1921 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Jackie Coogan

Jackie Coogan was seven when he played Chaplin's little sidekick. The others were also child actors, but Rooney, Cooper, and Bartholomew were from a slightly later era, making their film debuts in 1927, 1929, and 1935, respectively. Later in his career, Coogan regained fame playing Uncle Fester on the Addams Family television series.

Answer: Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe is a war memorial that was begun during the time of Napoleon. The body of an unidentified soldier was meant to symbolize the great number of men who were lost in World War I without any identification or proper burial. In Britain, an Unknown Soldier was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1920 and in the United States the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated at Arlington Cemetery on Armistice Day in 1921.

Answer: She opened a birth control clinic

Marie Stopes (1880-1958) was a scientist, writer, and social reformer. Her 1918 book "Married Love", which argued for intellectual and sexual equality between partners, incurred the wrath of religious authorities and was banned in the U.S. until 1931. She was a strong advocate of birth control, not only as a means of female self-determination, but also as an instrument of cleansing society. Her support of the eugenics movement, controversial by today's standards, was, in part, an attempt to give credibility to family planning at that time.

Answer: Tulsa, Oklahoma

The alleged assault of a white woman by a black man led to a retaliatory attack, including the dropping of explosives from planes, that obliterated an entire black neighborhood. No official death toll was ever established, but it is estimated that hundreds died. Many details of this ugly event were suppressed for years by Oklahoma authorities and only came to light in the 1990s.

Answer: Killing two men during the robbery of a shoe factory

Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists. It was widely believed that they were persecuted for their beliefs and they became a cause célèbre among intellectuals who pleaded for clemency. They were nevertheless executed in 1927. Subsequent evidence pointing to the probability of Sacco's guilt and Vanzetti's innocence remains inconclusive.

Answer: Billy Mitchell

General Billy Mitchell, commander of the American flying forces in France in World War I, was an outspoken advocate of air power. His 1921 bombing tests were a dramatic rebuttal of hidebound higher-ups in the War and Navy Departments. An unwillingness to temper his opinions led to his court martial in 1925. Eddie Rickenbacker was America's most celebrated flying ace in World War I. Jimmy Doolittle, who did not see combat in World War I but became a famous pilot between the wars, led the raid on Tokyo from aircraft carriers in 1942. Curtis LeMay, commander of bomber forces in World War II, was only 14 at the time of the bombing tests.

Answer: Enrico Caruso and Mario Lanza

Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) and Mario Lanza (1921-1959) were famous operatic tenors and Lanza portrayed Caruso in "The Great Caruso" (1951). As for the lifespans of the other possible answers: actor Lon Chaney Sr. died in 1930 and Lon Chaney Jr. was born in 1906; boxer Jack Johnson died in 1946 and Floyd Patterson was born in 1935; ballet dancer Anna Pavlova died in 1931 and Margot Fonteyn was born in 1919.

Answer: Campobello Island, New Brunswick

Campobello Island is located in the Bay of Fundy at the border between Maine and Canada. The Roosevelt family established a summer home there in 1883. FDR's struggles with his crippling disease were depicted in the film "Sunrise at Campobello" (1960).

Answer: Iraq

Faisal was installed by the British, who controlled Iraq, a former Ottoman territory, under a League of Nations mandate after the end of World War I. In the film "Lawrence of Arabia", Faisal was portrayed by Alec Guiness. Faisal reigned until his death of a heart attack in 1933. Another branch of the Hashemite Dynasty became kings of what is now Jordan.

Answer: Irish Free State

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 recognized the independence of Ireland from the United Kingdom but for the six counties of Ulster that became Northern Ireland. A faction of Irish nationalists, led by Eamon de Valera, opposed the provisions of the treaty, leading to civil war the following year.