Happy Fourth of July!

My Country, Quiz of Thee

Dan and I enjoyed this quiz by Ken Jennings in the Parade magazine.  Here are a few of the questions.

(Answers at the bottom)

1. The tip of the Washington Monument was constructed out of a material that (at the time) was one of the rarest and most precious substances on earth.  What is that material?

2. Three of these foreign-sounding foods are actually American in origin.  Which ones?

    a. German chocolate cake

    b. French fries

    c. Russian dressing

    d. Chinese chicken salad

    e. Danish pastries

    f. English muffins

3. Match each president to his administration's domestic policy program:

    a. The New Frontier

    b. The New Deal

    c. The Square Deal

    d. The Great Society

    e. The Fair Deal

    1. Franklin D. Roosevelt

    2. Theodore Roosevelt

    3. Harry Truman

    4. John F. Kennedy

    5. Lyndon B. Johnson

4. Complete this title of one of the most important memoirs of the 19th Century:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American _______.

5. Who is the only woman ever to lie in honor in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol following her death?  _________________

6. Put these milestones in American space exploration in chronological order:

    a. First American space walk

    b. First landing on an asteroid

    c. First American woman in space

    d. First man on the moon

    e. First Mars orbiter

    f. First multinational manned mission

7. Abner Doubleday is sometimes called the inventor of baseball.  That's not true, but what is his real historical claim to fame?

    a. He ordered the first Union shots of the Civil War

    b. He purchased Alaska from Russia

    c. He was the only survivor of the Alamo

    d. He mapped the Oregon Trail

8. 90 percent of America's fresh water is contained in the Great Lakes. Put the lakes in order of the amount of water each holds from the most gallons to the least:

    a. Lake Erie

    b. Lake Huron

    c. Lake Michigan

    d. Lake Ontario

    e. Lake Superior

What are you doing today?

Answers:

1. Aluminum: Two years after the monument was completed, cheap aluminum processing was invented.

2.German chocolate cake, Russian dressing, Chinese salad

3. 1.b; 2.c; 3.e; 4.a; 5.d

4. Slave

5. Rosa Parks

6. a 1965;d 1969; e 1971; f 1975; c 1983; b 2001

7. Doubleday was second in command of the Union garrison at Fort Sumter when the war began there.

8. e, c, b, d, a; Lake Superior holds almost 3,000 cubic miles of water, more than the four other lakes put together.