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Assassinations in History Quiz

Given the year and city, name the person who was assassinated.
Quiz idea: Yohann Sidhwa
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: August 28, 2018
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First submittedJune 16, 2010
Times taken60,027
Average score45.0%
Rating4.08
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Year
City
Person
44 B.C.
Rome
Julius Caesar
1170
Canterbury
Thomas Becket
1865
Washington, DC
Abraham Lincoln
1881
Washington, DC
James Garfield
1901
Buffalo
William McKinley
1914
Sarajevo
Franz Ferdinand
1935
Baton Rouge
Huey Long
1940
Mexico City
Leon Trotsky
1948
New Delhi
Mohandas Gandhi
1963
Dallas
John F. Kennedy
Lee Harvey Oswald
Year
City
Person
1965
New York City
Malcolm X
1968
Los Angeles
Robert Kennedy
1968
Memphis
Martin Luther King, Jr.
1978
San Francisco
Harvey Milk
1979
Seoul
Park Chung-hee
1980
New York City
John Lennon
1981
Cairo
Anwar Sadat
1995
Tel Aviv
Yitzhak Rabin
2007
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto
+1
Level 55
Jun 4, 2013
Could Osama Bin Laden's death be considered an assassination? If it is, I suggest you add it.
+1
Level 82
Jun 4, 2013
I think it would only count if the *only* goal of the raid was to kill bin Laden and there was never any intention to capture him. Though we don't usually think of teams of soldiers as assassins, I guess that's not a good enough reason to discount it as such.
+2
Level 27
Jun 4, 2013
It is an assassination, but not like these here... I think none of the above ones were a military target or international condemned villains... and it didn't come as a surprise as most of these...
+6
Level 71
Jun 4, 2013
George Moscone, the mayor at the time, should also be accepted for San Francisco in 1978.
+1
Level ∞
Jul 30, 2015
Okay.
+8
Level 33
Jun 4, 2013
Only 18% knew Trotsky? He was one of the most important people of the 20th C.
+2
Level 65
Aug 14, 2013
Who's Trotsky?
+9
Level 78
May 6, 2015
The commander of the Red Army, Lenin's right hand, and Stalin's rival.

One of the key figures of comunism.

+13
Level 88
Jul 8, 2018
His full name was Google Trotsky.
+1
Level 44
Jan 20, 2015
and of course 11% knew Huey Long.. lol
+6
Level 72
Sep 27, 2020
I guess many people don't have Long memories.
+1
Level 66
Sep 5, 2016
'Whatever happened to, Leon Trotsky? He got an ice-pick, that made his ears burn." Come on people, have you forgotten The Stranglers "No more Heroes"?
+1
Level 40
Mar 26, 2019
That song is the only reason I knew Trotsky was assassinated.
+1
Level 76
Oct 15, 2019
Only because I can never remember how to spell him. Tried Trotzky, Trozky, Trotzki, Trocky... A bit more leniency would be nice. Come on, the pronunciation would still be the same.
+2
Level 33
Jun 4, 2013
Garfield was not assassinated. He would have survived had the doctors not kept putting their germy fingers in the bullethole. Thats what killed him, not the gunshot itself. If it had happened with better medical technology, he would have lived.
+8
Level 90
Jul 8, 2013
Much like the laws respecting murder, all it takes for something to be considered an assassination is an act that starts the chain of events directly leading to the person's death. The gunshots caused the infection, which caused the blood poisoning and pneumonia, which caused the heart attack that eventually killed him 10 weeks later. There's a direct causal link there. It's not as if he died years later falling down a staircase partially as a result of a limp he incurred as a result of being shot - there's no grey area.
+12
Level 84
Aug 11, 2014
So the bullet fired at him was intended to just provide a way for dirty fingered doctors to probe around and eventually kill him? That's some assassin!!
+9
Level 82
Oct 10, 2015
So the assassin was merely trying to ventilate his torso and didn't expect his action to lead to his death (which they, of course, did)?
+4
Level 66
Oct 10, 2015
All above comments are from Guiteau's trial transcript!
+1
Level 84
Dec 29, 2016
I believe that while Reagan's death was not caused by John Hinckly's gunshot - James Brady's death three decades after the shooting was ruled a homicide. Makes it possibly worthy of this quiz - but Brady wasn't the target.
+1
Level 50
Oct 16, 2019
Guns don't kill people, rappers do

