Quiz 5 - 10 Questions on people who died of starvation. Answers.

1.Robert O’Hara Burke, was the first explorer  to cross this country from south to north.He started his expedition with a pack of camels and horses in August 1860 with 18 men. The party was split into two groups,with an advance party leading and a main party trailing. By mid October Burke’s advance party reached Cooper Creek and in the arid heart of the country they established a supply depot. The rest of the party stayed at the depot while Burke and fellow explorers John King, Charles Gray and Wills, headed for the Gulf of Carpentaria ,but they could not penetrate the swamps and jungle scrub that lay between them and the Gulf of Carpentaria. On their return journey in February 1861 they faced constant rain and their rations were fast dwindling. Gray died four days before reaching the supply depot and when Burke, Wills, and King reached the depot they found that the party at the depot had left only hours before. Although they received help from local people Burke and Wills died at the end of June of starvation and exhaustion. Which country were they exploring?

Ans: Australia. They were appointed by the government to forge a route for the overland telegraph.

2. Which Indian king abdicated in favour of his son, became a monk and while in voluntary exile in the south of India, committed suicide by fasting to death ?

Ans: Chandragupta Maurya

3. This Greek mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and poet, was the first person to have calculated the Earth's circumference. He also measured the obliquity of the ecliptic and created a catalog  of 675 fixed stars.He became the head of the library at Alexandria and after becoming blind, he died in Alexandria of voluntary starvation. Who?

Ans:Eratosthenes

4. Pausanias ,the Spartan regent and general, the nephew of king Leonidas I, of Sparta, commanded the Greek army in the Battle of Plataea and  totally routed and expelled the Persians. But his adoption of Persian ways aroused suspicion among his fellow Greeks and was accused of treason but was acquitted. When a scheme to overthrow the Spartan government was uncovered Pausanias was recalled to Sparta and was killed. How did the Spartans kill Pausanias ?

Ans: Pausanias was forced to seek refuge in the temple of the goddess Athena to escape arrest. The Spartans walled in the sanctuary and starved him to death.

5. She was the daughter of Marcus Agrippa and Julia, the daughter of the emperor Augustus, married the Roman general Germanicus Caesar . After the death of her husband for reasons of succession she was exiled by Tiberius where she starved herself to death. Of her nine children , one son and three daughters survived her. The son suceeded Tiberius as the emperor Gaius Caligula one of her daughters became, the mother of the emperor Nero. Which virtuous and heroic women ?

Ans: Agrippina the Elder. Her daughter Agrippina the younger became Nero's mom.

Agrippina landing at Brundisium with the ashes of Germanicus, (1768, Benjamin West, oil on canvas). In art, Agrippina has served as a symbol of marital devotion and fidelity.

6. In the lineage of Popes, three well known Popes have died of starvation. Two of them were Pope John XIV who was imprisoned by Antipope Boniface VII and Pope John I who was later honoured as a martyr. Name the third Pope whose father Saint Hormisdas was also a Pope ?

Ans: Saint Silverius. Silverius was born to the future pope St. Hormisdas before Hormisdas had entered priesthood. Silverius was banished to the desolate island Palmarola (part of the Pontine Islands), where he starved to death a few months later.

7. George Washington De Long's attempt to reach the North Pole failed and his ship was trapped in ice east of Wrangel Island. The ship then drifted for 21 months before sinking and De Long and 13 of his crew died of starvation. The wreckage of the ship was found three years later on an ice floe off Greenland. Although the attempt ended in a disaster which theory was proved by the accident?

Ans: The drifting of the wreck supported and proved the theory of transarctic ice drift

De Long's Grave. 

8.This innovative documentary was made by Robert Flaherty, about the daily life of an Inuit family who lived on the shores of Canada’s Hudson Bay in the 1920s. The movie, follows an Inuit man as he hunts, builds a shelter, and struggles to survive in the harsh northern climate. unlike other nonfiction motion pictures of his time which  looked on foreign lands and peoples from a great distance, Flaherty got closer to his subjects and captured a way of life that no longer exists. He was also the first to add a narrative story line to a documentary. The main character of the movie after whom the movie was named died a few years later  of starvation. Which award winning documentary?

Ans:  Nanook of the North, the character's name was Nanook.

9. Referred by his followers as Ganga Putra he was a Hindu monk, who went on a hunger strike on 19 February 2011 to save the river Ganges from pollution caused by illegal mining in the river bed. He died on 13 June, the 115th day of his fast. Many believe that he was killed, but official reports suggest death by starvation and dehydration. Who? 

Ans: Nigamanand Saraswati  born as Swaroopam Kumar Jha "Girish"

10. The death due to fasting of Potti Sreeramulu, gave impetus to the formation of which Indian State? 

Ans: Andhra Pradesh.