Who and Where — Answers

Today’s answers are shown below.

These questions all relate to people born this day, 15th May, and where they were born.

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One

Born on this day in 1914, the Sherpa who, along with Edmund Hillary, was the first to stand on the summit of Mount Everest. Who was this Sherpa, and in what country was he born according to either his own autobiography or a later biography co-written by his son?

Answers: Tenzing Norgay (aka Sherpa Tenzing); (either) Nepal or Tibet.

Conflicting accounts exist regarding his birthplace so either Nepal or Tibet is acceptable. Tenzing Norgay was born to Tibetan parents in either in Nepal or Tibet, and likely grew up in Khumbu, Nepal. His birth name was Namgyal Wangdi, and at some point in his childhood, he took the name Tenzing Norgay. Norgay and Hillary stood on the summit of Mount Everest on 29 May 1953.

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Two

Born this day in 1937, the woman who would become the first female U.S. Secretary of State. Who was she, and in what city was she born?

Answers: Madeleine Albright; Prague.

Madeleine Albright, born in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), was the first female U.S. Secretary of State (1997-2001) and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (1993-1997). Her family fled Czechoslovakia twice, first due to Nazi occupation and later due to a communist coup, eventually settling in the United States. As a human rights advocate, Albright championed military intervention, democracy, and human rights, notably advocating for NATO bombings in Kosovo. After leaving government service, she founded the Albright Group and supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns.

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Three

Abraham …, born on this day in 1905, a clothing manufacturer, became famous for a short piece—less than 30 seconds—of 8 mm film captured in Texas in 1963. What was Abraham’s surname, in what country was he born and what event did the film capture?

Answers: Zapruder; Ukraine; the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Abraham Zapruder, a Ukrainian-born American clothing manufacturer, captured the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on film in Dallas, Texas. His footage, considered the most complete of the event, captured 26.6 seconds in 486 frames of the motorcade including the fatal headshot (frame 313). He sold the rights of the film to Life magazine, donating part of the proceeds to the widow of J.D. Tippet, the Dallas police officer shot by Lee Harvey Oswald less than an hour after the president’s assassination.

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Four

Tik-Tok of Oz (1914) was the eighth book in a series. Who, born this day in 1856, was the author of this book and series, and in what U.S. state was this author born?

Answers: L. Frank Baum; New York.

American author Lyman Frank Baum, best known for his children’s fantasy books set in the land of Oz, especially The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was born in Chittenango, New York. Tik-Tok of Oz is the eighth book of Baum’s Oz Series in which Tik-Tok is a ’mechanical man’. He has been termed ‘the prototype robot’, and is widely considered to be one of the first robots to appear in modern literature, though the term ‘Robot’ was not used until the 1920s, in the play R.U.R.

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Five

Born this day in 1859, a scientist who, along with his wife, became the first married couple to win a Nobel Prize. Who was this male scientist and in what city was he born?

Answer: Pierre Curie; Paris.

Pierre Curie (1859–1906) was a French physicist and chemist known for his work in crystallography, magnetism, and radioactivity. He shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with his wife, Marie Curie, marking the first Nobel win by a married couple. Born in Paris, he excelled in mathematics and became a Professor of Physics. With his brother Jacques, he discovered piezoelectricity and invented the piezoelectric quartz electrometer. Their research led to the isolation of polonium and radium, coining the term ‘radioactivity’. Curie’s work on magnetic coefficients and radiation emissions advanced nuclear physics, influencing fields like plate tectonics and nuclear energy. Pierre Curie in 1906, in a street accident in Paris after slipping and being struck by a horse-drawn carriage.

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