Trivia Quiz: History

How well do you know the 20th century?

AARP

Published October 11, 2011

10 Questions

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Trivia Quiz: History

[ {
  "question" : "What famous author stipulated that his autobiography could not be published until a century after his death?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Charles Dickens",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Alexandre Dumas",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Ernest Hemingway",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Mark Twain",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Twain left behind some 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, along with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them published for at least 100 years. Scholars are divided as to why.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "What was the name of the community house that social reformer Jane Addams founded in Chicago?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "The Center",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Hope Home",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Hull House",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "Safe House",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Addams founded Hull House in 1889.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Who was the final survivor of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City's garment district?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Rose Freedman",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "Samantha Green",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Edna Steward",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Carrie Woods",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Freedman escaped the fire, in 146 women perished, by jumping to the roof of an adjacent building. She died in 2001 at the age of 107, a month before the 90th anniversary of the fire.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Barbara McDermott was the last living survivor of what disaster?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "The Johnstown flood in 1889",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "The San Francisco earthqake in 1906",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "The sinking of the Titanic in 1912",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "When a German submarine torpedoed the Lusitania, a crew member grabbed McDermott, then 3, and put her into a lifeboat. She died in 2008 at the age of 95.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the General Slocum fire was the worst in New York City's history. When did it occur?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "1904",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "1918",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "1932",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "1946",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "On June 15, 1904, the S.S. General Slocum, an excursion boat, caught fire on the East River with about 1,300 passengers aboard.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "What was the ENIAC?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "A prototype of the Model-T automobile",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Russia's first food regulatory organization",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "The world's first general-purpose computer",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "The world's first television",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Built in the 1940s, the ENIAC was decommissioned in the 1950s. The machine was huge, and 10 percent of it is now at the University of Michigan's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science building.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Who is the last surviving person to have flown with Amelia Earhart?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Arthur Burks",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Kitty Carlisle Hart",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Haig Prieste",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "George Putnam Jr.",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Putnam, the aviatrix’s stepson, flew with her on an autogiro, a precursor to the helicopter, by that advertised Beech-Nut gum.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Who was the last surviving Iwo Jima flag raiser?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "George Gibson",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "John Janeway",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Charles Lindberg",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  }, {
    "answer" : "Haig Prieste",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "Lindberg was operating a flamethrower on Iwo Jima, the site of the bloodiest fight in Marine Corps history, when he and his team took the island's high ground and erected the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. He died in 2007 at the age of 86.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "Who was “The Father of the Greenback”?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Salmon P. Chase",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Mortimer Green",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Abraham Lincoln",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Col. Edmund D. Taylor",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "In 1862, with the Civil War raging and the Union’s expenses mounting, Taylor proposed Treasury notes bearing no interest and printed on the best banking paper to President Abraham Lincoln as a way for the government to continue paying for the war.",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
  "question" : "“One day all of America will be proud of their achievements,” Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1961. Whose achievements was he referring to?",
  "answers" : [ {
    "answer" : "Activists who took part in lunch-counter sit-ins",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "Jackie Robinson and other black professional baseball players",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson",
    "correctAnswer" : false
  }, {
    "answer" : "The Freedom Riders",
    "correctAnswer" : true
  } ],
  "multiSelect" : false,
  "explanation" : "\"These courageous freedom riders have faced ugly and howling mobs in order to arouse the dozing conscience of the nation,\" King Jr. said at the time. \"Some of them are now hospitalized as a result of physical injury. They have accepted blows without retaliation. One day all of America will be proud of their achievements.\"",
  "hint" : "",
  "hintLink" : "",
  "questionImgCaption" : "",
  "questionImgCredit" : ""
} ]

Quiz Progress

0 Correct

0 Incorrect