Death Becomes Them Trivia

1. Ambrose Bierce was an American writer and journalist, known for his caustic wit. He apparently died in 1914 while visiting a country, but his body was never found. Where did Ambrose Bierce supposedly die?

From Quiz Death or Disappearance

Answer: Mexico while looking for Pancho Villa

Ambrose Bierce was born in 1842 and disappeared in 1914, while supposedly traveling to Mexico to interview Pancho Villa. Bierce is best known for his satirical "The Devil's Dictionary", a set of unusual and humorous definitions for common words. His short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is frequently included in short story anthologies. In 1913 Bierce, a veteran of the US Civil War, began a tour of famous Civil War battlefields. Later that year he joined Pancho Villa's army as an observer and disappeared. Members of Villa's army gave conflicting accounts of his disappearance. One legend claimed that Bierce was executed by a firing squad in Sierra Mojada, Mexico. One skeptic, however, claimed that Bierce gave a false account of his whereabouts and went to a location near the Grand Canyon to commit suicide. His disappearance is one of the more famous ones in the US. Along with Mark Twain, Ogden Nash, and Will Rogers (and the unintentional humor of Yogi Berra), Bierce is one of the main sources for American humor statements.

From Quiz Here Lies (4)

Answer: Al Capone

Alphonse Gabriel Capone, born in 1899 to poor Italian immigrant parents, was perhaps the most notorious gangster in the history of the U.S. Capone was clearly quite violent from an early age: at age 14 he left school after hitting a female teacher in the face. In 1917, at age 18, he earned the nickname 'Scarface' (which Capone hated). This came about when he insulted a woman, and her incensed brother slashed Capone's face three times with a knife. In 1918, he married Mae Coughlin. The Capones moved to Chicago in 1920 and Al became involved in illegal activities in 1921. By 1925 he was a full-blown prohibition-era crime boss. His organisation, which was worth millions of dollars even at that time, was involved in bootlegging, extortion, prostitution and gambling. Any criminal rivals were treated with extreme measures, as evidenced in 1929, when he ordered the assassination of seven of his rivals in the St Valentine's Day Massacre. Though Capone was on at the top of the FBI's Most Wanted list and was deemed 'Public Enemy No 1,' the police struggled with convicting Capone of anything: witnesses were intimidated (or worse), he bribed officials and police (it's believed he 'owned' nearly 50% of the police force), and he had hideouts all over Chicago. Capone was eventually caught for tax evasion (hence the clue) in 1931 by Elliot Ness and was sentenced to 11 years in jail. He was imprisoned in Alcatraz for much of his sentence, but was released in 1939 due to good behaviour and ill health. (Capone had contracted syphilis when he was about 20, and, too embarrassed to say anything, did not seek medical treatment until it was too late). He died in Florida, aged 48, of a stroke and pneumonia, however it is believed his syphillitic state had a significant role in his demise. He is said to have had the mental capacity of a 12-year old for the latter years of his life. Upon Capone's death the headline in the New York Times read 'End of an Evil Dream'. Perhaps due to his legacy as a cold-blooded murderer, Capone only had a small wake at a memorial home in Miami Beach. He was then buried in a simple ceremony at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago. However, in 1952 his mother died and, due to his gravesite consistently being vandalised at the Mount Olivet Cemetery, his body was moved to a family plot in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Illinois. The grave here simply reads 'Capone'.

From Quiz They Died on July 9

Answer: Rip Torn

Rip Torn was born Elmore Rual Torn Jr. in 1931. He was best known for his comedic roles including playing Artie the producer on "The Larry Sanders Show" alongside Garry Shandling. He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in the film "Cross Creek" in 1983. Although he never retired from acting, many of his roles toward the end of his life were guest appearances and cameos as his health problems prevented him from working full time. He died on July 9, 2019 at the age of 88 from complications from Alzheimer's Disease.

From Quiz But Are They Dead?

Answer: Elvis Presley

Elvis officially died August 16 1977, aged 42 of a heart attack, but many fans maintain that he faked his own death either in order to live a more peaceful life or, because he had helped the FBI bring down a group known as "The Fraternity, he was about to be killed by the Mafia and so entered witness protection. Since his death, he has been spotted at "Burger King" in Kalamazoo, Memphis airport, several times at Graceland and even as an extra in the movie "Home Alone".

From Quiz More People Who Died as a Result of Smoking

Answer: Carl Wilson

Carl was the youngest of the Wilson brothers. he assumed much of the responsibility for the logistics of touring, and later, keeping the band going. A cigarette smoker since the age of 13, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in early 1997. In spite of being very ill, Carl Wilson continued to play and sing throughout the Beach Boys' entire summer tour of 1997 while undergoing chemotherapy. He died on February 6, 1998.

