Historical Figures Beginning With 'H' Quiz

Answer: Game show host

Born in Manitoba, Canada, Monty Hall rose in fame on Canadian radio before starting his career in entertainment in the United States, eventually being tapped to become the host of a handful of NBC game shows including "Twenty-One" and the better-known "Let's Make a Deal", which featured a studio audience vying for cash and prizes through games of chance.

His greatest legacy is, perhaps, the probability puzzle bearing his name; based on a common problem faced in the game, it asks whether or not, when faced with three doors and having picked one door, it's advantageous to switch your selection for a greater chance at winning the prize behind it.

Answer: Astronomer

Living through much of the 17th and 18th centuries, Edmond Halley found most of his early success in completing research on the island of Saint Helena, using the isolation of this South Atlantic locale to track the inner planets as they transited past the sun.

It was this work that elevated his status at Oxford, putting him into close orbit with scientific contemporaries like Sir Isaac Newton, and it was with their shared research that he was able to determine the length of time between passes of the comet that would bear his name.

Answer: King

This King of Babylon for more than four decades, Hammurabi sat in the throne throughout the 18th century BC and reshaped the region during that time. In the modern era we best know of his influence through the Code of Hammurabi, which flipped societal expectations of how to approach crime, shifting the focus to punishment for the perpetrator instead of compensation for a victim (though sometimes these would be intrinsically linked).

This code also relied on evidence to prove that a perpetrator was deserving of following through on an 'eye for an eye' punishment, the basis of which is used, to a large degree, in modern law.

Answer: U.S. Vice President

Rising through the political landscape of California, Kamala Harris was both Attorney General of the State and a Senator before she was selected to be Joe Biden's running mate in the 2020 Presidential Election, and when Biden took the win and became the 46th U.S. President, Harris would become the first female Vice President in the nation's history.

Harris would become the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party going into the 2024 election but would end up defeated by Donald Trump in the general election.

Answer: Pharaoh

Reigning for two decades in the 15th century BC, Hatshepsut was one in a small handful of female rulers of Egypt (and the second after Sobekneferu) and she made her mark more than most, using her brief time on the throne to build a handful of noteworthy complexes in Luxor. Notably, it was Hatshepsut's instruction that led to the Temple of Karnak and her own Mortuary Temple in the Theban Necropolis.

After Hatshepsut's death, her son, Amenhotep II, attempted to have her legacy erased. Clearly it didn't work.

Answer: Filmmaker

A highly-celebrated filmmaker, especially at Cannes and the Venice International Film Festival, Werner Herzog is best-known for his compelling takes on stories that examine the bounds of human experience. Although his long filmography includes a number of fictional works (including the Palme d'Or-nominated "The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser", "Woyzeck", "Fitzcarraldo", and "Where the Green Ants Dream"), he is universally renowned for his documentaries and is regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time.

Answer: Biochemist

Recipient of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin made history by becoming the first British woman to claim this prize, doing so for her invaluable efforts in the field of biology. It was Hodgkin's implementation of X-ray technologies that led to advancements in the field of structural analysis of different molecules including penicillin, insulin, and vitamin B12.

Much of her career, before and after receiving the Nobel Prize, was performed at Oxford.

Answer: Criminal

In terms of weird guys, H. H. Holmes is an odd one. Settling down in Chicago in the late 19th century, Holmes would transition from becoming a con man with a history of body snatching into being an outright serial killer, transforming a massive home in Chicago into a house of horrors in the midst of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

After admitting to dozens of killings, Holmes would be executed by hanging in 1896 and become one of the most infamous case studies of his type.

Answer: Abolitionist

Living her life in 19th century America, Julie Ward Howe came up quite well in the young nation during a pivotal century, and it was because of her family's status in New York that she was afforded the ability to live her life as an author, a poet, and a social activist.

Her political views, especially at a time in which the women's suffrage movement was taking root, led her to become a leading figure for activist causes leading into the U.S. Civil War. Howe would go on to pen the "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" after she met then-President Lincoln, and it would become her most lasting work.

Answer: Philosopher

"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions," according to Scottish philosopher Hume. Rising to prominence as a great thinker in the 18th century, Hume's thoughts towards sentimental understanding came into their own as a direct reaction against the rationality of his predecessors. Believing that emotionality governed our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, his thoughts helped shaped Enlightenment-era thinking and acted as a jumping off point for Western contemporaries like Immanuel Kant and for cognitive science as a whole.