Calling the police woo woo woo

+1
Level 61
Nov 2, 2019
Yes, he was assassinated.
+1
Level 77
Apr 21, 2021
The doctors were the real assassins all along.
+1
Level 62
Jun 5, 2013
16% for Yitzhak Rabin. Hmmm
+1
Level 48
May 15, 2014
Probably difficult if you were a kid then.
+2
Level 51
Oct 10, 2015
i was a kid and i remember it...
+1
Level 48
Mar 10, 2019
Lol, it is part of general historical knowledge. It is like say Lincoln´s death is probably difficult, if you was not yet alive back then :D
+1
Level 88
Jan 17, 2020
It's like saying Rabin is as well known as Lincoln.
+1
Level 21
Jun 5, 2013
I really wouldn't consider Lee Harvey Oswald's death as an assassination...
+7
Level 53
Jun 7, 2013
I would absolutely consider Jack Ruby walking up to Lee Harvey Oswald and shooting him an assassination. He was being transported to a prison, and it was all captured on live television.
+1
Level 33
Apr 15, 2014
Would the death of Jesus be considered assassination?
+6
Level 48
May 15, 2014
I think it's more an execution.
+2
Level 20
Oct 12, 2015
If there really was a jesus
+3
Level 83
Dec 8, 2015
Tacitus describes the crucifixion of Jesus pretty clearly. I think we can be sure he exists, but who he was is another matter.
+4
Level 82
Feb 22, 2018
pretty clearly? Where do you people get this stuff from? Tacitus wrote a single page about a fire in Rome which had been blamed on Christians. On that page, he devotes a single sentence to describing the origins of Christianity. Within that single sentence, he devotes five words to the execution of "Christus." Crucifixion isn't mentioned, nor any specifics about what happened at all though he goes on to mention Pilate after that. Tacitus did not witness the event, nor does he mention any primary sources. It's very probable he is simply relating the beliefs of the people he is describing that were blamed for the fire. It would be like someone in North America meeting a Muslim, and then writing about this guy Muhammad who flew to Jerusalem on a man-faced horse. This obviously carries no weight at all, and doesn't make us sure of anything. But to someone determined to have faith, this gets misrepresented as a clear description.
+9
Level 41
Oct 9, 2014
I know that a lot has been said about these quizes being considered too America-centred. I do agree that it is legitimate for a website operated from America to be focused on AMerican topics. However, if you name the quiz Famous Assasinations (without any qualifications), and then devote so much much space to personalities of American, rather than global significance (Robert Kennedy, Malcom X, Huey Long, Harvey Milk, James Garfield etc), there is something disproportionate about it.
+2
Level 74
Jan 15, 2015
I'm not American, but most of these are pretty famous. I'd never heard of Huey Long, but now I have, so I've learnt something. He seemed like a decent chap.
+2
Level 74
Aug 22, 2015
@Tinu Agree completely.
+1
Level 82
Oct 10, 2015
Which assassinations of global/international significance do you think were left off? I can think of King Faisal (but probably only because I lived in Saudi for many years), and.... that's about it. Who else have most people heard of?

Though I'll add that I'm American and also had to look up Huey Long.

