U.S. History trivia quiz

The Game Room
581

Famous American explorers…

  1. This black Arctic explorer is now thought to have sown some wild oats among the native population.
  2. This man carried a distinctive flag with an American eagle clutching a peace pipe in its talons; he later ran for President.
  3. Jefferson genuinely believed that Lewis and Clark might see this long-extinct animal during their Western explorations.
  4. This one-armed Civil War veteran explored the Grand Canyon.
  5. This former President nearly died of fever while exploring the South American river that now bears his name.
582
  1. I have to guess mammoth. The dark horse candidate would be the Giant Sloth, but on balance I’m still going with mammoth.
583

Correct! Stephen Ambrose tells the story in his book about the L&C expedition. Leading naturalists of the day thought that mammoth might still roam the West in the early 1800s.

584

  1. Matthew Henson

  2. John Fremont.

  3. Theodore Roosevelt.

585

Entirely correctamundo.

Let’s take to the skies…

  1. U.S. pilots in this type of warplane shot down Adm. Yamamoto’s transport plane during WW2.
  2. The U-2 spy plane was secretly developed in this facility, named after a comic-strip place.
  3. The Wright Brothers gave their first plane this simple name.
  4. Despite lobbying by the Nixon Administration, the U.S. Senate killed funding for this American challenger to the Anglo-French Concorde project.
  5. This rocket type lifted the Apollo missions off the launchpad.
586

  1. The Wright Brothers gave their first plane this simple name.
    Flyer

  2. Despite lobbying by the Nixon Administration, the U.S. Senate killed funding for this American challenger to the Anglo-French Concorde project.
    SST

  3. This rocket type lifted the Apollo missions off the launchpad.
    Saturn V

  4. Who was JFK’s White House chief of staff?
    Ted Sorenson??

587

Darn! On #317, I was betting on President Joe Orinoco.

  1. Spitfire?
  2. Saturn V.
588

  1. P-38 Lightnings. In a meticulously planned assassination mission.

  2. The Skunkworks. (I thought that the name referred more to the team that made the plans, not the actual facility.)

589

All correct, except 309.

590

Right as to both (although I thought it was the facility).

591

You may well be right. I can’t say I know well enough one way or the other. Now that I’ve answered the question, I am free to go running off to read up on it. Oh, shucks. Quelle dommage.

592

Of church and state…

  1. This Founding Father coined the phrase re: a “wall of separation between church and state.”
  2. This denomination featured in several key Supreme Court cases about the mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, and the distribution of religious literature in public.
  3. The Vatican did not have a papal nuncio (ambassador) accredited to the United States until the administration of this President.
  4. This is the only widely-practiced religion today which was established in the U.S.
  5. In 1790, President Washington sent a letter praising the religious tolerance of the new republic to a Jewish congregation in this American city.
593

  1. Jehovah’s Witnesses

  2. JFK?

  3. Mormonism. (Juuuust down the road in Palmyra, NY.)

594
  1. Correct.
  2. No. (Given the times and his own religious affiliation, I don’t think he would have dared).
  3. Correct.
595

  1. This Founding Father coined the phrase re: a “wall of separation between church and state.”
    Thomas Jefferson

  2. The Vatican did not have a papal nuncio (ambassador) accredited to the United States until the administration of this President.
    Nixon ??

  3. In 1790, President Washington sent a letter praising the religious tolerance of the new republic to a Jewish congregation in this American city.
    Newport, RI

596
  1. Correct.
  2. Incorrect.
  3. Correct. A great letter, BTW.
597
  1. The Vatican did not have a papal nuncio (ambassador) accredited to the United States until the administration of this President.
    I’m going to go with the obvious. Kennedy
598

Incorrect. See post 594.

Let’s turn to historic civilian ships…

  1. Robert Fulton’s first small steam-powered ship was named this.
  2. Melville was inspired by the loss of this actual whaling vessel in writing about the fate of the whale-rammed Pequod in Moby Dick.
  3. The fine wooden recreational boats of this American manufacturer were recently honored on U.S. postage stamps.
  4. This was the last great postwar ocean liner built in the U.S.
  5. This was the only American-built nuclear-powered cargo ship.
599

The United States, I believe.

600

That would be the Essex.