Presidents' Day Quiz!

How well do you know your chief executives? If you get more than five wrong, I have to think you're not a true American. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

1. Who is the only president who also served as chief justice of the Supreme Court?
a. Millard Fillmore
b. William H. Taft
c. Rutherford B. Hayes
d. James K. Polk

2. Which president approved The Star-Spangled Banner as the national anthem?
a. Abraham Lincoln
b. Zachary Taylor
c. Herbert Hoover
d. Franklin D. Roosevelt

3. Who was the first president to call the president's residence in Washington, D.C., the "White House"?
a. James Buchanan
b. Theodore Roosevelt
c. Franklin Pierce
d. Warren G. Harding

4. Who said: "I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business"?
a. Richard Nixon
b. Chester A. Arthur
c. John F. Kennedy
d. Bill Clinton

5. At 6 feet, 4 inches, Abraham Lincoln was the tallest president. Who was the shortest?
a. John Quincy Adams
b. Andrew Jackson
c. James Madison
d. Harry S Truman

6. Who was the first president to ride to and from his inauguration in an automobile?
a. William H. Taft
b. Woodrow Wilson
c. Warren G. Harding
d. John F. Kennedy

7. Which president got out of his limousine and walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House on Inauguration Day?
a. Ronald Reagan
b. Jimmy Carter
c. Bill Clinton
d. George W. Bush

8. Which president killed a man in a duel after he cast a slur against the soon-to-be president's wife?
a. Ulysses S. Grant
b. Andrew Jackson
c. Zachary Taylor
d. James A. Garfield

9. Who gave the longest inauguration speech in U. S. history at 105 minutes?
a. Ronald Reagan
b. William Henry Harrison
c. Rutherford B. Hayes
d. Calvin Coolidge

10. Who served the shortest term?
a. Chester A. Arthur
b. William Henry Harrison
c. Andrew Johnson
d. Millard Fillmore

11. Who was the only bachelor president?
a. James K. Polk
b. John Tyler
c. Martin Van Buren
d. James Buchanan

12. Who was the last prsident to be born in a log cabin?
a. Abraham Lincoln
b. Theodore Roosevelt
c. Jimmy Carter
d. James A. Garfield

13. Who was the first president to visit all 50 states?
a. Harry S Truman
b. Richard Nixon
c. Lyndon B. Johnson
d. Dwight D. Eisenhower

14. Who was the third president to die in an assassination?
a. John F. Kennedy
b. Abraham Lincoln
c. William McKinley
d. James A. Garfield

15. Who was the first president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery?
a. Theodore Roosevelt
b. John F. Kennedy
c. Ulysses S. Grant
d. William H. Taft

16. Which president signed the bill that made Arizona the 48th state in the Union?
a. William H. Taft
b. William McKinley
c. Theodore Roosevelt
d. Grover Cleveland

17. Who was the first president born in the United States?
a. Martin Van Buren
b. George Washington
c. James Monroe
d. William Henry Harrison

18. Which president regularly swam nude in the Potomac River?
a. John Quincy Adams
b. Calvin Coolidge
c. Herbert Hoover
d. James K. Polk

19. Which president was a speed reader, having been recorded reading 2000 words per minute?
a. Thomas Jefferson
b. Bill Clinton
c. Jimmy Carter
d. John Adams

20. What political party did George Washington (1789-97) belong to?
a. The Federalists
b. The Whig Party
c. The Revolutionary Party
d. No party

The answers are in the comments section!

Classic rock?

So I'm listening to the "classic rock" station here in town the other day, and "Peaceful, Easy Feeling" by the Eagles was on. It was near the end of the song, so I left it on to hear what was coming on next (I don't have a problem with "Peaceful, Easy Feeling," but it's not like it's the greatest song in the world). So the next song that comes on is ...

"The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band. Now, I like that song, but is it really "classic rock"? It sounds like pure country to me. I mean, it's about Johnny and the Devil playin' their fiddles, for crying out loud!

What say you, loyal readers? Should they be playing that song on a classic rock radio station?

Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

I don't know if anyone has watched the new game show, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, which followed American Idol on Tuesday and Wednesday. If I had known how to get on this show, I would have stampeded people to do so, because I'd now be a million dollars richer. Man, the questions are easy. I missed some of the ones on Tuesday, but here are the ones I heard from that night plus all the ones from Wednesday. These are taken, according to host Jeff Foxworthy, directly from grade-school textbooks. Wednesday's contestant bailed on the last one, which means she got to keep $100,000. Sad. So very sad.

