In which Dutch city was Mata Hari born in 1876?
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Leeuwarden
Her father ran a thriving hat shop there until he went bankrupt.
💡 Did you know? Leeuwarden has a statue of her, and the Fries Museum keeps a collection about her life.
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Which heavenly body does her Malay stage name mean?
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Sun
She chose the name for her appearances as a supposed Javanese temple dancer.
💡 Did you know? She had picked up Malay during her years on Java.
To which island of the Dutch East Indies did she move in 1897 with her husband, a colonial officer?
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Java
Her husband Rudolf MacLeod served in the colonial army; later the couple also lived on Sumatra.
💡 Did you know? There she saw the local dances that she later freely imitated in Paris.
At which Paris museum of Asian art did she first appear as a dancer in 1905?
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Musée Guimet
The museum’s founder Émile Guimet had her dance before invited guests in the library.
💡 Did you know? The show made her famous overnight, although her “temple dance” was pure invention.
In which capital did she meet a military attaché late in 1916 whose intercepted radio messages incriminated her?
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Madrid
The attaché reported their talks to Berlin, and the French decoded the messages.
💡 Did you know? Some historians suspect he deliberately gave her away in an easily broken code.
Which code did she allegedly bear as an agent in the intercepted messages?
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H-21
A German consul in The Hague is said to have recruited her under this number in 1915 or 1916.
💡 Did you know? She later admitted taking money but claimed she had never given anything away.
Which country was she said to have spied for when a Paris court martial sentenced her to death?
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Germany
The trial before the court martial lasted only two days and was held behind closed doors.
💡 Did you know? In 1917 France was in crisis, with mutinies at the front, and a culprit was convenient.
In which year was Mata Hari executed?
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1917
She had been arrested in a Paris hotel in February of the same year.
💡 Did you know? No one claimed her body; it went to medical students, and her head later vanished without trace.
In which town near Paris did she face the firing squad?
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Vincennes
The execution took place on a training ground near the castle.
💡 Did you know? Legend has it that she refused the blindfold and blew the soldiers a kiss.
Which actress played her in the 1931 Hollywood film “Mata Hari”?
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Greta Garbo
The film turned the dancer into a seductive master spy and shaped her image for decades.
💡 Did you know? In 1985 Sylvia Kristel played her in another film of the same name.
Foto: Unknown author · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Who is shown here?
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Mata Hari
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