From Quiz How Not to Die

Answer: Multiple gunshots to the abdomen

While holding an audience in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II, born Karol Woytila, was shot multiple times by Mehmet Ali Agca. In spite of massive blood loss, he was saved in surgery and continued to lead the Catholic Church for 24 more years. He later visited his would-be murderer in prison and forgave him.

From Quiz Gone Too Soon

Answer: P.T. Barnum

In his real (and extensive) obituary published by "The New York Times" in April 1891, Phineas Taylor Barnum was lauded as "The Great American Showman" who had worked at entertaining the public for more than forty years and served as a Connecticut politician. Barnum was in failing health on March 24, 1891, when the "Evening Sun" published his pre-obituary on its front page with the headline "Great and Only Barnum. He Wanted to Read His Obituary; Here It Is." Apparently, Barnum had lamented that nice things were only written about people after they died, so the paper editor decided that "Mr. Barnum has had almost everything in this life... and there is no reason why he should not have the last pleasure which he asks for. So here is the great showman's life, briefly and simply told, as it would have appeared in the "Evening Sun" had fate taken our Great and Only from us". Barnum died two weeks later on April 7, 1891, at the age of 80.

From Quiz Died at 95

Answer: William Hanna

Hanna-Barbera became one of the most successful animation studios in history. They produced "The Flintstones", "The Huckleberry Hound Show", "Yogi Bear", "Scooby-Doo" and "The Jetsons" among others.

From Quiz Why Is It So Dark Outside?

Answer: Akhenaten

Amenhotep IV, named himself Akhenaten (living spirit of Aten) in the fifth year of his reign as pharaoh. He tried to institute Aten - the disk of the sun as the supreme god of Egypt. As a recompense for his heresy he was virtualy erased from history by his successors and forgotten for over 3000 years until the findings at Amarna brought him back to light in the 19th century.

From Quiz They Died on the Same Day

Answer: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson

Former Presidents of the United States of America John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th, 1826. Former President of the United States of America James Monroe died on July 4, 1831. Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams were both founding fathers of the United States of America but never held the office of President.

From Quiz They Have Not Died in Vain

Answer: Martin Luther King, Jr

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Junior, was shot by James Earl Ray. King was the icon of the nonviolent protest movement against racial discrimination. Martin Luther King was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 15th, 1929. He chose a career as a Baptist minister, following in the footsteps of his father. He strove for the rights of Afro-American people, but always in a nonviolent manner. For example, he pleaded with a restaurant owner for a table for himself and his friends, until the restaurant owner called the police and had him arrested. King gained world fame with his speech "I Have a Dream" in 1963. A year later, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

From Quiz They Died the Same Day

Answer: Federico Fellini

Fellini died from complications from a stroke. Contemporary film makers such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese and David Cronenberg list Fellini as a major influence. Phoenix had complied a very impressive collection of film performances before he died at far too young of an age. "Stand by Me" and "Running on Empty" serve as stark reminders of what could have been.

From Quiz Died on the Fourth of July

Answer: Physics and Chemistry

Marie won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 1911 prize for Chemistry. She was the first person to be awarded two Nobel Prizes.

From Quiz A Millennium of Deaths

Answer: The Bulgar-slayer

When Basil took the Byzantine throne he faced internal rebellion and invasion from Arab forces on the eastern borders. After he had crushed the rebellion and defeated the Arabs, internal stability and secure eastern borders meant he had his hands free to deal with his biggest foe, the Bulgarian empire. In previous years Byzantine lands had been pillaged by Bulgarians on a regular basis. In a series of battles between 1000 and 1018 CE he managed to defeat and subjugate the Bulgarian empire. It is said that after a battle in 1014 he gauged out the eyes of 15,000 captured Bulgarians, earning him the nickname 'Bulgar-slayer'. Basil not only was a great general, he also proved a capable ruler who offered defeated Bulgarian nobles titles and positions of great importance in an effort to absorb Bulgarian elite into the Byzantine Empire. When he died he had extended the western borders to the Danube and left his successors a full treasury and a stable empire.

From Quiz Still Alive

Answer: Rudyard Kipling

Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907, at the age of just 42, making him the youngest recipient of the award in the 20th century. Perhaps a defence could be made for those who killed him off too early when one considers that, despite his relatively young age, the Nobel award came when most of Kipling's work was already behind him. The 29 years subsequent saw relatively few works published. One of the few was the anthology, "Rewards and Fairies". Included in this collection was the 1895 poem, "If-" that was, more than 100 years later, voted as the UK's favourite poem.