+10
Level 88
Oct 10, 2015
Well I'm not complaining, the US quite simply has an impressive number of high profile assassinations. In a more international context though the following spring to mind: Ernst Röhm (and other night of the long knives victims), Patrice Lumumba, Pancho Villa, Steve Biko (I'd count it as an assassination), Cicero, Rasputin, Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, Shaka Zulu, Luis Carlos Galan, Andres Escobar (for the football/soccer fans), Zapata and Tsar Nicholas 2 (and family). Plenty to choose from. Maybe some ideas for a more challenging second part.
+4
Level 75
Sep 5, 2016
Yup, Americans are very good at killing. Maybe that's why they put their hands on their hearts for the anthem - in case anyone's taking aim.
+5
Level 59
Sep 8, 2017
Tsar Alexander II, Olof Palme, Indira Gandhi, Thomas Sankara, Muammar Gaddafi, Rafael Trujillo, Pancho Villa, Zapata just to name a few + half the kings, queens and other rulers.
+1
Level 82
Feb 22, 2018
kolp: Nikolai I've heard of and I visited the spot where he was assassinated. I would have gotten that one. Rasputin I wouldn't call an assassination. I know Cicero, Shaka, the Gandhis, and Villa... but didn't know any of them were assassinated. (though another Gandhi would be redundant on this quiz)

Helen: is there some genetic disorder you have that makes it impossible for you to not be a pest? The sentence clearly beings "I can think of"... are you suggesting I thought of all these others and chose not to mention them?

skukka: Gaddafi was not assassinated he was beaten to death by an angry mob.

+1
Level 82
Feb 22, 2018
oh wait I'm thinking of Aleksandr II, not Nikolai... I've been to the church in St Petersburg built atop the spot where Aleksandr was assassinated. Amazing church, by the way. Much prettier than St Basil's.
+1
Level 82
Feb 22, 2018
and Biko dying in prison I definitely would not count. Some of the others kolp listed I've never heard of before.
+1
Level 90
Jan 23, 2019
Jean-Paul Marat, Jean Jaurès and Olof Palme may be interesting additions. Also Philip II of Macedonia, so Caesar can get some classical company.
+1
Level 50
Jan 17, 2020
wasn’t lumumba executed and not assassinated?
+1
Level 71
Nov 9, 2021
From Wikipedia: "Lumumba was captured and imprisoned en route by state authorities under Mobutu and executed by a firing squad under the command of the Katangan authorities. Following his assassination, he was widely seen as a martyr for the wider Pan-African movement."

So I guess he was technically executed, but some may consider it an assassination. I think the line starts to blur when it's carried out by authorities and/or is extrajudicial. Both are true with Lumumba, who didn't have a trial and was executed with Belgian assistance. I guess I don't have a good answer to your question, but I would say in a sense it's both an assassination and execution.

+1
Level 19
Oct 13, 2015
i also agree, john lennon, really?
+4
Level 84
Feb 22, 2018
Are you saying Lennon wasn't "important" enough to merit being on the quiz? It seems an odd reply to a comment that was saying that this American website is too American...
+1
Level 50
Oct 16, 2019
I'm not American but think that Robert Kennedy, all of the presidents and Malcolm X are pretty well known internationally. I'd never heard of Huey Long or Harvey Milk, but I didn't get the answer for Seoul either. 10 out of 20 of the answers aren't Americans.
+1
Level 68
Oct 10, 2015
I know of Thomas as Thomas a Beckett or Thomas of Beckett or the Archbishop of Canterbury. A little more leeway please.
+1
Level 83
Oct 10, 2015
There are a lot of Archbishops of Canterbury...
+1
Level 75
Oct 10, 2015
Why not just type in his surname? It worked for me.
+2
Level 55
Oct 10, 2015
From now on you can disabuse yourself of the idea that his name was ever Thomas a Becket. Whenever I hear of this topic I always think of Stephen Fry's voice explaining there never was an 'a' in the middle of his name. It came up on QI.
+2
Level 55
Oct 10, 2015
Another non-American assassination to consider (and one of the few regarded as a blessing) was Henrik Verwoerd, the architect of apartheid in South Africa.

Thinking of "blessing" assassinations leads inevitably to Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi. His death was followed by massacres.

