The Big Book of American Trivia
Page 10
7. Grove Street Cemetery, with the graves of Noah Webster, Charles Goodyear, and Eli Whitney, is in what New England college town? [Answer]
8. What colorful World War II general chose to be buried among his men in a military cemetery in Luxembourg? [Answer]
9. What lakeside Ohio city has the tombs of President James Garfield and millionaire John D. Rockefeller? [Answer]
10. Confederate president Jefferson Davis is buried in what appropriate city? [Answer]
11. Bandmaster John Philip Sousa and FBI head J. Edgar Hoover are buried in what famous D.C. cemetery? [Answer]
12. In what state would you find Woodlawn Memorial Park, with the graves of Tammy Wynette, Porter Wagoner, and Jerry Reed? [Answer]
13. What voice artist’s tombstone is inscribed, “That’s all, folks”? [Answer]
14. The people in the “Unknown Plot” in Johnstown, Pennsylvania’s Grandview Cemetery were the victims of what natural disaster? [Answer]
15. The Tomb of the Unknown Dead of the Civil War is found in what famous federal cemetery? [Answer]
16. What two Virginia-born presidents are buried in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery? (Hint: fifth and tenth) [Answer]
17. What famous author, usually associated with Missouri, is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York? [Answer]
18. If you are at the Granary Burying Ground, looking at the graves of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock, what historic city are you in? [Answer]
More Grave Matters: Final Resting Places of the Famous
1. What comic who died in 2003 at age one hundred is buried at California’s Mission San Fernando? [Answer]
2. What entertainer is buried beside his parents at Graceland? [Answer]
3. What silver-haired comic actor who died in 2010 has “Let ’er rip” on his tombstone? [Answer]
4. What twentieth-century president was born, raised, and buried in Hyde Park, New York? [Answer]
5. Frankfort, Kentucky, has the grave of what notable Kentucky frontiersman? [Answer]
6. What two presidents (who were related) are buried in the United First Parish Church in Quincy, Massachusetts? [Answer]
7. What noted political opponent of Abraham Lincoln is buried in Chicago? [Answer]
8. What Virginia-born president’s home and grave are at the estate of Montpelier? [Answer]
9. Taos, New Mexico, has the home and grave of what noted pioneer and scout? [Answer]
10. What colorful head of a Wild West show is buried in Golden, Colorado? [Answer]
11. What president, nicknamed Old Hickory, is buried beside his wife, Rachel, at the Hermitage estate near Nashville? [Answer]
12. Fremont, Ohio, has the grave of what president of the 1800s (who was nicknamed Rutherfraud)? [Answer]
13. Which Confederate general’s arm is buried at Guinea, Virginia? [Answer]
14. What singer-songwriter-actor-congressman has “And the beat goes on” on his tombstone? [Answer]
15. What reserved president is buried in the tiny village of Plymouth, Vermont? [Answer]
16. What president of the depression era has a national historic site in Iowa City, Iowa? [Answer]
17. When the body of naval hero John Paul Jones was brought to the U.S. from France, where was it appropriately buried? [Answer]
18. If you wanted to see Abraham Lincoln’s grave and the only home he ever owned, where would you go? [Answer]
Named in Honor of Whom? (Part 3)
1. What style of facial hair is named for a Union general in the Civil War? [Answer]
2. What southern state has a capital named for the seventh president, “Old Hickory”? [Answer]
3. What explorer, with a river named for him, sailed into New York in 1609 on the Half Moon? [Answer]
4. What state was formed from land granted by England’s Charles II to a Quaker leader? [Answer]
5. What major city on the Mississippi River was named for King Louis IX of France? [Answer]
6. You could see Boston 1775, a multimedia show, in a Boston building named for a noted patriot. Who? (Hint: signature) [Answer]
7. Who was Jamestown, the first successful English colony in America, named for? [Answer]
8. Dutchman Adriean Van Der Donck, known as “DeJonkeer,” lent his name to what New York town? [Answer]
9. What Hungarian-born soldier in the Union army in the Civil War gave his name to prestigious journalism prizes? [Answer]
10. Pittsburgh’s museum complex is named for one of the richest men in the city’s history, a name synonymous with wealth. Who? [Answer]
11. What beautiful D.C. building has its three wings named for presidents Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison? [Answer]
12. Fort Worth, Texas’s civic center is named for a comic usually associated with Oklahoma. Who? [Answer]
13. What hyphenated Pennsylvania city is named for two members of the British Parliament who supported the colonists’ side? [Answer]
14. A state forest near Plymouth, Massachusetts, is named for what famous Pilgrim leader (made famous in a Longfellow poem)? [Answer]
15. What oddly named Michigan city was named for a Greek fighter against the Turkish army? [Answer]
16. What Quaker colonizer was cowboy comic Will Rogers named for? [Answer]
17. What nickname for an Iowa resident honors the Sauk chief Black Hawk? [Answer]
18. What Florida city is named for a man who was born in Tagaste, North Africa, in the year A.D. 354? [Answer]
19. What president has the record of having the most towns named for him? (Hint: Old Hickory) [Answer]
Author! Author!
