Yes, You’re as Smart as a Third Grader

Have you noticed all the history quizzes on Facebook lately? 

Only someone with an IQ of 190 can pass this quiz!  Only a genius can get ten of these questions correct!  No one will pass this quiz!

Intrigued, you take the quiz and get all the questions correct...And everyone else does, too!  Usually the questions ask you to pick the best president out of a list of the Three Stooges plus Abraham Lincoln. 

While I am certain that someone as smart and as peculiar as Penn Jillette can make an argument why Moe Howard was the best president, for the rest of us the test is childishly easy.  (Penn Jillette, peculiar.  But, brilliant.  But, peculiar…)

This is very similar to all those little surveys that promise to reveal which Disney character you are or who you were in a past life.  You’ll notice that the Disney character is never Goofy and no one in a past life was ever a dollymop (prostitute) or nightsoil man (cesspit cleaner).  Everyone was royalty….

I’m not even sure if you have to answer all of the questions correctly to get 100% on the quiz.  On at least a few of them, I think you pass no matter what your answers.  The point of the quiz is to get you to look—and possibly click on—the ads the quiz exposes you to (subjects you to is more appropriate, but you did volunteer, after all).

I have nothing against that, since the ads are the point of this blog, too.  See them to the right?   Click on them!

The difference between those quizzes and the one below is that I really don’t care about your self-esteem.  I’m not going to throw you softballs and ask you to name General Lee’s horse.  I’m going to ask you the kind of crap you won’t find even if you google it. Hah!

But, you should still click on the ads.  I’m too old for honest work, and as a retired state employee, I’m not trained for it.

So take the test.  Are you as smart as a third grader from Hell?

1.   Which of the following is true of Thomas Paine?

a.    He served as a privateer on a ship named Death, commanded by Captain Blood.

b.    He was a member of the French National Convention despite not speaking French.

c.    When Paine died in the US, only six people came to his funeral.

d.   All of the above.

2.  During World War II, what were the 88 Sams?

a.    Incredibly accurate surface-to-air missiles developed by the Nazis too late in the war to be useful.

b.    Liberty ships given to England, each with “Sam” as part of the ship’s name.

c.    Hundreds of pianos given by America to the British Army, each bearing a picture of Uncle Sam.

d.   A US infantry company in the 4th Army where almost every soldier was named ‘Sam’ or ‘Samuel’.

3.  Each of the following Presidents worked in an oval shaped office except:

a.    Abraham Lincoln

b.    William Howard Taft

c.    Thomas Jefferson

d.   William Henry Harrison

4.   What were the “Seven Buildings”?

a.    The original Capitol Building

b.    The original home of the War Department while the Pentagon was constructed.

c.    The temporary home of two presidents after the White House burned.

d.   The entire US government during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson.

5.  The Public Reception Room, more commonly called the East Room of the original White House, was used by Abigail Adams as a

a.    Kitchen

b.    Laundry

c.    Store Room

d.   Dining Room.

6.  If you were a US soldier hitting Omaha Beach in World War II, what color would your boots be?

a.    Brown

b.    Black

c.    Green

d.   Khaki

7. Stanley Switlick and George Palmer Putnam, Amelia Earhart’s husband, formed a joint venture to do what?

a.    Market androgynous clothing designed by Amelia Earhart.

b.    Publicize the around the world flight by Amelia Earhart.

c.    Start a professional women’s baseball team.

d.   Sell parachutes.

8.  Living in the White House is supposed to be detrimental to a President’s health.  Yet, only two presidents, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, have died on the White House premises.  How many First Ladies have died in the White House?

a.    None

b.    One

c.    Two

d.   Three

9.  Counting disease, starvation, accident, and combat, about 620,000 soldiers perished in the American Civil War.  How many horses and mules died in combat?

a.    250,000

b.    600,000

c.    1,000,000

d.   2,500,000

10.  In Colonial America, pregnant women were frequently denied pain killers during labor because

a.    None were available

b.    For fear of harming the infants.

c.    The pain was considered God’s punishment for Eve eating the apple.

d.   Pain killers cost so much that they were reserved for the use of men only.

11.  The City of Detroit once presented the ceremonial keys to the city to:

a.    Manuel Noriega

b.    Saddam Hussein

c.    Pol Pot

d.   Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Toyota

12.  Boston Corbettt, the man who shot John Wilkes Booth

a.    Retired from the Army with the rank of Colonel.

b.    Received a cash reward from the state of Illinois.

c.    Vanished from history, hounded practically to death by furious historians.

d.   Was insane from handling mercury, as demonstrated by his castrating himself with scissors.

13. One of Edison’s earliest and most commercially successful movies was

a.    The electrocution of an elephant

b.    A slow motion sequence showing the gait of a galloping horse

c.    A riverboat sinking on the Mississippi River.

d.   A fatal crash of a helium balloon.

14.  American history books show a bias.  Which of the following killed more people?

a.    The German holocaust against the European Jews.

b.    The Japanese assault against the Chinese people.

c.    The German assault against the Polish people.

d.   The Japanese assault against the Vietnamese.

15.  Al Capone died of syphilis, although by the time he was arrested, effective treatment was available for federal prisoners.  Why didn’t he receive the life-saving treatment?

a.    The government refused to treat him in hopes the disease would kill him.

b.    The prison never knew Capone had the disease.

c.    Terrified of needles, the gangster refused treatment.

d.   The doctor at Alcatraz treated him with water in retaliation for Capone's having killed his uncle.

