We haven’t done a true/false quiz in a while, so this month we found twenty daredevils from around the world to include in our quiz. How much do you know about their death-defying stunts? Can you tell which stunts are real and which ones we have made up?
Read the information below for each daredevil and tell us if they are true or false, then go to “Next Month in This Awful Awesome Life – July 2023” or follow this link, https://www.thisawfulawesomelife.com/home/2023/6/4/next-month-in-this-awful-awesome-life-july-2023-by-fran-joyce
to discover which statements are true or false. The correct information about each daredevil will also be listed with the answers for each false statement. Good luck!
1. Donald Campbell was a British speed record breaker for land and water during the 1950s and 60s. His father, Sir Malcolm Campbell, was a British racing motorist and motoring journalist. Between them, they set eleven records for speed in water and ten on land. _________
2. Reinhold Messner – This Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest. He was also the first person to cross Antarctica and Greenland without using a dogsled or snowmobile. He also crossed the Gobi Desert alone. _________
3. Charles Blondin was a French tightrope walker and acrobat. He crossed the 1,100-foot (340 meter) Niagara Gorge on a tightrope. Teddy Roosevelt compared himself to Blondin in political speeches during his 1904 presidential campaign as “Blondin on the tightrope, with all that was valuable to America in the wheelbarrow he was pushing before him.” _________
4. Joseph Kittinger, an officer in the United States Air Force held the world record for the highest skydive- 102,800 feet (31.3 km) from 1960 until 2012. _______
5. Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his unauthorized high-wire walks between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in 1971, The Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973, and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. _________
6. Alain Robert is known as the French Spiderman for his daring free solo climbing, scaling skyscrapers using no climbing equipment except for a small bag of chalk and pair of climbing shoes. He successfully climbed the Burj Khalifa, the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Opera House, and the Montparnasse Tower. On September 1, 2009, he successfully climbed to the top of the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia for the third time. ___________
7. Harry Houdini was an illusionist, escapologist, and stunt performer. He was also an aviator. His goal was to become the first man to fly a powered aircraft in Australia. ___________
8. Jeb Corliss is an American skydiver and BASE jumper. Corliss is best known for his seven successful BASE jumps from the observation deck of the Empire State Building. _________
9. Travis Pastrana is an American professional motorsports competitor and stunt performer who has won championships and X Games and American gold medals for supercross, motocross, freestyle motocross, and rally racing. __________
10. Robert “Evel” Knievel was an American stunt performer and entertainer. In the 1971 biopic film of his life, Knievel was played by George Maharis. __________
11. Helen Gibson was a rodeo performer, film actress, vaudeville performer, and Hollywood’s first stunt woman. She appeared in all 119 episodes of The Hazards of Helen. ___________
12. Lillian La France was considered the world’s foremost woman motorcycle stunt rider during the 1920s and 1930s. She was the first person to ride a wall in a scaled-down midget racing car. ____________
13. Rosa Richter was an English aerialist who used the stage name, Zazel. She was a trained gymnast, tightrope walker, and aerialist. At the age of seventeen, she became known as the first human cannonball. Later in life, she used her athletic skills to promote the use of safety nets by fire departments to help people escape burning buildings. _____________
14. Debbie Lawler is an American motorcyclist and stunt performer. She is the first woman motorcyclist to beat Evel Knievel’s indoor record when she jumped 101 feet. When Knievel reclaimed his record, he gifted Lawler a pink jumpsuit. ___________
15. Kitty O’Neil was an American stuntwoman and auto-racer. O’Neil lost her hearing as a child. Other illnesses in early adulthood forced O’Neil to give up competitive driving and switch to auto racing. She was often called the fastest woman alive because of her December 6, 1976, record set for female drivers at an average speed of 512.71 mph (825.127 km/h) and a top speed of 621mph (999 km/h) in a hydrogen peroxide powered three-wheeled rocket car. Before she retired, O’Neil set 22 speed records on land and water. ___________
16. Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney is an American auto racer. She is known as the “First Lady of Drag Racing” because she was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association to drive a Top Fuel dragster. In 2008, ESPN ranked Muldowney 15th on its list of the Top 25 Drivers of All Time. _________
17. Debbie Evans is an American former motorcycle observed trials competitor and current stunt actor. Evans is famous for balancing her motorcycle with the kickstand up while doing a headstand on the seat of the bike. _____________
18. Sonora Webster Carver was an American entertainer famous for being one of the first female horse divers. Blinded in 1931 when she hit the water off-balance with her eyes open, Carver continued to dive horses until 1942. ____________
19. Maxine Dunlap Bennett was an American aviator. She was the first licensed woman glider pilot. She flew her record-setting glider rating qualification flight over Death Valley on April 28, 1929, for a distance of 990 feet (300 m) for fifty seconds exceeding the required minimum of thirty seconds to obtain her Glider flying certificate. ____________
20. Nell Schmidt – In 1912, twenty-year old Schmidt became the first woman to swim across San Francisco Bay. Nearly 100 years after her accomplishment, Schmidt was finally inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. ____________