Famous Assassinations Quiz

interesting, but morbid quiz.

I found out recently that I share a birthday with John Wilkes Booth and Mark David Chapman. They're definitely two people you don't find when you look up famous people with your birthday (though I guess they're infamous rather than famous).

AN ASSASSINATION IS: the targeted killing of a public figure, usually for political purposes. therefore lee Harvey Oswald does not apply. He was not a political figure. No one knew who he was before he was killed.

He was a public figure and he was targeted for death for a specific end. Your own definition is getting narrower even as it goes along.

Much more questionable is the inclusion of John Lennon.

I'm pretty sure most people knew who Oswald was when he was killed.

I can kind of see both points about Oswald. He was a not a political figure except in the sense that he killed a political figure. It is sort of like someone being famous simply by the fact that they are famous (no actual accomplishment except the fame itself.)

Jromance just described most of Hollywood.

trotsky was assassinated in mexico city? interesting.

16/18 = 89%

I missed Rabin and Park Chung-hee (whoever the hell he was). At least I'm not alone in not knowing him. :D

In the past assassination did not even necessarily mean the target had been killed. Abraham Lincoln was the primary target of John Wilkes Booth's plan to throw the Union into chaos with three simultaneous assassinations: he would kill the President at Ford's Theatre, while his accomplice Lewis Powell would try to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, with associate George Atzerodt set to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. Booth succeeded and Atzerodt lost his nerve (or regained his senses?) and did not make an attempt on Johnson. Powell however broke into Seward's home and attacked him with a knife, viciously slashing him. He was unable to kill Seward, but in the news and by associates it was said that Seward had been "assassinated," and had "survived." Today to say someone was assassinated means they were killed...it would seem oddly redundant to say, "so-in-so in was assassinated AND killed."

Oh my God, I didn't even know John Lennon was dead xP

Park Chung-hee was the president of South Korea from 1961 until his assassination.

I managed to get Bhutto but not John Lennon. What's wrong with me?

Wow... it's really dangerous being an elected official in the US, huh?

No, not really. The vast and overwhelming majority lead lives of comfort into very old age, and the political environment of the United States has been extremely stable since the conclusion of the American Civil War, comparatively speaking.

Lennon was killed by some crazy person/stalker. I'm not sure that really counts as an assassination.