Trivia Challenge: Love in History

With Valentines in the air, I challenged the players in my sports bar trivia game on historical figures and their romances. Do you know some of these?

The answers are down below.

1. Popularized by Shakespeare, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Antony and Cleopatra have been considered a power couple for over two millennia. What was Antony’s first name?

2. Second U.S. President John Adams was married only once, to a woman 11 years younger than him, and for about 54 years. In all their time together, they exchanged over 1,100 letters about national affairs, family and the farm. Each was addressed to “My Dearest Friend.” What was Mrs. Adams’ first name?

3. No, she wasn’t the subject of the folk song “Oh my Darling Clementine.” As his official website noted, “Theirs was a great romance but, as importantly, Clementine would dispense wise advice on all of the matters of the day. He relied heavily on her for her unwavering support and for her always-sage advice.” Clementine Hozier was the wife of whom, a British prime minister?

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4. She was a movie star at 26 when she got the best role of her life, a real princess when she married Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Who was she?

5. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore described it as "the tear-drop on the cheek of time." Meaning “Crown of the Palace,” what is the mausoleum built in the 17th Century by the Shah Jahan for his favorite wife, a Persian princess named Mumtaz?

6. Of the six wives of Henry VIII, the most notable (if not most scandalous) was his second, Anne Boleyn. He even created his own church to get a divorce from his first wife. Though their romance and marriage ended in her beheading, Henry and Anne were the parents of what later monarch of England?

7. Writer Alice Toklas met the love of her life on her first day in Paris in 1907. Together they hosted a salon that “brought together confluences of talent and thinking that would help define modernism in literature and art". Who was Alice’s 40-year companion? James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso or Gertrude Stein?

8. She was six years older than him. As historian Kate Williams explained, she, “the fabulous hostess and skilled diplomat, was the perfect consort to the ambitious but obnoxious Napoleon.” Who was Napoleon Bonaparte’s first wife?

9. Say Goodnight, Gracie. This comedy duo performed together in vaudeville, radio, television and films for 40 years. He visited her grave every month until his own passing at age 100. Gracie Allen was married to whom, a comedian?

10. Queen Victoria married her German first cousin, Prince Albert in 1840. It was the first wedding of a reigning queen in England since 1554. The answer is a single-digit number. How many children did they have? You have three guesses.

Please scroll down for the answers.