The Big Book of American Trivia

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The Big Book of American Trivia Page 27

by J. Stephen Lang


  21. Rodin, famous for The Thinker [Back]

  22. Grandma Moses [Back]

  Poetic Types // Answers

  1. The Statue of Liberty [Back]

  2. Minnehaha, wife of Hiawatha in The Song of Hiawatha [Back]

  3. “’Twas the Night before Christmas” [Back]

  4. Edgar Allan Poe; the story (possibly a legend) is that he was told he had to wear belt and gloves to inspection, and so he did—and nothing else. [Back]

  5. Robert Frost [Back]

  6. “Casey at the Bat” (“There is no joy in Mudville / Mighty Casey has struck out.”) [Back]

  7. Walt Whitman’s, author of the famous Leaves of Grass [Back]

  8. Joyce Kilmer’s (“Poems are made by fools like me, / but only God can make a tree.”) [Back]

  9. Carl Sandburg [Back]

  10. Ralph Waldo Emerson; the house is now a museum. [Back]

  11. Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden [Back]

  12. John Greenleaf Whittier, author of “Barefoot Boy” and other classic poems; the birthplace is now a museum. [Back]

  13. His own funeral pyre; the house is a tourist site in Miller Park. [Back]

  14. archy (who always wrote without capital letters, since he couldn’t press the shift key on a typewriter) [Back]

  15. The Civil War [Back]

  16. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow [Back]

  17. Emily Dickinson, who lived a quiet life in Amherst, Massachusetts, in the 1800s [Back]

  18. Edgar Allan Poe [Back]

  19. Nevada [Back]

  20. Rod McKuen [Back]

  21. Robert Frost [Back]

  22. Ogden Nash, who died in 1971 [Back]

  23. The Library of Congress [Back]

  24. Lysol [Back]

  25. Miles Standish; it’s The Courtship of Miles Standish, in which Standish loses the girl to John Alden. [Back]

  26. George S. Patton’s [Back]

  More Painters, Sculptors, and Artsy Types // Answers

  1. Uncle Sam; he drew the original World War I “I Want You” poster, with the Uncle Sam figure modeled after himself. [Back]

  2. John James Audubon [Back]

  3. Spirit of ‘76, found in the town’s Abbot Hall; it’s by artist Archibald Willard. [Back]

  4. Gilbert Stuart [Back]

  5. Norman Rockwell [Back]

  6. Their lithographs, the famous Currier and Ives prints [Back]

  7. Mobiles [Back]

  8. Unicorns [Back]

  9. The Wyeths, Andrew and sons [Back]

  10. Salvador Dali, famous for his surrealistic paintings [Back]

  11. Winslow Homer’s [Back]

  12. Bronze [Back]

  13. Frederic Remington [Back]

  14. The U.S.’s [Back]

  15. Native Americans [Back]

  16. It was worn by a rodeo rider. The sculpture shows it in three stages of landing. The California Rodeo Grounds is adjacent. [Back]

  17. Dinosaurs [Back]

  18. Grant Wood, best known for his American Gothic, showing a farm couple (with the man holding a pitchfork, remember?) [Back]

  19. Gutzon Borglum, who began (but did not quite finish) the Mount Rushmore memorial [Back]

  20. SoHo [Back]

  21. James Whistler [Back]

  22. He claimed that, as an American citizen, it would not be proper to become “Sir John.” [Back]

  Author! Author! (Part 2) // Answers

  1. Tom Clancy, contemporary novelist [Back]

  2. Mary Higgins Clark, contemporary novelist [Back]

  3. Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel), children’s author and illustrator (1904–1991) [Back]

  4. T. S. Eliot, poet, dramatist, essayist (1888–1965) [Back]

  5. Dan Brown, contemporary novelist [Back]

  6. Phil McGraw (“Dr. Phil”), contemporary self-help author and television personality [Back]

  7. William Faulkner, novelist (1897–1962) [Back]

  8. Robert Benchley, humorist (1889–1945) [Back]

  9. Pearl Buck, novelist (1892–1973) [Back]

  10. Edgar Rice Burroughs, novelist (1875–1950) [Back]

  11. E. L. Doctorow, contemporary novelist [Back]

  12. Eugene O’Neill, dramatist (1888–1953) [Back]

  13. Ernest Hemingway, novelist (1899–1961) [Back]

  14. Raymond Chandler, novelist (1888–1959) [Back]

  15. James Clavell, novelist (1924–1994) [Back]

  16. Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet (1892–1950) [Back]

