Name that Historical Figure #2

Hmmm... the fact that so many more people knew Robert E Lee than Ho Chi Minh reinforces the stereotype of what "world history" means in the US

Nowhere in this quiz does it say "world history." This is a US website. Most of the people on here are American. We're going to recognize American Historical figures.

Exactly. We not only learn World History in the US, but also US History. So why wouldn't we be more familiar with figures from the US?

This is an open website on the WWW - don't think you can call it "American". And where do you get these statistics?

drunken gandalf, your comments are highly ironic considering your comments are anything but fair, and you don't seem to have a solid grasp of history yourself. At least you put "fair" in quotation marks.

To (actually) be fair, the United States is a part of the world, and in the same way that events in Pharaonic Egypt, Classical Greece, Imperial Rome and Victorian England are a vital part of world history, events in the USA and American colonies over the past four centuries are also a vital part of world history. Since the decline of the European empires and the rise of American industrial might in the 1800s, to a large extent, world history IS American history. To be fair.

"Joined the timeline"? That makes it sound as if Americans just appeared on the continent across the pond. Most of them were British once. They had a history before America. If that makes sense.

Getting back to the original point, you'd expect Americans to know about Ho Chi Minh because he was the leader of the only country that ever beat the US in a war.

Ah, kalbaham-sandwich-ut, making fun of people's names, that's very professional. I know whose side I'm on.

Quizmaster: first of all... China has only been a country since 1949 and never once since 1949 has it been the most powerful country in the world. You are succumbing to the nationalist fallacy that current nation-states have a history that extends back to all the people that that nation state claims to be directly descended from. There have been a wide variety of different states in the area that the country of China now occupies. The vast and overwhelming majority of which were also never the most powerful countries in the world.
2nd, if you're going to rope in every entity that ever existed in this territory under the all-encompassing umbrella of "China" as if they were the same thing... then... I think you're still wrong. Check out this graph for a start (from a good book worth reading).

It's hard to see from the scale of that graph, but, according to the metrics the book used China's social development lagged behind that of the West's for thousands of years. Civilization began in the West much earlier and got a head start. People in Mesopotamia started cultivating plants 2000 years before anyone along the Yellow River did the same. When Ancient Egypt was building the great pyramids of Giza and erecting great carved stele full of hieroglyphs, the people who lived in the land that would become China were still in the stone age. When Alexander conquered most of the known world "China" was divided into many different warring states; the Qin would not (mostly) unify these states until over 100 years later. At the height of its power the Roman Empire was certainly much more powerful than China was at the same time. It wasn't until after the collapse of Rome when Europe entered the Dark Ages that China took the lead.

...and that lead only lasted until about 1800 when the West (first the British Empire, then the United States) first eclipsed and then rocketed past China. The USA has maintained the lead since then even if it's likely that China will overtake them at some point in the not too distant future.

Anyway... point taken about entertainment > fairness. And I appreciate your occasional efforts to make the quizzes more international or teach us something about China. :) But, to be fair, there *is* a reason why modern history texts focus more on Western civilization than Eastern and it's not just cultural chauvinism.

by the way I found the text of that book in pdf form in its entirety if anyone wants to read. Though I recommend buying a copy.

a) no, it wasn't. The People's Republic of China (China) was founded in 1949.
b) depends. United States (American) history could be said to have begun in 1776 when the country was founded. But of course the people and lands eventually incorporated in to that country have histories that extend back much farther than that.
c) If half the people on this quiz were Italian that would indeed be odd. Sort of like if half the people on the quiz were from Texas. On the other hand, if half of them were European (and they are), it wouldn't be any more strange than if fewer than half of them were American.

That book focused mostly on Eastern and Western civilization as defined in the book, with Eastern civilization being all the civilizations that descended from the earliest civilizations around the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys and Western civilization being all the civilizations that descended from those of Mesopotamia. The latter includes the Levant, Egypt, Arabia, Greece, Rome, Europe, and the lands colonized by Europeans, but since the most popular theory about civilization in India is that it sprung up independently along the Indus river valley, it is not counted as part of either East or West. In the book. If it were it wouldn't make any difference most likely as they always lagged behind the far eastern and western cores.

and.. don't see how this is important but I can read (and by read I mean sound out) Cyrillic, Arabic, and Korean. I know words in phrases in lots of languages but I can only carry on a conversation in English, Spanish, or Pig Latin.

Lee is at least as important a figure of world history as Ho Chi Minh and probably moreso. The margin of difference isn't very big, either.

Yeah HighFidelity, you are wrong. So wrong.

Although I do expect more people outside the U.S. know more about American politics and history since we practically shove it up their noses. Example: quite a few people from outside the U.S. probably learned about Robert E. Lee when major networks ran news stories about a reporter being disallowed a primary position due to a name similarity.