From Quiz Ten Times Four is Forty

Answer: George Vancouver

Vancouver charted the north-west coast of North America, from Washington and Oregon to British Columbia and Alaska. He gave his name to two cities - in British Columbia and Washington, to Vancouver Island and to Mount Vancouver on the Canadian/USA border. The other three explorers were earlier, and developed the eastern side of the continent. Hudson lived from 1565 - 1611 and gave his name to the river and bay; Cartier lived from 1491 - 1557 and mapped the St. Lawrence river and de Champlain was the founder of Quebec. He lived from 1567 -1635 and Lake Champlain was named after him.

From Quiz I Thought You Were Dead!

Answer: Arthur C. Clarke

The 'Big Three' also included Heinlein and Asimov. 'HAL' was the famous computer from Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey', which started life as a short story called 'The Sentinel', written for a BBC competition. Clarke actually died on 19th March 2008 aged 90. H.G. Wells (1866-1946) would have been 134 years old had he died in 2000!

From Quiz We All Gotta Go Sometime. Death. The Finale.

Answer: Mark Twain

Mark Twain, that sly old fox. Apparently, he thought death was rather a cool thing, because he also said "We owe a deep debt of gratitude to Adam, the first great benefactor of the human race: he brought death into the world." [Quotes from "The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations," edited Evan Esar (Dorset Press: New York, 1949, 1989)]

From Quiz Something Old

Answer: Bob Hope

Bob Hope was born Leslie Townes Hope on May 29th, 1903 in London, England and died on July 27th, 2003 aged 100 years old! His father came from Weston-super-Mare. One of Bob Hope's previous jobs was as a newspaper delivery boy and he delivered papers to none other than oil tycoon, John D. Rockefeller.

From Quiz Remains to Be Seen: Famous Body Parts!

Answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley died in 1822. He drowned when his boat was caught in a sudden storm whilst sailing from Livorno to Lerici. His body was washed ashore, and in conformity with local quarantine regulations, was cremated on the beach. His heart was snatched from the fire by Edward Trelawney, who gave it to Mary Shelley, who kept it with her for the rest of her life. It is buried next to her grave in St Peter's Church, Bournemouth. Shelley's ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.

From Quiz Old and Lively

Answer: George Burns

George and Gracie Allen were married in Cleveland Ohio on January 7, 1926. They were in vaudeville, radio, film and television. At first they tried having Gracie as the straight man but she was getting more laughs than George so they changed the act. George was in several films later in life including "Oh,God", "The Sunshine Boys" and "Just You and Me, Kid". He passed away March 9,1996 at the age of one hundred years one month and thirteen days.

From Quiz Ships That Passed In The Night

Answer: Goldie Hawn

Benchley was the recipient of a Best Short Subject Academy Award for the 1935 comic documentary 'How To Sleep' (it was supposed to be a serious attempt at a sleep study financed by the Simmons Mattress Company. They didn't get the joke). Hawn, mother of actors Oliver and Kate Hudson, won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 'Cactus Flower' in 1969.

From Quiz Ashes to Ashes

Answer: Cirrhosis of the liver

Ludwig van Beethoven died in 1827. When Beethoven was in his 30s, he became completely deaf. After that he had digestion problems and instead of heeding medical advice he turned to alcohol. He found that this stimulated his appetite and helped his stomach, but it ultimately caused severe inflammation of the intestines, followed by cirrhosis of the liver. In the 2000s though, DNA testing has been done on a piece of his hair and it showed that this might not have been the case. Consequently, there are many differing opinions, but death by lead poisoning is popular, as it has been found that the amount of lead was 100 times higher than it should be and the symptoms he had correlate to lead poisoning.

From Quiz Strange Dead Bedfellows

Answer: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

The second and third presidents of the U.S died on Independence Day, July 4, 1826. Adams' last words were, 'Jefferson still lives', not knowing the author of the Declaration died a few hours earlier.

From Quiz The Death Quiz: Part I

Answer: 1918

Lenin's renegade Bolshevik faction assassinated the entire family to break the final link with the czars, despite the fact that the last czar had abdicated from power more than sixteen months before.

From Quiz Death or Disappearance

Answer: Murdering his children's nanny

John Bingham (1934-1974?) was the 7th Earl of Lucan. He was known for his expensive tastes and his penchant for gambling. Reputedly, he was considered for the film role of James Bond. By 1972 his marriage had collapsed, and he had lost custody of his three children to his former wife. In 1974 he entered the family home and murdered the children's nanny, Sandra Rivett, and attacked his wife. Later, his car was found abandoned in the port city of Newhaven with blood stains and a lead pipe that was similar to the one found at the murder scene. Since then there have been numerous claims of sightings of Lord Lucan that were a staple of newspaper and tabloid reports, with the most recent claim being an 86 year old man living in a Buddhist commune in Australia. Persons close to the Lord were divided as to whether he committed suicide or actually moved to another country. Some also claim that Lady Lucan was the intended victim.