+2
Level 55
Sep 5, 2016
Shout out to the scriptwriter for Anthropoid who must have seen my comment a year ago and thought "Hey, what a great idea for a movie!"
+1
Level 82
May 16, 2019
A movie most have never heard of based on a leader most have never heard of.
+1
Level 65
Oct 11, 2015
I'm surprised Rasputin isn't on here. Also, I don't think that the location and year is enough information to specify each assassination.
+2
Level 83
Dec 8, 2015
Why, how many people were assassinated in each year in each of these places?
+1
Level 39
Oct 11, 2015
I have no idea who Park Chung-hee is either
+4
Level 74
Oct 23, 2015
Me neither, but if the name is Korean, typing in Park or Lee would get you about a 50% success rate
+3
Level 82
Sep 22, 2016
President of South Korea who transformed the nation - it went from a poor, backwater following years of Japanese colonial rule to a thriving modern economy that created global super-brands such as Samsung, Hyundai and LG. Despite his enormous achievements in transforming South Korea's economy he was also controversial for coming to power in a military coup d'etat. He went to an election once, which he won, but then declared martial law. He was a staunch US ally and sent the largest contingent of troops to Vietnam of any US ally. He avoided several North Korean assassination attempts before finally succumbing to an assassination by his own chief of intelligence. His daughter, Park Geun-hye, is the current South Korean president.
+2
Level 84
Dec 12, 2016
Not any more!
+2
Level 59
Oct 12, 2015
For some pompous reason, I typed "Archduke Ferdinand" instead of just Franz Ferdinand. It didn't take, so I gave up. Whoops.
+4
Level 72
Aug 10, 2016
Huey Long and Harvey Milk? Really? Two American senators, almost all of the others were famous or their deaths had global implications. Long and Milk's deaths, whilst tragic, would hardly had made headlines outside America. I'd suggest replacing them with someone who a non American has a remote chance of having heard of.
+3
Level ∞
Aug 11, 2016
Both Milk and Long were the subjects of recent movies (both starring Sean Penn interestingly enough).
+2
Level 82
Sep 22, 2016
Agreed - entirely legitimate subjects for the quiz (though I myself didn't get Long).
+1
Level 84
Dec 29, 2016
This is nitpicky but all of these assassinations are in date order, and that's good - but two are out of order. RFK was assassinated AFTER MLK. Doesn't change the answers one bit - enjoyed the quiz.
+1
Level 63
Feb 25, 2017
Quizmaster, have you thought about adding Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago who was killed by shots allegedly aimed at FDR? It has been speculated that Cermak was the target (even if it is unlikely) and, to be frank, if 11% can guess who obscure but important (known for his hilarious filibusters) Senator Huey Long is, then, surely, some will be able to guess Cermak. If you at least answer the question I will be satisfied.
+1
Level 63
Feb 26, 2017
Oh, and you might also consider adding Kim Jong Nam, Kim Jong Un's half brother who was poisoned by a chemical called VX at an airport in Malaysia.
+1
Level 37
Apr 24, 2017
In my opinion, the only other person assassinated in Dallas in 1963 besides JFK was Officer J. D. Tippett, the Policeman assassinated

by that murderer Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald was NOT assassinated!

+3
Level 72
Oct 16, 2019
just because he was a murderer doesn't mean he can't be assasinated
+2
Level 63
Jun 16, 2017
IRA assassinated Mountbatten.
+2
Level 71
Apr 29, 2018
Good quiz, I enjoyed reading the comments, I'm always glad to see we still have such a great bunch of biased, big headed, know-all nit-picking commentators on Jetpunk.
+3
Level 48
Mar 10, 2019
I do not say this often, but this is a very us-centric quiz. Almost no Europe. What about Pim Fortuyn, Alexander Litvinenko or Olof Palme? Perhaps the most prominent cases in post-WWII history.

Another older interesting examples might be King Alexander I. of Yugoslavia (the first assassination broadcast live on TV, I believe), Mehmet Talaat Pascha (former Ottoman dictator responsible for Armenian genocide), Reinhard Heydrich (highest ranking Nazi official ever killed, directly responsible for holocaust) or Aleksandar Stamboliyski (Bulgarian prime minister murdered for signing the Treaty of Niš).