If you hear of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet, you think of William Shakespeare. Would you be as quick to think of American authors’ names if you heard the titles of some of their best-known works? Try it, and remember that they range from contemporary writers to the original colonists of the 1600s.
1. The Confession, The Associate, The Client, The Pelican Brief [Answer]
2. The Purpose-Driven Life, The Purpose-Driven Church, Life’s Healing Choices [Answer]
3. “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Tell-Tale Heart” [Answer]
4. The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank, Motherhood: The World’s Second-Oldest Profession, Aunt Erma’s Cope Book [Answer]
5. Rip Van Winkle, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Knickerbocker’s History of New York [Answer]
6. “Because I could not stop for death,” “A narrow fellow in the grass,” “I felt a funeral in my brain” [Answer]
7. The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, The Cider House Rules [Answer]
8. Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Here Is New York [Answer]
9. Little House on the Prairie, Little House in the Big Woods [Answer]
10. The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo [Answer]
11. It, Carrie, Pet Sematary, Misery [Answer]
12. Poor Richard’s Almanac, Autobiography, The Way to Wealth [Answer]
13. Centennial, Hawaii, Space, Poland, Texas [Answer]
14. “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “Meditations Divine and Moral,” “Epitaph on a Patriot” [Answer]
15. The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [Answer]
16. Demonic, Guilty, Slander, Godless, Treason [Answer]
17. Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth [Answer]
18. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Mending Wall,” “Two Tramps in Mud Time” [Answer]
19. The Godfather, The Sicilian, Fools Die [Answer]
20. Riders of the Purple Sage, The Spirit of the Border, West of the Pecos [Answer]
21. “Paul Revere’s Ride,” “My Lost Youth,” The Song of Hiawatha, Evangeline [Answer]
22. The Accidental Tourist, Ladder of Years, Breathing Lessons [Answer]
23. “The Gift of the Magi,” “The Ransom of Red Chief,” “The Last Leaf”
[Answer]
24. Walden, “Civil Disobedience,” “My Life Is like a Stroll upon the Beach” [Answer]
25. Moby Dick, Billy Budd, Typee [Answer]
26. Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment, Cadillac Jack [Answer]
27. Essays to Do Good, Magnalia Christi Americana, Political Fables [Answer]
28. All the King’s Men, Band of Angels, John Brown: The Making of a Martyr [Answer]
29. The Lost World, Jurassic Park, Disclosure, The Andromeda Strain [Answer]
30. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Freedom of the Will, A Treatise on Religious Affections [Answer]
31. My Antonia, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Shadows on the Rock [Answer]
32. Babbitt, Main Street, Dodsworth, Arrowsmith [Answer]
33. Common Sense, The Age of Reason [Answer]
34. The Deerslayer, The Prairie, The Last of the Mohicans [Answer]
35. “it is at moments after i have dreamed,” “this is the garden, colors come and go,” “humanity i love you” [Answer]
36. Our Town, The Skin of Our Death, The Matchmaker, The Bridge of San Luis Rey [Answer]
37. “Young Goodman Brown,” The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables [Answer]
38. “Chicago,” “The People, Yes,” “Prayers of Steel” [Answer]
39. “Self-Reliance,” “Nature,” “Concord Hymn” [Answer]
40. The Thin Man, The Maltese Falcon, The Dain Curse [Answer]
41. Look Homeward Angel, The Web and the Rock, Of Time and the River [Answer]
42. Little Women, Little Men [Answer]
43. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Magical Monarch of Mo [Answer]
Short Reading: Newspapers and Magazines
1. William F. Buckley, who died in 2008, founded what political magazine? [Answer]