From Quiz Here Lies (4)

Answer: Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was born in 1853 and started drawing at a young age. His first job was as an art dealer which saw him travel fairly extensively. When his employer transferred him to London, though, he became depressed, threw in his job, and moved to Belgium, where he became a Protestant missionary. At the age of 28, he returned home to his parents, and, enjoying financial support from his brother, Theo, Vincent began to paint. Over the next five years he painted many pieces showing peasant workers and labourers, but his palette didn't include the vivid colours for which he was later renowned. His started to introduce these vivid colours when he moved to Paris in 1886 at age 33, and it was at this time that his subject matter also expanded. Unfortunately though, Vincent suffered from quite debilitating mental health issues through much of his life, and after famously chopping off part of his ear with a razor, he was required to spend time in psychiatric hospitals. Many people viewed Vincent as an unsuccessful madman, and it was perhaps for this reason that Vincent is believed to have sold only one painting in his entire lifetime. By 1890 Vincent was depressed, not eating properly, drinking heavily and was living in poverty. On 27th July, Vincent is believed to have shot himself in the chest, although there is some controversy about this, as some believe it was an accidental shooting by a couple of Vincent's friends. Either way, Vincent wanted to take the blame, saying to his doctor not long before he died from the gunshot injury: 'My body is mine and I am free to do what I want with it. Do not accuse anybody, it is I that wished to commit suicide'. He died the next day. Vincent's coffin was laid out in a painting room in the village of Auvers-sur-Oise, where Vincent had been staying. In this room stood his last canvases, masses of yellow flowers, his easel, a stool and his brushes. Visitors, including artists such as Lucien Pissarro and Auguste Lauzet, came to pay their respects before his coffin was moved to a Cemetery on a hill outside Auvers. His beloved brother, Theo, who died 6 months after Vincent (age 33, possibly from syphilis) is buried next to him. As is the case with many artists, Vincent realised fame only after his death. By the early 20th century, he was recognised as a creative genius. His 900-odd paintings are now some of the most expensive pieces of art in the world. His best known paintings are 'Starry Night', 'Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers,' 'The Potato Eaters' and 'Wheatfield With Crows'. It is thought that if 'Starry Night' was auctioned today it would fetch well in excess of $100,000,000.

From Quiz They Died on Halloween, 2.0

Answer: John Houseman

Jacques Haussman was born in Romania but educated in England. He immigrated to the USA in 1925 and took the stage name John Houseman. On Broadway, Houseman wrote and directed plays, and insisted on casting a young Orson Welles in Archibald Leash's verse play "Panic" (1935). Houseman and black actress Rose McClendon headed the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration. For the NTP's 1936 production of "Macbeth", Houseman assigned Welles as director. Together, Welles and Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre company which eventually developed into "The Mercury Theatre on the Air" a popular and critically acclaimed radio series that produced the infamous broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" that caused a panic on the night before Halloween 1938, when far too many listeneres believed that they were hearing the news and not a play. Houseman did a great deal of work in cinema and television as well, and perhaps his best-known role was that of Professor Charles W. Kingsfield in the movie "The Paper Chase" (1973) and the 1978 TV series adaptation. John Houseman died at age 86 from spinal cancer on Halloween 1988, and his ashes were scattered at sea. Cameos of Houseman can be seen in "Scrooged" (1988) and "The Naked Gun" (1988), released posthumously.

From Quiz They Died on July 9

Answer: The Jeffersons

Isabel Sanford played Wheezy Jefferson on "The Jeffersons" alongside Sherman Hemsley as her husband George. For her role as Wheezy, Sanford became the first African-American to win the Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. Her first credited role was as Tillie in the film "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" alongside Sidney Poitier, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. She died on July 9, 2004 from unspecified causes at the age of 86.

From Quiz But Are They Dead?

Answer: Paul McCartney

Conspiracy theorists are convinced that Lennon can be heard saying "I buried Paul" on "Strawberry Fields Forever", even though Lennon remembered saying "cranberry sauce" at the recording session. Couple this with the fact that on the Beatles "Abbey Road" album cover, John is wearing white representing heaven, George is in denim (gravedigger), Ringo is dressed all in black, (undertaker) and Paul is barefoot and out of step with the others, symbolising the corpse and the proof is pretty compelling...or not.

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Last Updated Jun 28 2025 5:45 AM

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