Garry Gamber asked:


Aren’t you glad you purchased Alaska? You got a bargain, you know. You purchased it for 2 cents per acre for all 586,000 acres of it.

By “you” I mean you as a tax payer. Back in 1867, under President Andrew Johnson, successor to Abraham Lincoln, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million.

Purchasing Alaska was not an impulsive decision. The U.S. Congress had been discussing it for several years. Alaska represented a huge parcel of land and nobody really knew what was up there in that part of the world. Russia was motivated to sell. Alaska was too far away for them to be able to do anything worthwhile with all that territory. And, after all, Russia had gotten Alaska for nothing, so they knew that they would realize a nice profit no matter what price they sold it for.

So, finally, on March 30, 1867, the purchase was finalized. The man responsible for negotiating the purchase was William H. Seward, Secretary of State under President Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. The land deal was immediately named, “Seward’s Folly” and “Seward’s Ice Box” and “Walrussia” by folks who thought that the United States had purchased a wasteland. It was also referred to as “Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden.”

In fact, the deal almost did not go through. The Alaska Purchase was ratified by a margin of only one vote.

William Seward, of New York, envisioned the ownership of Alaska as part of a bigger plan. Seward dreamed that the U.S. would someday own all of North America.

Most people do not recall that on the night that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated an attempt was made on Seward’s life by Lewis Powell, an associate of John Wilkes Boothe, who broke into Seward’s bedroom and stabbed him multiple times.

Today, Alaska is recognized as a state rich in resources and not as a frozen wasteland. Alaska produces almost 20 percent of the nation’s oil and it is home to several outstanding gold mines. Alaska also leads the nation in seafood production and soon will be home to the largest natural gas pipeline project in North America and the world. Alaska now exports over $3 billion worth of natural resources.

So, it should be no surprise that one of Alaska’s most picturesque, thriving cities, Seward, is named after the shrewd negotiator of the Alaska Purchase. And on the last Monday in March, Alaska celebrates a State holiday, Seward’s Day.

William Lund asked:


esidential Trivia

Who called Eisenhower, Hoover and Truman in the early morning hours of November 23, 1963?

A: Lyndon B. Johnson.

Who told Jimmy Carter in a debate: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe”?

A: Gerald Ford.

Whose 1800 presidential campaign did the Hartford Courant offer a formal apology for opposing, in 1993?

A: Thomas Jefferson’s.

What presidential candidate did Ronald Reagan support when voting for the first time?

A: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Which First Lady was born Mamie Doud?

A: Maime Eisenhower

In the 60s what was the first name of John F. Kennedy’s wife?

A: Jackie

Whose assassination was Sam Seymour the last living witness to, until his death in 1956?

A: Abraham Lincoln’s.

What name did romantic George Bush paint on his bomber during World War II?

A: Barbara.

Where was JFK when he said the U.S. “never had to put up a wall to keep our people in”?

A: West Berlin.

What three words did George Bush say before “no new taxes” in 1988?

A: Read my lips.

Who did Abraham Lincoln promote to major general of volunteers after he captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson?

A: Ulysses S. Grant.

Whose 1823 doctrine said the Western Hemisphere was not open to colonization or aggression by European nations?

A: James Monroe’s.

What card game did Dwight D. Eisenhower play fanatically while planning for D-Day?

A: Bridge.

What date saw FDR sign the U.S. declaration of war against Japan?

A: December 8, 1941.

What U.S. president’s State of the Union address lasted a record 81 minutes?

A: Bill Clinton’s.

What U.S. president was born William Jefferson Blythe IV?

A: Bill Clinton.

What U.S. president had the shortest life?

A: John F. Kennedy.

What former president was on an African hunting trip when his enemy J. P. Morgan quipped: “Let every lion do his duty”?

A: Theodore Roosevelt.

What conspirator in the Lincoln assassination was pardoned for saving the lives of prison guards during a yellow fever epidemic?

A: Dr. Samuel Mudd.

Who was the first president to utter “We shall overcome” before a joint session of Congress?

A: Lyndon B. Johnson.

What future president was the only U.S. senator from a Confederate state to remain in Congress after secession?

A: Andrew Jackson.

What president’s mug graces a $100,000 bill?

A: Woodrow Wilson.

What future U.S. president received the last rites of the Catholic Church after an infection following spinal surgery in 1954?

A: John F. Kennedy.

What war saw James Madison become the first U.S. president to command a military unit during his term in office?

A: The war of 1812.

What document did President Andrew Johnson want a copy of placed under his head upon his burial?

A: The U.S. Constitution.

Who was the first daughter of a U.S. president to pose **** for a Playboy video?

A: Patti Davis.

How many U.S. states are named after a president?

A: One.

Who is the only president to have survived two assassination attempts by women?

A: Gerald Ford.

What day does the U.S. president traditionally deliver a weekly radio address?

A: Saturday.

What horse-loving future president cheated on an eye exam to join the cavalry reserves in the 1930’s?