2. What popular home magazine began in 1937 under the name Fruit, Gardener, and Home? [Answer]
3. DeWitt and Lila Wallace founded what phenomenally popular monthly magazine in 1921? (Hint: condense) [Answer]
4. What popular (and colorful) monthly magazine has its own museum in Washington, D.C.? [Answer]
5. What huge organization for people over fifty published Modern Maturity magazine? [Answer]
6. The Wall Street Journal, one of the best-selling American newspapers, lacks what on its front page? [Answer]
7. What monthly magazine founded in 1936 is famous for accepting no advertising? [Answer]
8. What famous evangelist’s organization publishes the magazine Decision? [Answer]
9. What newsmagazine’s first cover (in 1936) was by famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White? [Answer]
10. What news weekly, published since 1933, ceased printing in 2011? [Answer]
11. Columbia is the magazine of what fraternal order of Roman Catholic men? [Answer]
12. What newsmagazine changed its “Man of the Year” honor to “Person of the Year” in 1999? [Answer]
13. Boys Life is the official magazine of what boys’ organization? [Answer]
14. If you are reading a newspaper with the distinctive name Times-Picayune, where is the paper from? [Answer]
15. The U.S.’s oldest continually published newspaper is what New England city’s Courant? [Answer]
16. The palatial estate San Simeon in California was the home of what newspaper mogul? [Answer]
17. What noted publishing company, famed for its colorful food and decorating magazines, is headquartered in Menlo Park, California? [Answer]
18. What is an e-zine? [Answer]
19. What great American circus entrepreneur had been jailed for libel while he was a newspaper editor? [Answer]
20. The Americanization of Edward Bok, published in 1920, is the rags-to-riches story of a magazine editor. What still-popular women’s magazine did Bok edit? [Answer]
21. What religious sect, with its Mother Church in Boston, publishes one of the most prestigious newspapers in America? [Answer]
22. What was the significance of the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, first published in 1830? [Answer]
23. What housewife and humorist wrote the syndicated column “At Wit’s End”? [Answer]
24. What widely read conservative columnist writes for both Newsweek and the Washington Post? [Answer]
25. What popular weekly magazine was launched by Walter Annenberg in 1953? (Hint: program) [Answer]
Painters, Sculptors, and Other Artsy Types
1. What painter known for Christina’s World and the Helga paintings died in 2009? [Answer]
2. Thomas Kinkade, who has been dubbed “America’s most-collected living artist,” is known as the “Painter of” what? [Answer]
3. James Whistler’s 1872 painting Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1 is better known by what name? [Answer]
4. What great painter of Americana gained fame for his Saturday Evening Post covers? [Answer]
5. What noted painter had to go to England to get his Birds of America published? [Answer]
6. America’s largest art museum, with more than 3 million objects, is what Manhattan landmark? [Answer]
7. Grant Wood’s famous painting American Gothic shows a farm couple, with the man holding a pitchfork. What relation are the man and woman? [Answer]
8. The “Gibson girl,” made famous by artist Charles Dana Gibson, was what woman? [Answer]
9. California’s most famous cemetery has several large reproductions of famous religious paintings. What is the cemetery? [Answer]
10. What redheaded comic is also famous for his paintings of clowns? [Answer]
11. Florida’s Ringling Museum of Art was financed with money from what type of entertainment? [Answer]
12. What president’s much visited statue in D.C. was sculpted by Daniel Chester French? [Answer]
13. If you wanted to see the largest collection of Rembrandt paintings in America, where would you go? [Answer]