I think most Americans would know the name of Ho Chi Minh, but they may not recognize his photo. Photos or statues of Grant and Lee are much more common and the recent removals of Confederate memorials put his likeness into recent memory. I lived through the Vietnam War and I only remember seeing Ho on TV or in newspapers a few times and I had to think about who the photo was. I had no trouble at all recognizing Lee.

I knew it, I just always misspell and misplace his name <_>

It's only barely, though not sure of what the percentage was then.

Maybe some people tried typing in merely "Ho"

Comment on a Jetpunk quiz, they said. It'll be fun, they said.

More people knew Gandhi than Franklin, what's your point?

So you're saying Mickey Mouse and Sonic the Hedgehog are more important figures in history than Jethro Tull, James Watt, or Johanes Gutenberg. Because more people in Japan know of the the first two.

Lee was absolutely a vitally important figure in world history and if you don't know why then you simply don't know history.

Okay, just to be clear: Robert E. Lee was not just the "loser" who led "a couple of backwater states". That does a huge disrespect to the South, the conflict, and the man himself. This was half the country that split away. Again, HALF THE COUNTRY, not just a bunch of redneck wackos who were greedy and wanted to force black people to work for them. Yes, slavery was a big deal in the war, but actually look at the history and you'll see that it wasn't really the primary reason people supported the Confederacy. You'll find that people fought because of freedom and loyalty to the sovereignty of the individual states, and slavery was wrapped up in that simply because it was a vital component in the Southern economy at the time. The North didn't need slaves like that because they didn't have plantations. What's more, Lee was apparently an Abolitionist, and fought for Virginia because he was loyal to his home state. And, the outcome of that war affected the US's position to impact the world.

So in conclusion, please bother to learn some fact before spouting out judgement on people you never met (remember, historical figures are people too). And realize that a huge civil war to decide whether individual states should be allowed to make laws about things like human rights, or whether greater centralized control is an acceptable trade-off for upholding a common standard, IS A HUGE DEAL for the ENTIRE world.

ecp, I wouldn't call Lee an abolitionist. He thought slavery should eventually be abolished, but slowly, giving the plantation owners time to replace the free labor, and also to give time for the country to find proper housing and jobs for newly freed slaves. He did not speak out against slavery and he inherited slaves from his father-in-law who some said had left orders for his slaves to be freed at the time of his death. The Custis estate had fallen into disrepair, and Lee took leave from the Army to oversee the repairs to the Arlington estate his wife inherited. He took advantage of wording in the will to retain the slaves for an additional five years until the estate was brought back into production, and only then were they freed in 1862. Interestingly, after the war, Lee spoke against the raising of statues and memorials for Confederates.

BTW, it's incorrect that slavery only existed in the South. There were also slaves in the North, but most of the northern states had "gradual emancipation" laws after the Revolution and the numbers were never as great as in the South. Even so, due to various legal proceedings, some of the northern states still had slaves up to the time of the Civil War.

It's true. Attaching names to faces means nothing if you don't know anything about who the people actually are. To the quizmaster: I think Mark Twain's real name, Samuel Clemens, should also be accepted.

jromance- fair point, and coming from Australia I imagine more people would recognise Captain Cook than Ho Chi Minh also. I was probably overreacting to seeing comments like "pretty sad if you don't know all the US states". ctleng- you're comments are the sort that made me overreact in the first place. Note that the particular foreigner I was talking about caused America to enter the most controversial war in their history- I'm pretty sure that makes them as important as any American historical figure.

Van Rijn should also be accepted for Rembrandt. Rembrandt is actually his first name

I didn't get Geronimo and I'm American. But I also did not get Rembrandt or Tolstoy.

@High fildelity: the quiz said historical figures, not necessarily WORLD history figures. The Civil War is the greatest challenge in the history of the USA, it was the country tearing itself apart and in MANY cases, brother literally fighting against brother. Why should it be a shock that Americans (and not in such large numbers, seeing by the fact that 63% of takers got Lee wrong) might be able to recognize the chief military figure of the Confederacy? JRomance is 100% right...it is one thing to be completely ignorant of history, but if one is not and merely knows more about the history of their home country than they do of general world and foreign history, then they should not be called ignorant.

Also without Lee the war may well have ended differently, and a divided USA would have had a much greater impact on the rest of the world and the course of world history than if Vietnam had remained divided or had become a French or American territory- or a democratic country in the US sphere of influence. Pretty minor event in world history compared to the American Civil War.

and you are giving Ho way too much credit for that while simultaneously farcically minimizing the impact of the American Civil War.

Washington, Jefferson, Bolivar, Hirohito, Sukarno, Gandhi, Selassie, Nasser and many others all came before Điện Biên Phủ, and the majority of them were vastly more important to the ultimate end of European colonialism than late-to-the-party footnote Ho.