A: Ronald Regan.

What U.S. president threw out the most Opening Day baseballs?

A: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What card game did Dwight D. Eisenhower play fanatically while planning for D-Day?

A: Bridge.

What White House lawyer first revealed the existence of an “enemies list” and “hush money” at the Watergate hearings?

A: John Dean.

What date saw FDR sign the U.S. declaration of war against Japan?

A: December 8, 1941.

What U.S. president installed solar panels on the White House roof?

A: Jimmy Carter.

What First Lady of the 1980s was shocked to find “a tremendous rat” swimming with her in the White House Pool?

A: Barbara Bush.

What future anchor was the only female reporter to tag along with Richard Nixon on his historic trip to China?

A: Barbara Walters.

Who revealed that the U.S. had a hydrogen bomb in his last State of the Union speech?

A: Harry S. Truman

Shawna Ruppert asked:


Taking an Abraham Lincoln quiz is essentially taking a quiz in the history of the United States, as he stands as one of the most important presidents in the history of the nation. Although no president has left the country untouched by his own politics and beliefs, Lincoln went further than most in creating the changes that he believed in and, even though his legacy was already assured by his actions, his legend was assured by the manner of his death.

 

Abraham Lincoln trivia usually starts with the civil war, as it was his leadership that allowed the country to emerge united through the crisis which had torn it in two.  It is also going to touch on some of his famous speeches. Although earlier presidents had also been orators of a sort, it was Lincoln who among all others of the time truly became known for the speeches that he made. Although the most famous of those speeches is easily the Gettysburg Address, he had mentioned to others that his favorite among all of his speeches was his second inaugural address.

 

The most lasting effects beyond the victories of the civil war that were achieved by Lincoln involve both the Emancipation Proclamation, and the freeing of the slaves. The industry of the southern part of the country had been build upon the backs of slaves, and by freeing them, Lincoln set events into motion which would allow for the first steps to be taken along the long road to equality, a road that has surely led to the recent election of President Obama, and event that never could have taken place without the leadership of President Lincoln in his own times, a clear reason why any Abraham Lincoln quiz would include matters regarding the emancipation.

 

Finally, an Abraham Lincoln trivia point that many are interested in but most are sad to reflect upon was on this great president’s assassination. He had dodged assassins throughout most of his presidency, and on April 14th, 1865 he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre while attending a play. He was killed by the actor, John Wilkes Booth, who was working with the Confederates against Lincoln. Booth escaped after the assassination and remained in hiding for twelve days until he was caught and shot dead in the attempt to capture him. In fitting fashion, instead of solving the problems of the confederates, the death of Lincoln helped cement the rest of the country more firmly around his legacy; acknowledging him as the hero and the martyr who had saved their country.

Elnur MAJIDLI asked:




“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” ~ Samuel Beckett

As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. Afterwards, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success.

He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the legislature, again defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858.

At about that time, he wrote in a letter to a friend, “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.”

Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. He later wrote, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up.” (his capitals, mind you)

Socrates was called “an immoral corrupter of youth” and continued to corrupt even after a sentence of death was imposed on him. He drank the hemlock and died corrupting.

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.

Robert Sternberg received a C in his first college introductory-psychology class. His teacher commented that “there was a famous Sternberg in psychology and it was obvious there would not be another.” Three years later Sternberg graduated with honors from Stanford University with exceptional distinction in psychology, summa *** laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. In 2002, he became President of the American Psychological Association.

Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” Clearly, he evolved.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”





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James Monahan asked:


Memorials are landmarks, occasions, celebration, or even institutions and organization put up to pay tribute to important events or personalities. These memorials can be found in every culture and in every generation.

Man has always been a sentimental lot. Every culture places great importance on the memorable events and personalities that grace their history. However, man is also a forgetful lot. This leads him to erect monuments and feast days to make sure that these important memories do not fade into obscurity.

In the early days, memorials would take the simple form of a pile of rocks that symbolized some important event. Often, these landmarks would also mark the grave of a loved one.

As man settled down in cities, the monuments he built as memorials grew in size and complexity. The ancient Egyptians, for example, built the Pyramids as a memorial to its departed kings, who were regarded as gods.

Around 90 of these pyramids were built to house the remains of the various pharaohs and statesmen that lived in Egypt. Pyramids usually towered 50 stories height and were made from around 2.5 million block, each weighing about 2.5 metric tons. If ever there was a memorial that was truly enormous in magnitude and significance, this was it.

The Hebrews were also known for elaborate feast days to commemorate many different occasions such as victory in war, and important historical events.

The Mayan culture depicted its kings in battle on stone monuments called stelae. As with most cultures, the glories and miseries of battle are a favorite theme for memorials.

The Romans were more deliberate (and political ) in their establishment of monuments. The Empire’s senate would usually commission artisans, craftsmen, and masons to periodically build monuments sometimes out of sheer whimsy and out of the rich coffers of the State.

The Taj Mahal in India is one of the most beautiful examples of a memorial in existence. The Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal.