  17. F. Scott Fitzgerald, novelist (1896–1940) [Back]

  18. Erle Stanley Gardner, mystery writer (1889–1970) [Back]

  19. Shirley Jackson, novelist and short-story author (1919–1965) [Back]

  20. Francis Parkman, historian (1823–1893) [Back]

  21. Walt Whitman, poet (1819–1892) [Back]

  22. Jack London, novelist (1876–1916) [Back]

  23. Damon Runyon, short-story writer (1884–1946) [Back]

  24. Carson McCullers, novelist (1917–1967) [Back]

  25. Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) [Back]

  26. Flannery O’Connor, novelist and short-story author (1925–1964) [Back]

  27. Bret Harte, short-story author (1836–1902) [Back]

  28. Frank Herbert, science fiction writer (1920–1986) [Back]

  29. Oliver Wendell Holmes, poet (1809–1894) [Back]

  30. John Steinbeck, novelist (1902–1968) [Back]

  31. Rex Stout, mystery writer (1886–1975) [Back]

  32. Booth Tarkington, novelist (1869–1946) [Back]

  33. James Thurber, essayist and short-story writer (1894–1961) [Back]

  34. Tom Wolfe, contemporary novelist and essayist [Back]

  35. Stephen Crane, novelist and short-story author (1871–1900) [Back]

  36. Kurt Vonnegut, novelist (1922–2007) [Back]

  37. Ray Bradbury, contemporary science fiction writer [Back]

  38. Henry James, novelist (1843–1916) [Back]

  39. Vachel Lindsay, poet (1879–1931) [Back]

  40. John Updike, novelist (1932–2009) [Back]

  Presidential Trivia // Answers

  1. George W. Bush; the movie has the catchy title W. [Back]

  2. Abraham Lincoln [Back]

  3. Barack Obama, who did eventually make his U.S. birth certificate public [Back]

  4. The first, George Washington [Back]

  5. Calvin Coolidge, who became president after the sudden death of Warren Harding [Back]

  6. John Quincy Adams, sixth president [Back]

  7. Virginia [Back]

  8. Dwight Eisenhower [Back]

  9. John Adams, second president, and Thomas Jefferson, third president; the day was the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. [Back]

  10. George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon [Back]

  11. Kentucky, which was the birthplace of both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis [Back]

  12. Gerald R. Ford; Jimmy Carter beat Ford in the November 1976 election but was not sworn in until 1977. [Back]

  13. Andrew Jackson [Back]

  14. James Monroe [Back]

  15. Harry Truman [Back]

  16. Savannah; it was captured on Christmas 1864 by Union general William Sherman, who declared it was his gift to the president. [Back]

  17. Warm Springs, Georgia; the Little White House was built by Roosevelt as a vacation home. [Back]

  18. Theodore Roosevelt, who was an early advocate of environmentalism [Back]

  19. Hickory; the tough Jackson was known as “Old Hickory.” [Back]

  20. Abraham Lincoln [Back]

  21. Dwight Eisenhower [Back]

  22. James K. Polk [Back]

  23. George Washington and James Madison [Back]

  24. James Garfield, twentieth president, a Disciples of Christ preacher who once baptized forty converts during a two-week evangelistic campaign [Back]

  25. Harry Truman (December 26, 1972) and Lyndon Johnson (January 22, 1973); Joh
nson was given a state funeral, but Truman, at his wife’s request, was not. [Back]

  26. Theodore Roosevelt; prior to his term of office, the house had been called either the President’s House or the Executive Mansion. [Back]

