Special Sub-Topic: Assassinations in History Click Here To Play: Assassinations in History

During the French Revolution (1789-1799), a well-known member of the Jacobin Club was stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a member of a rival political faction. Who was this activist?

Jean-Paul Marat. The reason Marat was always in his bathtub was because he had a skin disease and the only way to alleviate the discomfort was to take a hot bath. His assassination was immortalized in the famous painting by the artist David entitled 'The Death of Marat'.

On December 8th, 1980, singer and composer John Lennon was returning to his residence when a man came out and shot Lennon five times, fatally wounding him. What was the name of the man who assassinated Lennon?

Mark David Chapman. Mark David Chapman was obsessed with John Lennon. He even went so far as to marry a Japanese-American woman because she resembled Yoko Ono, the wife of John Lennon.

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia, a revolutionary youth group. In what city did this assassination take place?

Sarajevo. This event is recognized as triggering the start of World War I. After the assassination, the Austro Hungarian government blamed Serbia for the death of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and declared war on Serbia. This was the beginning of WWI.

Perhaps one of the best known assassinations was that of Julius Caesar. Caesar's death was planned by a group of senators who were fearful of him gaining too much power. The assassination took place when Caesar went to the Capitol to deliver a speech. The conspirators surrounded him and stabbed him to death. On what day did this take place?

March 15, 44 B.C.. In Shakespeare's play, Caesar is told by the soothsayer to 'beware the Ides of March'. The 'Ides' are the middle of the month. So it would be March 15. Caesar's last words are debated, but it is something along the lines of 'you too, Brutus?' referring to Brutus' betrayal of Caesar.

Emperor Claudius was an able administrator, a great builder of public works, and oversaw the conquest of Britain. But he was poisoned by a woman named Agrippina. Who was this woman in relation to Claudius?

His wife. Agrippina was also the mother of the soon-to-be Emperor Nero. She poisoned her husband so that her son could ascend the throne. She thought that if her son became emperor, she would be able to wield more power. But she in turn was murdered by Nero when he was in a fit of rage.

One of the most interesting characters in Russian history is Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin was a mystic who was supposedly psychic and was said by some to be able to heal people. Rasputin gained favor with the Tsar, and some nobles became fearful he was manipulating the Tsar too much. When a group of nobles attempted to assassinate him, they had a hard time. According to them, it took a variety of methods to finally kill Rasputin. What was the inital method they used?

Lacing wine and cakes with cyanide. When Rasputin came to the palace of a noble for a party, he was given poisoned food. But even though it would normally have killed 10 men, he remained on his feet. When the nobles noticed this, they shot him in the back with a revolver after the party. They thought he was dead, but when they went to collect his body, he came awake and started to strangle the man who had shot him. The nobles clubbed him over the head, and then they threw him in the Neva River, which was covered in ice at the time. When police found his body three days later, they saw that he was poisoned, shot, clubbed, and appeared to have tried to claw his way through the ice.

On April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was attending a play at Ford's Theater. During the play, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Confederate sympathizer, snuck into Lincoln's box and shot him in the back of the head. What was the name of the play that Lincoln was watching when his assassination took place?

Our American Cousin. After Booth shot Lincoln, he leapt from the box onto the stage and yelled 'Sic semper tyrannis!' or 'Ever thus to tyrants!'. Booth was shot and killed by soldiers while on the run holed up in a north Virginia barn, and a number of others were implicated (including four who were hanged) in a widespread conspiracy to assassinate government leaders.

On November 22, 1963, while touring in an open car in Dallas, Texas, with state governor John Connally and their wives, Kennedy was struck and killed by a sniper's bullet, while Connally was wounded. Who did the Warren Commission charge as being the sole assassin?

Lee Harvey Oswald. There are some strange connections between the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations ... Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846 Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946 He was elected President in 1860 He was elected President in 1960 Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy who told him not to go to the theater. Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln who told him not to go to Dallas. Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and fled to a theater. Lincoln's successor was Andrew Johnson, born in 1808. Kennedy's successor was Lyndon Johnson, born in 1908.

Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Friends inside the motel room heard the shots and ran to the balcony to find King shot in the throat. He was pronounced dead at St. Joseph's Hospital at 7:05 p.m. The assassination led to a nationwide wave of riots in more than 60 cities. Who allegedly shot King?

James Earl Ray. Some have speculated that Ray had been used as a "patsy" similar to the way that alleged John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have been. Even though there was speculation, Ray was sentenced to a 99-year prison term. He died in prison at age 70.

Isoroku Yamamoto was the commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy for the first four years of World War II. He is generally regarded to be Japan's greatest naval strategist of the war. On the morning of April 18, despite urgings to cancel the trip for fear of ambush, Yamamoto's planes left. Shortly after, eighteen American planes took off from Guadalcanal. The two flights met and a fight ensued between the American planes and Yamamoto's escorts. Yamamoto's plane crashed into the jungle and his body was later discovered near it, still clutching his Samurai sword. Who was the U.S. admiral who authorized his planes to take out Yamamoto?

Admiral Nimitz. This proved to be the longest fighter-intercept mission of the war. It raised morale in the States, and shocked the Japanese who were officially told about the incident only on 21 May 1943. To cover up the fact that the Allies were reading Japanese code, American news agencies were told that civilian coast-watchers in the Solomons saw Yamamoto boarding a bomber in the area.