A Twist in the Myth Trivia Quiz

Answer: Myth

Stonehenge stands on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, southern England. It sits in open grassland with many other ancient earthworks and burial mounds nearby. It was built in several stages. The first parts, including the circular ditch, were started around 3000 BC. The famous large stones were raised later, mainly around 2500 BC. This was long before the people known as Druids appeared in history.

The Druids lived in the Iron Age, from about 300 BC to some time after the Roman invasion in AD 43. They were part of Celtic societies in Britain, Ireland, and parts of Gaul. They had no link to Stonehenge in their own time. Their religious sites often used trees, groves, and wooden structures. Almost nothing of their own writing survives, so most of what we know comes from archaeology and from Roman writers, who were not neutral observers.

The modern "Druid" movement began in the 1700s and grew during the 1800s. It mixed a little real Celtic history with a lot of guesswork, Romantic ideas, and Victorian enthusiasm for ancient Britain. It was not a direct continuation of the ancient Druids. Groups in this revival created new ceremonies, costumes, and traditions. They linked themselves to Stonehenge even though the original Druids never used it. Modern Druid and pagan groups hold events at Stonehenge today. The best-known example is the summer solstice gathering, when English Heritage, the public body that looks after Stonehenge, allows controlled access to the stones.

Answer: Myth

Canute (sometimes spelled Cnut and sometimes known as Canute the Great) was a Viking prince born around the late 980s or early 990s, the son of King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark and probably a Polish princess, though her name is not certain in the surviving sources. He first became King of England in 1016 after years of fighting and a key victory at Ashingdon, then succeeded his older brother Harald as King of Denmark around 1018-19, and later became King of Norway in 1028, creating a short-lived North Sea Empire that controlled all three kingdoms.

As a ruler, he worked to win peace between Danes and English, reformed laws, supported the church, and maintained diplomatic relations with other European powers, bringing a period of relative stability to his lands. Canute married Aelfgifu of Northampton, with whom he had sons including Sweyn and Harold Harefoot, and he later married Emma of Normandy, widow of the English king Ethelred, with whom he had Harthacnut and a daughter, Gunhilda; these children and the question of succession led to disputes after his death.

The famous story about him and the tide comes from later medieval writers: he did not think he could stop the sea, but used the dramatic scene to show his courtiers that no king can command nature. Canute died in November 1035 at Shaftesbury in England, and though his empire fell apart soon after, his reign is remembered as one of the most powerful of the early 11th century.

Answer: Myth

There is no evidence that Vikings wore horned helmets. Some extraordinary horned helmets were found in Viks, Denmark, dating to about 900 B.C.E., nearly 2,000 years before the Vikings. Some helmet plaques from Sutton Hoo and Vendel suggest god-like warriors donned protrusions, but these were stylized hook-beaked birds, not horns.

The Vikings certainly wore helmets, but these were simple skullcaps designed to protect the head from impact - having horns in battle would have been a serious hazard. The modern idea originates in 19th-century art and was cemented by Richard Wagner's "The Ring Cycle", for which costume designer Carl Emil Doepler created horned helmets in the 1870s.

The myth persists in media, cartoons, and films to this day.

Answer: Myth

George Washington had four sets of dentures over time, and began to wear partial dentures by 1781. Despite many people believing they were made of wood, they contained no wood. The dentures were made from materials including human and animal teeth, hippopotamus ivory, brass, and gold. The dentures included metal fasteners, springs to force them open, and bolts to hold them together.

Washington was self-conscious about his dental problems, which affected his appearance and speech. The myth that his teeth were wooden became widespread in the 19th century and appeared as fact in school textbooks well into the 20th century. It likely arose because ivory teeth stained quickly, giving a wood-like appearance. Records from his dentists show that the "wooden teeth" story is a persistent but false piece of American folklore.

Answer: Myth

William Tell is a legendary figure in Swiss folklore, showing defiance to Austrian authority, said to have lived in the early 14th century (traditionally 1307) during the rule of Albert of Habsburg. He is most famous for the story in which he was forced to shoot an apple off his son's head.

The first written records of the legend appear in the late 15th century, as the Swiss Confederacy gained influence. A symbolic folk hero representing Swiss resistance, and playing a role in the Swiss national identity, historians consider his story a legend without factual basis.

The legend of Tell has been celebrated in a play by Friedrich Schiller and in Gioachino Rossini's popular opera.

Answer: True

Calais, which had been captured by England in 1347 after a long siege during the Hundred Years' War, became England's last foothold on the French mainland. At its greatest extent in the early 1400s, under Henry V, England controlled large parts of northern France, including Normandy and, for a short time, Paris itself. These lands were gradually lost, and the final blow came in 1558 when Calais was captured by French forces during the reign of Mary I.

