Heroes, Rebels, and Killers

Question: Who assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln?

Answer: In April 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Abraham Lincoln as he sat in Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Question: Who was Emiliano Zapata?

Answer: Emiliano Zapata was a Mexican revolutionary and champion of agrarianism who fought in guerrilla actions during and after the Mexican Revolution (1911–17).

Question: Who was the foremost figure of the woman suffrage movement in Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

Answer: Foremost in Britain’s woman suffrage movement was Emmeline Pankhurst, a militant champion of the cause. Her 40-year campaign achieved complete success in 1928, the year of her death, when British women obtained full equality in the voting franchise.

Question: Which archbishop of Canterbury was burned at the stake for heresy?

Answer: Thomas Cranmer was the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury (1533–56) and an adviser to the English kings Henry VIII and Edward VI. Denounced by the Catholic queen Mary for promoting Protestantism, he was convicted of heresy and burned at the stake in 1556.

Question: Which American political leader is known for saying “Give me liberty or give me death”?

Answer: Patrick Henry was an influential orator and a major figure of the American Revolution. He was independent Virginia’s first governor (serving 1776–79, 1784–86). At the second Virginia Convention, on March 23, 1775, he delivered the speech that assured his fame. Convinced that war with Great Britain was inevitable, he presented strong resolutions for equipping the Virginia militia to fight against the British and defended them in a fiery speech in which he said, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.”

Question: Which staunch Puritan and principal secretary of Queen Elizabeth I uncovered a conspiracy against the queen involving Mary, Queen of Scots?

Answer: Francis Walsingham was an English statesman and the principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I from 1573 to 1590. In addition, he was a staunch Puritan who uncovered a number of dangerous Roman Catholic conspiracies against the queen. He detected Francis Throckmorton’s plot (involving France and Spain) to free Elizabeth’s prisoner, the Catholic Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots). In exposing the Babington plot three years later, he found a letter from Mary to Anthony Babington giving full support to a plan for the murder of Elizabeth. As a result, Mary was executed in February 1587, a course of action that Walsingham had advocated.

Question: Which philosopher is known for the observation that human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”?

Answer: Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher and political theorist who remains best known for his publications on individual security and the social contract. He argued that, in the absence of peace, humans would live in a state of war, which would be a time of “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” His solution was a sovereign with absolute power.

Question: Which leader endured a long prison term and later became his country’s president and a Nobel Prize winner?

Answer: Nelson Mandela’s long imprisonment (1962–90) and subsequent ascension to the presidency (1994) symbolized the aspirations of South Africa’s black majority. He led the country until 1999. In 1993 he and F.W. de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for their efforts to end apartheid and bring about a peaceful transition to nonracial democracy in South Africa.

Question: Who was the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress?

Answer: Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Congress. In 1968 Chisholm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, defeating civil rights leader James Farmer.

Question: What was the first U.S. military decoration, instituted by George Washington in 1782 as an award for bravery in action but now awarded to those wounded or killed in service of their country?

Answer: The Purple Heart, the first U.S. military decoration, was instituted by General George Washington in 1782 as an award for bravery in action. The current purpose of the medal is as an award for those wounded or killed (awarded posthumously) in the service of their country.

Question: Which American labour activist led a five-year strike against grape growers and a nationwide boycott of grapes?

Answer: Cesar Chavez was an organizer of migrant American farmworkers and a cofounder (with Dolores Huerta) of the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. In September 1965 he began leading what became a five-year strike by California grape pickers and a nationwide boycott of California grapes that attracted liberal support from throughout the country.

Question: Who established the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation?

Answer: In 1908 Charles Joseph Bonaparte, then the attorney general of the United States, established the Bureau of Investigation (later the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI) within the Department of Justice to answer the need for a federal investigative body.

Question: Which American writer was buried with Bolshevik leaders beside the Kremlin wall in Moscow?

Answer: John Reed was an American poet-adventurer whose short life as a revolutionary writer and activist made him the hero of a generation of radical intellectuals. When the U.S. Communist Party and the Communist Labor Party split in 1919, Reed became the leader of the latter. Indicted for treason, he escaped to the Soviet Union and died of typhus in 1920; he was subsequently buried with others considered Bolshevik heroes beside the Kremlin wall.

Question: Which Christian saint wrote an account of her suffering that was influential for centuries after?

Answer: Perpetua was a Christian martyr who died in 203. She wrote what became The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, a journal recounting her trial and imprisonment that was continued by a contemporary who described Perpetua’s death. Both her martyrdom and its account have been highly revered by ancient and modern Christians. Her text is one of the rare surviving documents written by a woman in the ancient world.

Question: Who was the wartime nurse known as the “Lady with the Lamp"?

Answer: Florence Nightingale was also known as the “Lady with the Lamp.” She was an English nurse and the founder of trained nursing as a profession for women. In 1854–56, during the Crimean War, she was in charge of nursing in the military hospitals in Turkey, where she coped with conditions of crowding, inadequate sanitation, and shortage of basic necessities.

Question: What was Oliver Cromwell’s title at the time he ruled England?

Answer: Oliver Cromwell was lord protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653 to 1658 during the republican Commonwealth.

Question: Which military leader was known as the “Little Corporal”?

Answer: Napoléon Bonaparte was a French general, first consul (1799–1804), and emperor (1804–1814/15). He was also known as the “Little Corporal.”

Question: Which Roman leader’s failed revolt led to 6,000 of his followers being crucified?

Answer: Spartacus was a leader in the Gladiatorial War (73–71 BCE) against Rome, the failure of which led to 6,000 of his followers being crucified by Roman forces along the Appian Way.

Question: Holiday trips in Latin America inspired which Latin American leader to support violent revolution?

Answer: Che Guevara was a theoretician and tactician of guerrilla warfare, a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution (1956–59), and later a guerrilla leader in South America. He spent many of his holidays traveling in Latin America, and his observations of the great poverty there convinced him that the only solution lay in violent revolution.

Question: Which U.S. president won the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his heroism during World War II?

Answer: In the fall of 1941 John F. Kennedy joined the U.S. Navy and two years later was sent to the South Pacific. Commanding a patrol torpedo boat, he was seriously injured when a Japanese destroyer sank it in the Solomon Islands. He led his men back to safety and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism.

Question: Which radical leader of the French Revolution was assassinated in his bath?

Answer: Jean-Paul Marat was a French politician, physician, and journalist. A leader of the radical Montagnard faction during the French Revolution, he was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a young Girondin conservative. Marat’s dramatic murder at the very moment of the Montagnards’ triumph over their opponents caused him to be considered a martyr to the people’s cause.

Question: Which religious festival celebrates the victory of Judas Maccabeus over Antiochus IV Epiphanes?

Answer: Hanukkah was instituted by Judas Maccabeus in 165 BCE to celebrate his victory over Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid king who had invaded Judaea, tried to Hellenize the Jews, and desecrated the Second Temple in Jerusalem. After the Temple was purified, a new altar was installed and dedicated on Kislev 25. Judas then proclaimed that the dedication of the restored Temple should be celebrated every year for eight days beginning on that date.

Question: Which peasant girl led the French army at Orléans during the Hundred Years’ War?

Answer: Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453).

Question: Which Siberian peasant and mystic had a curious ability to heal the son of Emperor Nicholas II, which made him an influential favourite at the court?

Answer: Grigori Rasputin was a Siberian peasant and mystic whose ability to improve the condition of Aleksey Nikolayevich, the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne, made him an influential favourite at the court of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra.