Rebel Rebel. Trivia Quiz

Answer: Boudicea

In the first century AD, King Prasutagus, his wife Queen Boudicea (sometimes spelt Boudicaa) and two daughters ruled the Iceni, a tribe that covered what is Norfolk today. It was the time of Pax Romana, and the Iceni were independent of Roman rule. To honour this independence, Prasutagus willed a portion of his land to the Romans. However when he died, the Romans interpreted the will differently, seized all his lands, beat Boudicea and raped her daughters. Boudicea fought back and with her Iceni united with the Trinovantes, overran and pillaged three Roman towns: Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinium and St Albans. Leading with her chariot (with the two daughters ensconced), her troops killed an estimated 70,000 Romans. Her troops were estimated to be 200,000 by the time she conquered St Albans. She and her following army moved west towards Wales where she met an organised Roman army at what was thought to be Watling Street somewhere in Leicestershire. She lost the battle as she was downhill of the Romans and her troops did not have the discipline nor the organisation of the experienced Roman army. It is unclear what her fate was but it does appear that she did not die in battle but went back to her homeland where she either committed suicide or died peacefully. The is no British or Celtic version of these events only Roman records which were discovered in the 15th century.
A statue of Boudicea (and daughters replete with daughters and chariot) by Thomas Thornycroft stands near Westminster Bridge in London.
According to the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons, Boadicea ranks at 35 (but only five other women appear ahead of her which says something about the gender imbalance of the list).

Answer: Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman was one of nine children born to slave parents sometime between 1820 and 1825. Her family members were bought and sold regularly. She received horrific injuries from maltreatment by slave owners including being struck in the head with a two pound weight.

This caused her to have lifelong epileptic seizures, which gave her visions of what God meant her to do. To this end, she led many slaves indentured in the South to the northern states where slavery was banned and even as far away as Canada.

After the civil war she campaigned for the suffrage movement. Her efforts were not recognised by her government until 1889. Truly one of of America's heroines.

Answer: Golda Meir

Golda Meir was born in Kiev (now in the Ukraine) in 1898. She moved to Milwaukee with her family in 1905 and graduated from high school in 1914 and trained as a teacher. She became interested in Jewish affairs and moved with her husband to a kibbutz in Palestine in 1921. She advocated for the Jewish people in a time where anti-zionist sentiment was probably at its highest. She was one of 24 signatories to the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948. She was a fierce diplomat advocating for her country's place in the world and was elected to the Israeli government in the same year, 1948, where she was Minister of Labor and then Foreign Minister. She was elected Prime Minister in 1969 after the unexpected death of Levi Eshkol in February. Here she maintained a determined stance for the Jewish people and their place in the world. We watched her horror and outrage in the Munich massacre of 1972 and we saw her ardent diplomacy during the Yom Kippur War in 1974. She resigned soon after and died in 1980 after a short lymphoma related illness.

The other options were other heads of governments of their respective states (Ms Meir was the world's third female Head of Government).

Answer: Edith Cowan

It could be argued that her life as an adult was framed by the events of Ms Cowan's childhood. Her mother died at childbirth and her father was tried, convicted and hanged for the murder of his second wife. She became involved with legal system injustices and social issues particularly with women and children.

In the 1890s she co-founded the Karrakatta Club, a group for women to educate themselves and to help lead a better life. The club involved itself in the women's suffrage campaigns, and was successful in gaining the vote for women in Western Australia in 1899.

She then turned to women's health and, welfare for disadvantaged children and prostitutes. When women were allowed to stand for parliament in 1920, she stood for the seat of West Perth as a Nationalist and defeated the attorney-general who introduced the legislation that permitted women to stand for parliament in Western Australia.

As such she was the first woman to be elected to any government in Australia. In parliament, she promoted women's rights in the legal profession, and the promotion of sex education in schools.

She died in 1932 aged 71.

Answer: Emmeline Pankhurst

Born in Manchester to politically active parents, she became interested in women's suffrage when she was 14. At 21 she married, Richard Pankhurst, a barrister over twenty years older who supported her causes. She founded the Women's Franchise League and tried to join the Independent Labour Party but was refused because of her sex. Her husband died in 1898 but she founded the Women's Social and Political Union soon after. This all-women's suffrage advocacy group ("deeds, not words") was independent of political parties and it was this group's activities that was the central theme of "Suffragette" (2015) starring Meryl Streep as Ms Pankhurst. Ms Pankhurst's group often had violent confrontations and Pankhurst and her daughters were given repeated prison sentences for wilful damage and assault.

A lesser know activity of Ms Pankhurst was the cessation of all suffrage activism during WWI to support Britain to overcome the "German Peril" by urging women to help in the manufacturing and industrial sector. In 1918 the Representation of the People Act was enacted which gave all men over 21 and all women over 30 the right to vote. This discrepancy was to make sure that the depleted male population was not in the minority. Ms Pankhurst did not live to see the discrepancy corrected in 1928 with a revision of the act.

In 1999 "Time" named Pankhurst as one of the "100 Most Important People of the 20th Century".

Answer: Corazon Aquino

Corazon Aquino was the first (but not last) woman to hold the office of the President of the Philippines. She was also the first female president in Asia. She managed to end the 21 year rule of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos yet she achieved this by being a self-confessed "plain housewife". Her husband, Ninoy, was a senator and a fierce critic of Marcos. He was a strong contender to challenge Marcos in the 1973 Presidential elections before Marcos declared martial law obviating the election. Mr Aquino was jailed as a political prisoner. When released, he and his family were granted exile in the US after he lost the 1980 election. He returned to The Philippines in 1983 and was shot and killed at the airport on his return. This caused Ms Aquino to return to the Philippines, firstly to bury her husband and subsequently to become active in the protestations against the Marcos regime. Marcos called a snap election for February 1986 to remove doubts about his legitimacy to his regime. One million petition signatures convinced Ms Aquino to run against Marcos. The election was marred by electoral fraud. Marcos claimed victory but key ministers defected. With the aid of the military, and the Catholic Church, Corazon Aquino was sworn in as the 11th President. She held office for six years. She declined to renominate for the 1992 elections.

She was "Time" magazine's "Woman of the Year" in 1986. She passed away in 2009 aged 76.

Answer: Whina Cooper

Whina Cooper was born Hohepine Te Wake at Te Karaka in northern Hokianga, NZ on 9 December 1895 to a local Maori leader. She received a good education and became a teacher at a local Maori school but with her training in business processes, changed to manage a local cooperative store. She had her first exposure to activism by stopping a local farmer from draining a swamp that was important to Maori people for seafood and horse-running. She organised Maori crews to fill in the swamps as soon as the farmers dug them. Whilst being arrested for trespass she nevertheless succeeded in getting parliament to revoke the farming lease. She continued to advocate for Maori rights especially after her second husband died in 1951. She stood for parliament in 1963 but did not win the seat and subsequently announced her public life was over. However in 1975, to protest against alienation of Maori land, she lead a coalition of Maori groups in a a long march of over 900 kilometres in far north North Island to the capital Wellington in the south. She was 80 years old. She walked into the NZ Parliament groups leading 5000 marchers on October 13, 1975 to present Prime Minister Bill Rowland, a petition of 60000 signatures including those of 200 Maori leaders. The Press identified her as "Mother of the Nation".

She passed away in 1994, aged 98. More than a million people watched her funeral on television.

Answer: Aung San Suu Kyi

Educated in India and Oxford, Aung San Suu Kyi's father was Aung San who, in 1947, negotiated Burma's independence from Great Britain but was killed by rivals in the same year. In 1988, after working for the United Nations for three years she returned to Burma to care for her elderly mother but also to play a prominent part of Burma's pro-democracy movement which was trying to counter Burma's military-led government since 1962. She only saw her husband a few more times as the burmese Dictator ship refused him entry visas. He died soon after his last visit in 1995.

She was one of the leaders in the 8888 Uprisings (8th August, 1988) which gave rise to the National League of Democracy political party. She became the inaugural leader. At the 1990 elections, the NLD won 392 out of the 492 contests seats with the National Unity party, the ruling party winning only ten. The ruling military junta refused the NLD's mandate to form a government, the party was repressed and Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest. She pursued Burma's quest for freedom despite the constraints of house arrest and in 2012 was allowed to run for by-elections. She, and the NLD won 43 of the 45 contested seats. In 2015 she announced she would run for Presidency but was ruled ineligible as she was the widow and mother of foreigners (her husband was Indian - these provisions appear to have been written into the legislation to prevent her from undertaking the role). The NLD won a large majority in both houses. She took multiple ministries including the foreign ministry. President Htin Kyaw created a position called State Counsellor for her. This position is a effectively a Prime Minister role.

Answer: Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks, an African American (1913-2005) was known for not giving up her seat for a white person on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus in 1955. The resulting bus boycott by Afican-Americans (75% of the bus patronage) lasted 381 days. What is not as well known is that Ms Parks dedicated her life to achieving racial equality. She inspired Martin Luther King. She spent much time campaigning prior to 1955 in her home state but in 1957 she moved to Detroit where she campaigned further to overcome segregation in Michigan. Her husband and brother died in 1977 (and also her mother in 1979). She had no children. At 64 she re-dedicated herself to civil rights organisations. Sadly she died with dementia in 2005.

Maria Mayer was the first US woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics.
Marilyn Monroe was well known in the 1950s but not for one particular event
Lady Bird (real name Claudia) Baines came to US national attention with her "Society for a More Beautiful National Capital" when she became the first lady after her husband LBJ assumed the office of the US President in 1963. However, Mrs Johnson was a respected business woman and shrewd investor before she met LBJ.

Answer: Joan

Joan was born around the 6th January, 1412 to Jacques d'Arc and Isabelle Romée. Her father was a middle class land owner and public official in the Burgundy region of France which was under English control. Her father was loyal to France despite local opposition to the French.This loyalty no doubt shaped Joan's views when Joan was in her teens. This was the Lancastrian period of the Hundred Years' War. Joan said she received visions from angels instructing her to support the uncrowned King Charles in freeing France from English control. She was sent by the king to the siege of Orléans which she was instrumental in lifting after only nine days. After several more quick victories, a French victory was assured and the King was crowned. However Joan was captured by a Burgundy group loyal to the English. She was tried hastily and burned at the stake on 30 May 1431.

She became known as the Maid of Orleans and was canonised as a Roman Catholic saint in 1920.