Mary was said to be deeply distressed by the loss, later declaring that when she died and her heart was opened, the word 'Calais' would be found written there. While all mainland territory was gone, the Channel Islands remained. They lie geographically close to France, off the coast of Normandy, and are still British possessions today.

Answer: True

Cleopatra VII lived from 69-30 BC. The Great Pyramid of Giza was already ancient by then. It was built c2600 BC during the reign of Pharaoh Khufu, also known as Cheops, and stands on the Giza plateau near modern-day Cairo in Egypt. The pyramid was built as a royal tomb and was the tallest man-made structure in the world for nearly 4,000 years.

It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and is the only one that survives. The pyramid was built about 2,500 years before Cleopatra was born, and Cleopatra lived only about 2,000 years before the first Moon landing in 1969, so her lifetime is considerably closer to astronauts walking on the Moon than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

Answer: True

Napoleon's rabbit fiasco happened in 1807 during a celebratory hunt near Tilsit in East Prussia, after his decisive victory at the Battle of Friedland on June 14. Hundreds of rabbits were released and instead of fleeing they ran straight at him and his officers. Napoleon laughed at first, then grew annoyed, using his riding crop to wave them away before ending the hunt early and leaving in his carriage. The episode was embarrassing but harmless to Napoleon's reputation.

Jimmy Carter's rabbit moment occurred in 1979. While the President was fishing in his home state of Georgia, a swamp rabbit swam toward his boat and Carter splashed water with his paddle to scare it off. When the White House later released a photo, the story took off because it fit an existing image problem. Carter was already facing inflation, energy shortages, and a sense that events were outpacing his leadership. Cartoonists turned the rabbit into a symbol of weakness, and Carter became, briefly, the president who looked flustered by a bunny. He downplayed it as "a very minor incident," but unlike Napoleon, he couldn't shrug it off.

Answer: True

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was born on March 16, 1916, in Nagasaki. He joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the 1930s and worked as a draftsman designing oil tankers. In the summer of 1945, Yamaguchi was on a three-month business trip in Hiroshima. On August 6, he was walking toward the docks when the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the Little Boy atomic bomb about 3 kilometres away. He recalled seeing the bomber and two small parachutes, then a "great flash in the sky," before being blown over. He suffered temporary blindness, ruptured eardrums, and severe burns, but after resting in a shelter he found his colleagues alive, and together they returned to Nagasaki the next day.

Back in Nagasaki, he received treatment for his wounds and reported to work on August 9, despite being heavily bandaged. That morning, while he was describing the Hiroshima blast to his supervisor, Bockscar dropped the Fat Man bomb, again about 3km away. Yamaguchi survived a second atomic bombing, though he suffered high fever and continuous vomiting for more than a week.

After the war, he worked as a translator for the Allied occupation and eventually returned to his job. He and his wife, herself a Nagasaki hibakusha (survivor of the atomic bombing), had two daughters. In his later years, Yamaguchi became a vocal advocate for nuclear disarmament, writing the book "Ikasareteiru inochi" ("A Life Well-Lived") and a book of poetry. He said, "The reason that I hate the atomic bomb is because of what it does to the dignity of human beings," and at a 2006 United Nations screening of a documentary on A-bomb survivors, he pleaded for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

In 2009, he was officially recognized by the Japanese government as a nijû hibakusha (survivor of both atomic bombings), the only person given this recognition. He lived until 2010, when he was 93.

Answer: True

Ferdinand Magellan did not personally complete the circumnavigation of the world. He led the expedition, sailing for Spain despite being Portuguese by birth, to find a westward route to the Spice Islands (modern Indonesia). He departed Seville in September 1519 with a fleet of five ships: Trinidad (his flagship), San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria (sometimes spelled Vittoria), and Santiago. Magellan successfully navigated the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of South America and crossed the Pacific Ocean. By the time he reached the Philippines in March 1521, he had traveled roughly 13,000-14,000 miles out of the estimated 24,000-mile voyage, less than two-thirds of the journey.

Magellan was killed in the Battle of Mactan on April 27, 1521, after becoming involved in a local conflict with the ruler Lapu-Lapu. Command of the expedition fell to Juan Sebastián Elcano, a Basque navigator and experienced officer in the fleet. Elcano led the remaining crew and the ship Victoria safely back to Spain in September 1522, completing the first known circumnavigation of the globe. Out of five ships and 270 men, only one ship and 18 men completed the full circumnavigation.