  27. Sherwood Forest [Back]

  28. George Washington [Back]

  29. James Madison, fourth president [Back]

  30. James K. Polk, eleventh president [Back]

  31. Calvin Coolidge [Back]

  32. William McKinley [Back]

  33. Warren Harding, twenty-ninth president; he conducted his famous “Front Porch Campaign” from the home. [Back]

  34. Lyndon Johnson’s [Back]

  35. Grover Cleveland; his birthplace there can be visited. [Back]

  36. Dwight Eisenhower [Back]

  37. Abraham Lincoln; actually, it’s an actor, performing at “A. Lincoln’s Place.” [Back]

  38. Andrew Johnson, seventeenth president, who had the unfortunate task of filling Abraham Lincoln’s shoes after the Civil War [Back]

  39. Fanny Crosby, famous for “Blessed Assurance” and many other hymns [Back]

  40. Theodore Roosevelt [Back]

  The First Ladies // Answers

  1. Hillary Clinton [Back]

  2. Nancy Reagan [Back]

  3. The cherry trees, especially noticeable around the Jefferson Memorial [Back]

  4. Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Lyndon Johnson [Back]

  5. Eleanor Roosevelt, who married Franklin, a cousin (So she was actually Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt.) [Back]

  6. Mary Todd Lincoln’s [Back]

  7. Dolley Madison, formerly Dolley Todd [Back]

  8. Martha Washington, the first first lady [Back]

  9. Mamie Eisenhower [Back]

  10. Gettysburg [Back]

  11. Bess Truman, wife of Harry Truman [Back]

  12. Andrew Johnson, taught by his wife, Eliza McArdle [Back]

  13. Abigail Adams’s; she was the wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams. [Back]

  14. Michelle Obama [Back]

  15. Jackie Kennedy [Back]

  The Quotable Presidents // Answers

  1. Terrorists [Back]

  2. Teddy Roosevelt [Back]

  3. Bill Clinton [Back]

  4. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address [Back]

  5. Lyndon Johnson [Back]

  6. Richard Nixon [Back]

  7. Woodrow Wilson, who, on being reelected, got the U.S. involved in World War I [Back]

  8. John Adams, who was George Washington’s vice president and, afterwards, president himself [Back]

  9. William Howard Taft, twenty-seventh president [Back]

  10. Herbert Hoover, who was later to regret that rash promise [Back]

  11. World War I (He obviously did not foresee World War II.) [Back]

  12. James Buchanan, president before Abraham Lincoln [Back]

  13. Gerald Ford, who proved himself wrong when he issued a pardon to scandal-plagued Richard Nixon [Back]

  14. Jimmy Carter [Back]

  15. Richard Nixon [Back]

  16. Andrew Jackson, who had been Houston’s military commander [Back]

  17. Business [Back]

  18. Abraham Lincoln; it is probably the best-known presidential quote of all time. [Back]

  19. James K. Polk, who had administered during the Mexican War [Back]

  20. The White House [Back]

  21. Richard Nixon [Back]

  22. Teddy Roosevelt [Back]

  23. Andrew Jackson [Back]

  24. Jimmy Carter [Back]

  25. John Adams [Back]

  26. Abraham Lincoln; the phrase is in his Gettysburg Address. [Back]

  27. Richard Nixon [Back]

  28. Calvin Coolidge, known as Silent Cal [Back]

  29. John Quincy Adams, sixth president [Back]

  30. John Adams; actually he and Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826. He did not know Jefferson had died (unless he found out afterward). [Back]

  31. Harry Truman [Back]

  More Presidential Trivia // Answers

  1. George W. Bush [Back]

  2. Ronald Reagan [Back]

  3. Bill “Slick Willie” Clinton; Greenberg coined the name when Clinton was the governor of Arkansas. [Back]

  4. New York [Back]

  5. Osama bin Laden’s [Back]

  6. Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal [Back]

  7. Ronald Reagan (“Well, . . .”) [Back]

  8. The Statue of Liberty [Back]

  9. George Washington [Back]

  10. Harry Truman’s; he was addressing the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference. [Back]

  11. The peanut farmer, Jimmy Carter [Back]

  12. Theodore Roosevelt [Back]

  13. Andrew Jackson, seventh president; he proceeded to beat the man senseless with his cane. [Back]

  14. Ronald Reagan, who was shot in March 1981 [Back]

 

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