16.  Sybil Luddington is unknown to most Americans because

a.    Her name doesn’t rhyme.  So Longfellow wrote about Paul Revere instead.

b.    When her mother remarried, her new father renamed her Betsy Ross.

c.    As the most successful spy of the Revolutionary War, her exploits were not discovered until 1973.

d.   She never existed.

17.   Shortly after the Revolutionary War, four western counties of North Carolina seceded from the state.  Which of the following is true?

a.    They petitioned Congress to be admitted as the state of Frankland.

b.    They formed the independent Republic of Franklin, which lasted four years.

c.    They petitioned the Spanish government for aid.

d.   All of the above.

18. Donald Trump is the wealthiest president in history.  Adjusted for inflation, who was the second richest?

a.    George Washington

b.    Theodore Roosevelt

c.    Franklin D. Roosevelt

d.   John F. Kennedy

19.  Trump is the wealthiest, Lincoln, the tallest, and Taft, the heaviest president.  Who was the smallest president?

a.    James Polk

b.    Harry Truman

c.    Martin Van Buren

d.   James Madison

20.  Which president fervently believed in his “lucky” carnation?

a.    Grover Cleveland.

b.    William McKinley

c.    Warren G. Harding

d.   Franklin D. Roosevelt

21. According to George Caitlan, when the Omaha Sioux Chief, Blackbird, was buried, at his request he was

a.    Buried with his weapons: a bow, a rifle, and his tomahawk.

b.    Buried mounted on his horse.

c.    Buried lying on his stomach, so the US Army could kiss his ass.

d.   Hidden in the mountains so no White man would know his burial site.

22. The final draft of the Declaration of Independence was written on parchment.  Less well known was that the earlier rough drafts were written on

a.    Paper made from cotton fibers grown by Jefferson’s slaves.

b.    British paper with legal tax stamps

c.    Paper made from hemp.

d.   The back of British proclamations.

23.  As of 2016, the oldest pension still being paid by the Federal government was for which war?

a.    The Civil War

b.    The Spanish American War

c.    The Punitive Expedition

d.   World War I

24. Which of the following was once a correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune?

a.    Sir Richard Burton

b.    Karl Marx

c.    Charles Darwin

d.   Geronimo

25.  When the American Civil War started, Robert E. Lee owned no slaves.  His father-in-law would soon die, leaving several to his wife.  At the start of the war, who did own slaves?

a.    Mary Todd Lincoln

b.    Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

c.    Harriet Beecher Stowe

d.   Ulysses Grant

Answers: 1-d.  He had recently denounced Christianity.  2-b.  3-a.  Though the current Oval Office was created by Taft, many presidents used the oval Blue Room as an office.  4-c.  They no longer exist.  5-b.  6-a.  7-d.  Amelia Earhart did design and sell a line of androgynous clothing, but the Switlick Company still sells aviation related safety equipment.    8-d.  Letitia Tyler, Caroline Harrison, and Ellen Wilson.  9-c.  In the early days of the war, more horses than men were killed.  10-c.  11-b.  12-d.  13-a.  The elephant had already killed three people and the circus who owned her was anxious to be rid of her.  14-b.  The Japanese killed roughly three million more Chinese than the German holocaust against Jews.  15-c.  The syphilis made Capone so insane that before he died, he was frequently seen fishing in his swimming pool.  16-a.  She rode over 40 miles on a dark rainy night to warn Americans the British Army was attacking.  17-d.  Today, most of the former Frankland is part of Tennessee.  18-a.  He was worth, in today’s money, an estimated $500 million.  19-d.  At 5’4”, he weighed less than 100 pounds.  20-b.  In 1901, he took off his carnation and gave it to a little girl.  Minutes later, he was shot, then died eight days later.   21-b.  22-c.  23-a.  At 85, Irene Triplett receives $73.13 monthly for her father’s service in the Civil War.  There are 88 people still receiving benefits from the Spanish American War.  24-b.  25-d.

So, how did you do?  If you got them all right, you cheated.  If you got fewer than five right, please don’t vacation in Las Vegas.  If you got half right, then you probably waste as much time reading weird books as I do.  If you got none right, you are spending way too much time reading comic books and watching Disney movies.  And if you really don’t care how you did, congratulations, you are normal.

The purpose of studying history is not to know what the Duke of Wellington ate for breakfast the morning of the Battle of Waterloo, but to know why the armies were there.  Lately, there seem to be a lot of people writing about history—especially the Civil War—who have no idea why the war was fought.  The study of history is a lot more about understanding why than memorizing what.  Have you every noticed that monuments are nearly always about the what and rarely about the why.

By the way, on the morning of June 18, 1815, James Thornton, the Duke of Wellington’s cook, gave the general hard-boiled eggs, which Wellington stuffed into his coat pocket.  The Iron Duke nibbled on the eggs that morning while watching the battle. 

Oh, yes—everyone knows that Traveler was Robert E. Lee’s horse.  Less well known, however, is that a general had to have several horses because no single horse could work that hard every day during a protracted war.  Lee’s other horses were Richmond, Lucy Long, Ajax, and Brown-Roan.