Splish, Splash! I Was Takin' a Bath... Quiz

Answer: Archimedes

Archimedes had hit upon the principle of floating bodies (now known as the "Archimedes principle", curiously enough), namely that a body submerged in water loses weight equal to that of the displaced fluid. Ironically, Archimedes most celebrated invention also involved water; it was a pump known as "Archimedes' screw".

Answer: Susanna

The famous tale of Susanna and the elders appears in the Book of Daniel. The beautiful and virtuous Susanna had inadvertently aroused the lust of two unscrupulous elders, who followed her home and spied on her while she bathed in her garden. The two elders burst in upon her and asked her to lie with them, threatening to claim that they had found her entertaining a lover if she refused. Trusting in the Lord, Susanna cried for help, which sent the two men packing.

When they brought forth their false accusation, the prophet Daniel defended Susanna's virtue and exposed the two elders, who were summarily put to death.

Answer: St. Cecilia

Cecilia was given in marriage to a pagan named Valerian. On their wedding night, she asked Valerian to respect her virginity, suggesting that they live as brother and sister. Amazingly, Valerian agreed to this unexciting proposition (it probably helped that Cecilia's guardian angel put in an appearance, bearing a flaming sword). Clearly, anyone with such formidable powers of persuasion could be expected to do a bang-up job in propagating the Christian faith, which greatly concerned the pagan authorities. Sure enough, Cecilia converted not only Valerian, but his brother Tiberius, who were both promptly executed. An attempt was then made to suffocate Cecilia; when this failed, they resorted to the more prosaic method of beheading. Even this went awry, as the headsman botched the job and succeeded only in mangling her neck.

In this appalling state, she lingered for three days before expiring.

Answer: Domitian (Roman emperor)

Domitian's assassination on September 18, 96 A.D. had been predicted to occur in the fifth hour. His servants, who were in on the conspiracy, falsely told him that the sixth hour had struck. Relieved, Domitian went into his bath; however he was not dispatched there, but in his bedroom, where he repaired after bathing.

Commodus is regarded by many as possibly the worst emperor in Roman history (a distinction for which there is no dearth of formidable competition). As depicted in the recent film "Gladiator", he enjoyed fighting in the arena, which many considered undignified. Contrary to the film, however, Commodus met his end not in combat, but in the bathtub, where he was strangled by the wrestler Narcissus.

Jean-Paul Marat was a leader of the French Revolution. He advocated extreme violence and called for the death of any opposition. He suffered from a painful skin condition which required him to bathe often; it was thus that he received Charlotte Corday, a supporter of the Girondists, whom Marat had imprisoned. During their interview, she drew a knife and fatally stabbed Marat, a crime for which she was sent to the guillotine.

Barbara Thomason was the fifth wife of American actor Mickey Rooney, with whom she had four children. Upset by Rooney's philandering, she had an affair with actor Milos Milocevic. When she and Rooney decided to reconcile, the insanely jealous Milocevic broke into her home and shot her (in her bathtub), then himself.

Answer: Catherine the Great (Russian empress)

Catherine the Great, like Elvis Presley, was on the commode, not in her bath, when she suffered a fatal stroke. Unlike the King, however, the empress was still alive when found; she was taken to her bed, where she died the following day. (the famous story of the Scarlet Empress meeting her maker whilst engaged, quite literally, in horseplay is apocryphal).

Paul Morphy had become a chess champion by age 22; thereafter, he became reclusive, suffering from depression and paranoia. He died at forty-seven; one hot July day in 1884 he decided to cool off after his walk by taking a cold bath. The shock of sudden immersion in cold water caused a fatal congestion of the brain.

Lucius Beebe was an author, columnist, and consummate sybarite. His private railroad car featured a woodburning fireplace, Venetian glass chandelier, and ceiling murals. Beebe not only lived in style, he died in style: on the evening of February 4, 1966, after a sumptuous dinner party at his California mansion, which featured salmon en croute, venison au poivre, and chocolate souffle, all washed down by vintage champagne. he retired for the evening and stepped into his custom-built Turkish bath, where he fell dead of a massive coronary.

Jim Morrison, lyricist and lead singer of The Doors, is best known for the song "Light my Fire". Morrison's fire was sadly extinguished at the age of 27; he was found dead of a drug overdose in the bathtub of his Paris apartment in 1971. He is one of few Americans to be buried in Paris' historic Pere Lachaise cemetery.

Answer: Edmond Rostand

Rostand (1868-1918) took refuge in his bath so as not to be disturbed by visitors while at work. Of his many plays, only the magnificent "Cyrano de Bergerac" still enjoys universal popularity; "L'Aiglon", written as a vehicle for Sarah Bernhardt, was wildly popular in its time, but is rarely performed now.

His first play, "Les Romanesques", has achieved a kind of reflective popularity; it served as the inspiration for the long-running Broadway musical "The Fantasticks".

Answer: William Howard Taft

Taft was the 27th President of the U.S. In addition to his girth, the press frequently made hay over his passion for golf and his liberal Unitarianism (neither of which would raise an eyebrow today). Naturally, they had a field day over the bathtub incident; six men were pressed into service to pull the portly President from the tub when he became stuck.

The custom-made bathtub which was subsequently installed was large enough to accommodate three grown men; in fact, three of the workmen who installed it posed for a photograph, seated comfortably inside the tub.

Answer: Paul Hindemith

The bathtub scene in "Neues vom Tage" prompted the following indignant response from that eminent musical and cultural authority Joseph Goebbels: "Technical craftsmanship never excuses, but is rather an obligation. To misuse it in writing purely motoric empty mechanical music is a mockery of the genius that stands above every true art...When the occasion is ripe not just thieves but atonal musicians arrive on the scene in order to attain a particular sensation or remain close to the spirit of the time, allowing naked women to appear on the stage in obscene scenes in a bathtub, making a mockery of the female sex...and in general surrounding themselves with the biting dissonances of musical bankruptcy."

Answer: Salvador Dali

Dali's window featured a pair of mannequins, male and female, sipping cocktails alongside a bathtub filled with water and floating blossoms and surrounded by mirrors held by wax hands. The store hadn't fully anticipated Dali's bizarre vision and were afraid people would be put off by details such as the dead flies in the cocktail glasses and the fact that the head of the female mannequin was made of roses.

When the artist saw that the staff had made changes without his permission, he angrily destroyed the window and broke through the glass before stunned onlookers.

He was briefly detained by police officers, who eventually released him, reasoning that "artists will be artists".

Answer: Lena Horne

"Cabin in the Sky", directed by Vicente Minelli, featured Lena Horne as seductress Georgia Brown, who lures show's hero Joe (played by Eddie "Rochester" Anderson) away from the virtuous Petunia (Ethel Waters). Horne performed her opening number "Ain't it the Truth" during a bubble-bath, a scene which never made it into the final film.

In Horne's earlier films (with white casts), her scenes were cut when the films were screened for Southern audiences. The notorious bathtub scene can be seen in the documentary film "That's Entertainment III".