Other famous examples around the world include Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi (yeah, kinda problem with surname though) and maybe even Mujibur Rahman, Laurent Désiré Kabila or Juvénal Habyarimana (all of them were leaders of their nations at that time and last one´s death even marked the beginning of Rwandan genocide).

It would be nice to enlarge the quiz and include more interesting cases.

+2
Level 48
Mar 10, 2019
Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of Northern Alliance (against Taliban) might be just another interesting example.
+3
Level 82
May 16, 2019
Who? Who? and who? Another who? Oh I know that guy; didn't know he was assassinated. Who? Who? Gandhi is already on here. Who? Who? Who?

Adding any one of these people to the quiz and you'd be looking at an answer guessed by somewhere between 1 and 0% of quiz takers.

+2
Level 48
Aug 8, 2019
Maybe you may try to google them. Generally those were people, whose death affected the history of at least one important country (Palme was prime minister of Sweden murdered by South African spies, Litvinenko was a russian spy defector to the UK killed by his former fellows etc.). Not sure, if the same could be said about Harvey Milk and Huey Long (only two in the quiz, that I never heard about in my whole life). I have to admit, I would not expect such a great ignorance from someone as educated as you...

Maybe the people in US would get like 5 % for some of these (dictator Park of South Korea got only 6 %, which surprised me a bit, I would say his significance is comparable to the names suggested), but there are also quiz takers from Europe and elsewhere in the world, who are interested about their own history.

+2
Level 82
Oct 15, 2019
I'm guessing at least half of the people who got Park right did so by guessing common Korean names after seeing the location was Seoul. If you guess "Park," "Pak," "Kim," and "Lee" that covers the majority of people in the city.

Quizmaster doesn't like to include answers on front-page quizzes that are unknown to 95+% of the people taking the quizzes. I don't necessarily agree with this policy, and I'm not trying to excuse my own ignorance, I'm just saying that the reasons why these people are not on the quiz isn't mysterious. They're just not that well-known. I am certain that if Habyarimana were on here he would be guessed by less than 1% of quiz takers. I've authored quizzes myself with answers less esoteric than that that got guessed less than 1%, even though they never appeared on the front page (where they are taken by more people and thus averages go down).

So anyway if this really is the best list of alternate answers you can come up with, the quiz is fine as is.

+1
Level 82
Mar 14, 2021
Really. If that's how you read my "general tenor" then you are generally poor at reading.
+2
Level 65
Feb 27, 2023
I agree with this. Well worth adding more non-US figures including several of those you name - especially Palme, Litvinenko, Indira Gandhi and Habariyama.

Marat should be in there too, and probably the caliph Ali, one of the three or four biggest figures in the history of the world's second-biggest religion.

+1
Level 82
Jun 26, 2019
I missed Becket because I was typing Abecket as I almost always hear the name as Thomas à Becket.
+1
Level 51
Oct 31, 2019
100%
+2
Level 31
Sep 10, 2020
PALME , Stockholm 1986
+1
Level 41
Nov 8, 2020
I don't think that this quiz is too American, and it's my own fault for forgetting the name: Beckett. However, never mind how important he was, or how much I love the Beatles, John Lennon was murdered, not assassinated.
+2
Level 80
Nov 9, 2021
Strange not to allow 'Thomas a Becket', or just 'a Becket'.
+2
Level 41
Jul 9, 2022
This quiz could be updated to add Shinzo Abe.
+1
Level 71
Jul 10, 2023
Thomas Becket is widely known as Thomas à Becket, making it one of the names he's known by. In fact, we know quite a few historical figures by names they never went by in life or didn't use during their contemporary periods and were assigned later. This web site usually follows Wikipedia in using the "commonly-used name" in preference for things, viz. the names of countries (like "Ivory Coast").

No question that the best answer to the question is "Thomas Becket", as it is now; but since "Thomas à Becket" is widely known and used and therefore valid, it should be accepted. Let's not do some weird OED thing and not accept "Shakespeare" because it was never spelled that way in his lifetime.