Quiz on courage

On this day in 1945, a group of marines and a US Navy corpsman raised the American flag at Iwo Jima, immortalised in a picture taken by Joe Rosenthal. This week’s quiz celebrates courage.

Derring-do

1 This lady started the first Indian-run girls’ school in Pune in 1848. And in 1897, opened a clinic to treat the bubonic plague, which was sweeping through India. Identify this pioneering educator, who died from the plague while serving at the clinic

2 Who did driver James Blake ask to vacate a seat on December 1, 1955, in downtown Montgomery and why has it entered the history books?

3 In 1942, which 71-year-old lady led a 6,000-strong procession to the Tamluk police station in Medinipore district, Bengal, demanding an end to British rule and died after being shot by the police?

4 August Landmesser was a worker in the Blohm and Voss shipyard in the 1940s. He is remembered for refusing to do something in a famous photograph, an action that got him arrested later and sent to the front, where he was killed in action. What did he refuse to do?

5 The last four Param Vir Chakras earned by Indian army soldiers were all during the Kargil war. Three of the recipients were Manoj Kumar Pandey, Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar. Who was the fourth, who was referred to as ‘Sher Shah’ in Pakistani army messages?

6 Whose mighty army did Leonidas and his men heroically hold up at the narrow coastal pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC for three days, to allow the main Greek army to escape?

7 For what reason are a group of individuals known as the Skilled Veteran Corps, founded in 2011, and revered in Japan and around the world?

8 Which African nationalist and warrior against apartheid is the subject of the 1987 Richard Attenborough biopic Cry Freedom ?

9 Which 1995 film was based on the life of Sir William Wallace, a Scottish knight who was hanged, drawn and quartered by King Edward I, after successfully resisting the English army and defeating them in the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297?

10 Which 19th-century Indian revolutionary coined the slogan ‘ Abua raj seter jana, maharani raj tundu jana (Let the kingdom of the queen be ended and our kingdom be established)’ and successfully fought against the British for six years before finally being arrested in Chakradharpur in 1900?

Answers

1 Savitribai Phule, who along with her husband Jyotirao, started a school in Bhide Wada.

2 Rosa Parks, who refused to give her seat to a white man and sparked one of the most iconic struggles of the civil rights movement

3 Matangini Hazra. Hazra Road in Kolkata is named after her

4 He refused to raise his hand in a Nazi salute; the picture was later published in the newspaper Die Ziet .

5 Captain Vikram Batra of the Jammu & Kashmir Rifles, who was martyred while leading the attack on Point 4875 on July 5, 1999

6 The Persian Emperor Xerxes I. The incident was immortalised in the film 300

7 They are senior citizens who are risking high doses of radiation to try and neutralise the damage of the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdowns after an earthquake

8 Steve Biko, who was beaten to death by South African security forces in 1977

9 Braveheart , directed by and starring Mel Gibson

10 Birsa Munda; Ranchi airport is named in his honour

Joy Bhattacharjya is a quizmaster;

Twitter: @joybhattacharj

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