and trying to escape to Spain.

He and his mistress Clara Pitacci were taken hostage by Communist partisans and summarily shot. Their corpses were hung upside down in a public square in Milan where passers by pelted them with rocks and spat on them.

Answer: Eva Braun

As WWII drew to a close, and Germany's demise became inevitable, the fate of Adolph Hitler was of paramount interest not only to the Allied army command but to the world at large. There were numerous reported sightings of the Fuhrer in various locations, and rumors that he had escaped to Argentina. Key figures, including General Eisenhower, were convinced for a time that the German high command had already started a retreat to a super-fortified mountainous area in southern Germany and Austria, where they planned to make their last stand.

In fact, Hitler was in an underground bunker in Berlin, with his longtime mistress Eva Braun, and his beloved dog, a German Shepherd named Biondi. Evidently he had become increasingly despondent as the war turned against Germany, and he had made plans to end his life.

He married Braun in a brief civil ceremony on 29 April, 1945. The next day, as Soviet forces forced their way toward his hideout, he said his goodbyes to his staff who then left him and Eva alone in their office.

His body was found by Otto Gunsche, his personal adjutant. He had put a bullet into his own head and Eva Braun had taken poison. In accordance with his wishes their bodies were doused in petrol and burned. However, their remains were not completely incinerated, and the Soviets were able to keep enough dental material to make an ID. Because of the complex political situation and mistrust between the Russians and the western allies, they kept this information secret for years, fueling speculation that Hitler was still alive.

Answer: Attila The Hun, Genghis Khan, Ivan The Terrible

Attila the Hun lived from 406-453 and was the ruler of a nomadic tribe based in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. He established dominion over vast areas of Europe and Asia and was a major threat to the Roman Empire, at various times advancing into present day Italy and as far west as Gaul (now France). No images or portraits of him exist, so historians can only speculate as to his appearance based on sketchy second hand writings.

Genghis Khan was born with the name Temujin Borgijin in 1162 and died in 1227. After uniting the many warring tribes of the Mongolian steppe, he built the largest land empire in history, stretching from the sea of Japan to the Caspian Sea. His fast strike cavalry archers were an indefensible force, so feared that rumors of their approach brought panic and capitulation to other peoples before they arrived. He is thought to have been extremely intelligent and effective at learning the culture of people he conquered and assimilating them into his empire.

Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584) was crowned tsar of all Russia at 17 years old. He was initially a reformer, but soon became committed to reducing the power and influence of the nobility, and building a service gentry loyal to the tsar, which he did with brutal purges. His foreign policy goal was to force Russia into European affairs, and his legacy of centralization of Russian states did achieve that effect.