It's Martin Luther King JR. Without that, you mean his father.

Does anybody else find that Beethoven picture really creepy? I feel like he wants to murder me through my screen...

I thought Louis XIV was Louis XVI and thought Wilhelm was Otto von Bismark

I got Harry Truman confused for Woodrow Wilson.

I feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one.

I thought it was Warren G. Harding. Yeah, I'm silly like that.

I thought Mark Twain was Jed Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies!

I was trying Joan of Ark. As a mispell maybe this could be ok?!

Noah's wife?

Exactly, but when King James of England made his Bible he left her out of it because she was French and Catholic.

I didn't know Joan of Arc was in the Bible!

I thought Tolstoy was Moses Lol

Most photos of Moses are from his college days, before he became a boat builder.

Noah was the boat-builder. Moses was a pro surfer - he loved hanging ten on the Red Sea.

Douglas MacArthur really looks like Bruce Willis in that picture.

15/20 Haven't Mark Twain, Douglas MacArthur, Louis XIV, Leo Tolstoy, Geronimo.
Can you accept Ludvic XIV for Louis XIV?

The two monarchs I missed. I thought that it was Louis 16th instead of 14th.

15/20. But surprised that only 10% got Tolstoy.

One thing is for certain, Americans can't take a bit of criticism, sob sob. It's funny, I managed to create a general knowledge quiz which wasn't biased towards my home country. It's really not that hard.

a bit? Try constant and neverending. Every day multiple times a day some idiot (actually legion of them) mouthing off in comments here or on CNN or wherever. Most Americans take it in stride extremely well considering. In fact Americans frequently criticize themselves, or accept the criticism of others and in some cases agree, or just laugh it off. There are tons of examples of American art and culture that contain pointed criticism of Americans themselves, and American humor is very self-deprecating. On the other hand say one negative thing about Canada or England or Australia or Saudi Arabia etc.. somebody reading the comment is going to lose their mind.

That's your personal experience, kalbahamut. It probably has something to with the way you're constantly spouting off highly opinionated and offensive tirades against nationalities and religions.

No, it doesn't. I'm more often responding to the people I'm referring to than I am inspiring responses by them.

The first historical mugshot quiz wouldn't accept "che" without the last name but this quiz accepts "elvis" without the last name.

Both are named Martin Luther King. The use of "Sr." or "Jr." is an honorific that is not legally or officially part of their name, and is only truly necessary when they must be distinguished from each other. By the same logic he would have to be called "Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." because obviously we can't tell who people are talking about without using their full, complete names with every applicable honorific.

You should accept "Maria Sklodowska-Curie" in "Marie Curie" as she was Polish and took her husband's surname only as a second one. Therefore officially she was known 'till the end of her life as Maria Sklodowska-Curie

I hate these quizzes. If you think not being able to remember names is embarrassing, try not being able to remember faces.

Maybe you have prosopagnosia.

Anyone who didn't get Churchill apparently has never taken a World War II test on this site...he's the picture for almost every one.

I'm bound to remark that the German emperor's answer should not be filled in when you type "Kaiser". That is simply the name of his rank. I will admit to never having heard reference to any previous or succeeding Kaiser, nevertheless you should get the point for putting his actual name.

Same problem with 'Caesar' in other quizzes, though not, oddly, with 'czar' or 'tzar'.

robert e lee looks like victor hugo to me for some reason

I thought Tolstoy was Santa Claus on a casual Friday and that Mark Twain was Sam Elliot, the actor, though not of any real significance to world history. Truthfully, I thought MacArthur was Ronald Reagan from his acting days.

You should accept Ho not minh as the answer. As far as I know, Ho is the surname.

Agree with Q5

Could you add Skłodowska to Curie, after all that's how she was known Maria Curie Skłodowska.

Wonderful quiz - 100% here!

i got 35%-geography is my thing

I typed "joan or arc" and it wouldn't take it :(

I feel like a major-league derp... forgot Elvis...

Marie SKŁODOWSKA-Curie, that's full name of this polish scientist.

Make your own quiz.

Americans should definitely know that portion of World History that is American History better than other parts of world history, just like someone from Russia should know that portion of World History that is Russian History better than history from other parts of the world. This is a common sense.

I'm willing to wager that many people got Ho Chi Minh trying to guess Hoover for Woodrow Wilson. I always confuse Wilson, Hoover, and Harding. I hadn't even seen Ho yet when I noticed it was already filled in...

I could have sworn that was the guy from Rush.

I think Elvis just doesn't sit right in this company. He will slowly fade into obscurity generation by generation, much like Rudolph Valentino or Al Jolson, not really historical figures.