14. Fulton, Missouri, has a thirty-two-foot sculpture titled Breakthrough. What Cold War relic does it commemorate? [Answer]
15. If you wanted to see a lot of paintings of dogs, what midwestern city would you visit? [Answer]
16. What noted Missouri artist’s home can be visited in Kansas City? [Answer]
17. Sculptor Korzack Ziolkowski began work on the world’s largest statue, a memorial to Sioux chief Crazy Horse. In what state? [Answer]
18. What great artist is known for his more than one hundred portraits of George Washington? [Answer]
19. Many limners from the colonial era are known only by the names of the families who paid them. What were they? [Answer]
20. The Wars of America, a forty-two-figure bronze sculpture in Newark, New Jersey, was sculpted by Gutzon Borglum. What huge outdoor sculpture is he more famous for? [Answer]
21. What great French sculptor’s works are featured in a Philadelphia museum? (Hint: thinker) [Answer]
22. What famous woman started painting because her fingers had become too stiff for embroidering? [Answer]
Poetic Types
1. “The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus’s famous poem about immigrants, is on what famous statue? [Answer]
2. In a great Longfellow poem, what maiden is “the arrow-maker’s daughter . . . handsomest of all the women”? [Answer]
3. What title is Clement Moore’s 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” better known by? [Answer]
4. What famous poet was expelled from West Point because he showed up at inspection wearing nothing but belt and gloves? (Hint: raven) [Answer]
5. What great New England poet of the twentieth century published his first poems while living in England? [Answer]
6. What comic baseball poem about the “Mudville Nine” was written by Ernest Thayer? [Answer]
7. What noted free-verse poet’s home and tomb can be visited in Camden, New Jersey? [Answer]
8. What noted poet’s home can be visited in New Brunswick, New Jersey? (Hint: trees) [Answer]
9. Remembrance Rock i
n Galesburg, Illinois, is the burial site of what poet noted for his Chicago Poems and biography of Lincoln? [Answer]
10. One of America’s greatest poets and essayists had his home in Concord, Massachusetts, from 1835 till 1882. Who was he? [Answer]
11. Massachusetts has the Walden Pond State Reservation. What famous poet and essayist lived there in the 1800s? [Answer]
12. What noted Quaker poet of the 1800s had his birthplace in Haverhill, Massachusetts? [Answer]
13. What odd item did poet Joaquin Miller include in his home in Oakland, California? [Answer]
14. What cockroach poet told his stories through the columns of humorist Don Marquis? [Answer]
15. Poet Stephen Vincent Benét wrote John Brown’s Body, a long narrative poem about what war? [Answer]
16. The Poets’ Corner in England’s Westminster Abbey honors only one American, the author of Evangeline and “Paul Revere’s Ride.” Who was he? [Answer]
17. What shy female poet was the “Belle of Amherst”? [Answer]
18. What famous author of morbid poetry and short stories had a brief (and unsuccessful) career at the University of Virginia? [Answer]
19. The Cowboy Poetry Gathering takes place in January in what western state? [Answer]
20. What popular poet of the 1960s had been a deejay with a show called “Rendezvous with Rod”? [Answer]
21. Historic Amherst College in Massachusetts has its library named for what popular twentieth-century New England poet? [Answer]
22. What great humor poet penned such lines as “I don’t mind eels / Except as meals / And the way they feel”? [Answer]
23. The U.S. poet laureate is appointed by what Washington institution? [Answer]
24. The great poet Vachel Lindsay committed suicide by drinking what household cleaning product? [Answer]
25. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1858 poem concerns the courtship of what Pilgrim leader? [Answer]
26. What crusty World War II general’s hobby was writing poetry? [Answer]