1. In which month does Columbus Day fall?
2. Who was the first president impeached?
3. What was the name of the ship in which the Pilgrims sailed in 1620?
4. During sleep, you enter the REM cycle. What does REM stand for? (The contestants compete with actual fifth graders who can help them. The kid who got this correct spelled the last word wrong, however.)
5. When you mix equal amounts of red and yellow paint, what color do you get?
6. What star is closest to the Earth?
7. What country has the longest border with the United States?
8. How many sides are there on a trapezoid?
9. True or false: Fiction books are NOT assigned numbers in the Dewey Decimal System?
10. How many decades are in two millennia?

Sigh. If you get ANY of these wrong, I think you need to apologize in the comments. Why can't I go on these stupid game shows? WHY?????

Pop Quiz answer!

Ah, that Roger - always using his puzzler! The correct answer to my quiz from yesterday was Robespierre, generally known as the architect of the Terror during the French Revolution. I just read an article on Robespierre, and while the author doesn't whitewash his contribution to one of the more awful state-sponsored acts of terrorism in history, he does point out that Robespierre believed that the Terror was going to occur anyway and thought he could control its abuses. It turned out he was wrong, but it doesn't appear he was completely evil. Anyway, France decided to export their Revolution to all the oppressed people of Europe, something Robespierre objected to, for the very reason quoted. If only George Bush knew some history or, you know, ever read a book, he might have come across Robespierre and his prescience. It didn't work 200 years ago, George, and it ain't working now. Sigh.

Pop Quiz time!

Who said this?

"No one welcomes armed liberators."

Was it:

a. Thomas Jefferson, referring to the British attempts to quell the American Revolution;
b. Maximilien Robespierre, referring to France's wars against the rest of Europe;
c. Giuseppe Garibaldi, referring to some Italians' desire to unite the peninsula by force;
d. T. E. Lawrence, referring to the British policy in Palestine during and directly following World War I;
e. William Westmoreland, referring to the American invasion of North Vietnam;
f. George W. Bush, defending his father's unwillingness to invade Iraq in 1991 (oh, the irony!).

Even though nobody reads my blog, you can leave your guesses in the comments. The answer will arrive tomorrow!

Pop Quiz answer!

No links today! Sorry, folk - I had a rough week. I hurt my back picking up the child (and not the heavier one - I'm just getting old) and then I had a sore throat and a bit of a fever, so I was miserable and aching for about three days and just didn't feel like surfing the web. I found a few fun things, so we'll see about next week.

The answer to my pop quiz was, of course, John F. Kennedy. You scamps are so darned smart! I suppose I shouldn't have given any choices or given better ones, but I wasn't trying to stump you too much. I read this quote in the June 2006 issue of History Today. JFK wrote this in 1945 (or possibly 1946 - he was 28 at the time) while touring Germany after the war ended. It's a strange quote, because even though his father and several others in the State Department wanted a closer relationship with Nazi Germany in the 1930s as a bulwark against Communism, it seems unbelievable that Kennedy could not have known about what Hitler did in pursuit of his "boundless ambition for his country." Anti-Communists in the 1930s and 1940s could argue that Hitler did good things for Germany and just happened to be on the wrong side, but once you know the extent of the Holocaust I just can't believe anyone could defend him. That wacky JFK!

Of course, JFK was an ardent anti-Communist. He tried to kill Castro more than once, sanctioned the assassination of President Diem in South Vietnam, and increased the troop size in Southeast Asia to block the Communist threat. But this is still a weird quote.

Thanks for playing, everyone! Pictures tomorrow, and then it's Top Ten week. I will explain all!

Pop Quiz!

It's a lazy, ridiculously hot day here in the Valley (yesterday it reached the highest temperature - 118 - since 1995), and I thought I'd throw a pop quiz at you on a slow weekend afternoon. Don't fret, it's multiple choice and only one question!

Whose words are these?

"... within a few years Hitler will emerge from the hatred that surrounds him now as one of the most significant figures who ever lived. He had boundless ambition for his country which rendered him a menace to the peace of the world, but he had a mystery about him in the way that he lived and in the manner of his death that will live and grow after him. He had in him the stuff of which legends are made."

What a great quote! Was it:

A. Joseph McCarthy.
B. John F. Kennedy.
C. David Duke.
D. Lyndon B. Johnson.
E. Harry S Truman.
F. George W. Bush.
G. Bill Clinton.

Choose wisely, grasshoppers! I will reveal the answer tomorrow!