They're Dead, Jim (1960-1969) Trivia Quiz

Answer: Albert Camus

Albert Camus was born in French Algeria in 1913, growing up in poverty, a condition that would later shape his writing. He became one of the leading voices associated with absurdism, though he didn't care much for tidy philosophical labels. In works like 'The Stranger' and 'The Myth of Sisyphus,' he played with the idea that the universe offers no real answers to the questions that humans simply can't stop asking. His solution was not despair but defiance. The fact that we know death awaits us makes living life absurd. It's not the happiest of thoughts, but it's a surprisingly penetrating one.

Camus received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957 at age 44, one of the youngest recipients ever. Three years later, he was gone. Our absurdist friend met an abrupt and bitterly ironic end on January 4, 1960, when he was killed in a car crash near Villeblevin, France. Fate sometimes enjoys a little dark humor. Camus was just 46 years old.

Answer: Erwin Schrodinger

Erwin Schrödinger was one of the architects of quantum mechanics, developing the Schrödinger equation in 1926. I do not recommend looking at the equation; it's very ugly and will make you very sad. However, it's also very important. That disgusting partial differential equation with all the weird Greek letters describes how the quantum state of a physical system changes over time.

Huh?

Well, it gave physicists a new language for the subatomic world, where particles don't behave like billiard balls but like... I give up. I can't come up with an analogy. You'll have to picture an electron as a cloud of probabilities and a fear of commitment. It doesn't exist as "stuff" until it has to, which kind of describes me before coffee.

Then there's the cat. If only poor Schrödinger knew that's all he would be remembered for! In 1935, he proposed his famous thought experiment to demonstrate what he saw as the strange implications of quantum theory. A cat in a sealed box, linked to a quantum event, ends up in a state that is both alive and dead until observed. It was meant as a critique, not a confirmation, and certainly not a pet care suggestion.

He died on January 4, 1961, in Vienna at age 73, with tuberculosis listed as the cause. By that point, his name was already permanently linked to both an important wave equation and one very unlucky (maybe) hypothetical cat.

Answer: Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline had a contralto voice that was part velvet and part steel. Smooth, warm, but with a strong backbone. Songs like 'Crazy' written by Willie Nelson, and 'I Fall to Pieces' helped establish the early Nashville sound, bringing her crossover success on pop charts.

In 1961 she survived a near-fatal car accident, returning to the stage with visible scars. Her luck would not last. She was killed in a plane crash on March 5, 1963, near Camden, Tennessee, at just 30 years old.

Answer: Marilyn Monroe

Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, this candle in the wind became the Hollywood phenomenon we know as Marilyn Monroe. With films like 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' and 'Some Like It Hot' under her belt, she became a motion picture legend in her own time. She cultivated her countenance, her breathy voice, her luminous presence, that slow-burn smile. Behind that image was a woman who passionately studied acting, co-founded her own production company, and pushed hard against the studio system that tried to box her in.

She was found dead in her Los Angeles home on August 4, 1962. The official cause was acute barbiturate poisoning. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled the death a probable suicide. She was 36.

Answer: Nancy Astor

Yes, yes. Constance Markievicz was actually the first woman ELECTED to the British Parliament in 1918, but as a member of Sinn Féin (it was a whole thing over there), she did not take her seat. Nancy Astor did.

Born in Virginia in 1879, Astor crossed the Atlantic, married into British aristocracy, and in 1919 became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons. She represented Plymouth Sutton as a Conservative MP. She would go on to hold the seat for a quarter century. He was known for her wit and tough style at times, especially in exchanges with Winston Churchill. She advocated for temperance, education reform, and women's rights, although her legacy is... well, more complicated.

Many of her views didn't age well, and she's become a bit of villain in modern times. She was actively antisemitic, prohibiting Jews from working for her husband's newspaper, 'The Observer'. Her fear of communism led her to embrace Hitler and Nazism, which never looks good on a résumé. And she accused Catholics of 'subverting' the UK Foreign Ministry. So, yeah. Complicated. Astor died peacefully on May 2, 1964, at age 84.

Answer: Stan Laurel

Stan Laurel is the guy we're looking for, and the duo is of course Laurel and Hardy. Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born in England and teamed up with Oliver Hardy to create one of cinema's most celebrated duos.

They had perfect chemistry.

Laurel, a childlike dreamer with an expressive countenance, including a delightfully confused slow blink. Hardy, the pompous realist whose dignity was always being compromised by circumstance. Bowler hats perched just so, comedy was just a banana peel away (see 'The Battle of the Century'). He died on February 23, 1965, in Santa Monica, California, after suffering a heart attack. He was 74.

Answer: Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger spent decades at the center of one of the most contentious public debates in America. She began advocating for birth control in the early 20th century, when distributing information about contraception could get you arrested under federal obscenity laws. And yes, she was arrested more than once. In fact, she was arrested more than twice. Eight times, folks, at one point facing a 45-year prison sentence by mailing out birth control information. In 1916 she opened the first birth control clinic in the USA in Brooklyn, which was promptly shut down by authorities. That particular effort eventually evolved into the organization now known as Planned Parenthood.

She's a complicated person. She pushed fiercely for women's access to contraception, arguing that it was essential to women's health and autonomy. At the same time, some of her associations and statements regarding eugenics didn't age particularly well. She advocated for reducing the birthrate of those she deemed unfit, which included people with genetic disorders as well as the mentally and physically disabled. There's some not quite definitive evidence that this also included African Americans. Again, complicated. She died on September 6, 1966, in Tucson, Arizona, at age 86 from heart failure.

Answer: Brian Epstein

Brian Epstein discovered The Beatles in 1961 at Liverpool's Cavern Club and saw something in the four leather-clad young men. (If you know, you know.) He cleaned up their image, traded in the leather for suits, made them respectable, and after some work got them the record deal that launched their career.

He died on August 27, 1967, in London at just 32 years old from what was deemed an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

Answer: Yuri Gagarin

On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin orbited Earth a single time aboard Vostok 1 and became the first human to travel into space. Less than seven years later, on March 27, 1968, he was killed in a MiG-15 training jet crash near Moscow. He was 34. His one orbit around our little blue ball lasted just 108 minutes, yet it was the ONLY news in a world where the Cold War was at its peak.

He became an instant symbol of Soviet technological prowess and human derring-do. Behind the Iron Curtain, crowds greeted him everywhere he traveled.

The fame was well deserved. Alan Shepard would later become the second person and first American to enter space, although he did not complete an orbit of the planet.

Answer: Joe Malone

Joe Malone was a machine during the National Hockey League's early years. Playing primarily for the Quebec Bulldogs and later the Montreal Canadiens, he twice led the NHL in scoring and was the first player in league history to score seven goals in a single game. Seven. Offense in those days was a bit chaotic to be polite, brutal to be honest.

He thrived in the environment. He died on May 24, 1969, at age 79 from a heart attack. He is well-loved in Canada, because of course he is. In 2021 a sculpture entitled "Hommage à Joe Malone" was placed at Place Jean-Béliveau at Quebec City's ExpoCité.