Construction of the edifice started a year after Mumtaz’ death, which was in 1631. It took, in all, 21 year for the Taj Mahal and its surrounding gardens to be completed.

Today numerous memorials, like the Lincoln Memorial which houses a huge sitting statue of Abraham Lincoln, dot the American Landscape. And only fitting so, since America is a land rich with historical significance.

In many countries there exist monuments to the fallen brave during war. This is quite a departure from the ancient monuments that showed victorious kings trumping through battle.

Today’s society is more sympathetic to the sacrifices of the gallant soldiers who offered their lives in battle for their motherland.

But not all memorials take tangible form. In most cultures, there exist yearly memorial dates and feasts. Dates such as Thanksgiving Day, Christmas, Labor Day, Independence Day populate the country’s calendar year after year.

There are also memorial dates that come once in a decade or a century. An example of such is the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Pear Harbor.

Memorials are a part of history and self-determination. As said once, those who do not pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it. These memorials are a testament to the human experience and are a sentimental proof to its value of history and culture.

Alexander Rose asked:


Three of our presidents have been particularly fascinated by rifles: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. But all for different reasons. 

Washington was what we would call an “early adopter” of rifle technology. As early as the French and Indian War (1754-1763), when he was first baptized into frontier warfare, the young, ambitious officer owned his own rifle. This was at a time when few, apart from frontiersmen, even knew what one was.

In 1775, for instance, as well-informed a gentleman as John Adams mentioned to his wife Abigail that he had recently heard about a “peculiar” kind of gun that had “grooves within the barrel, and [carried] a ball with great exactness over great distances.”

Muskets — which, unlike rifles, were smooth-bored, short-range, and monstrously inaccurate weapons — were all that he knew. Yet we find a New-York Mercury story reporting some twenty years earlier that somewhere in the wilderness one then-obscure “Col. Washington,” accompanied by rifle-armed “woodsmen,” was energetically hunting down French-backed Indian raiders.

But why the rifle? Why Washington’s insistence on carrying one in battle (and purchasing several more — specially customized, of course — for hunting)? Originally, it was because rifles were better suited than muskets for frontier fighting, which favored fleety, camouflaged, loosely organized bands of men traveling light and adeptly using trees, ravines, and rocks to pick their targets and snipe at the enemy. Washington was nothing if not a practical man.

But he was also one keenly sensitive to symbolism, and by the time of the Revolution the rifle was famed as the fabled arm of frontiersmen — even if poor John Adams remained as bemused as ever. Washington’s call for the backcountry riflemen of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to join him besieging the British in Boston in the summer of 1775 was designed to impress and inspire his musket-armed New Englanders with the frontiersmen’s “American” qualities: doughty individualism, rugged self-reliance, and an independent spirit determined to defend hearth and home.

Rifles, it would nevertheless turn out, were not ideal for the type of army-versus-army warfare that dominated much of the War and so played little overall role in it, but Washington was more interested in what they meant (or symbolized) than in what they did (or performed, in other words).

Lincoln was precisely the opposite. He had no idea what rifles “meant”, but he was fascinated by what they did and how they worked. Lincoln’s, unlike Washington’s, was a mechanical mind.

As early as 1855, he was keeping abreast of firearms developments. He knew, for instance, from his treasured copy of that year’s Annual of Scientific Discovery, of the debate between advocates of the new breechloaders (which were charged through an opening behind the barrel and above the trigger) and those of traditional muzzleloaders. One of his colleagues from his youth, Henry Clay Whitney, recalled his friend’s insatiable inquisitiveness. While on the road they usually stopped at a local farmhouse for dinner, where Lincoln would obtain some “machine or tool, and he would carefully examine it all over . . . If he could make a practical test of it, he would do that; he would turn it over or around and stoop down, or lie down, if necessary, to look under it; he would examine it closely, then stand off and examine it at a little distance; he would shake it, lift it, roll it about, up-end it, overset it, and thus ascertain every quality and utility which inhered in it.”

During the Civil War, Lincoln would invite arms designers to the White House and take them outside to his makeshift shooting range at the bottom of the lawn where he try out their products. Sometimes, he even overruled his own ordnance experts and requested that they purchase several thousand of the latest experimental rifles.

Lincoln was neither a ballistician nor a designer nor even a good shot (one of his bullets went astray and crashed through Mrs. Grady’s window overlooking 15th Street, flying through her parlor and lodging itself in the opposite wall). To him, rifles were practical instruments of war that symbolized nothing. This was a typically mid-century American conception of technology: Man was an ingenious inventor of tools that served specific purposes.

By Theodore Roosevelt’s day, at century’s turn, finding such simple joy in the mechanics of things was fast disappearing. Many people were growing alarmed at the increasing dominance of industrialization in their lives; some feared that with the rise of “scientific management” (also known as Taylorism) in the factories, workers were actually being turned into machines themselves for the sake of efficiency and profit. The essence of humanity was as stake.

Roosevelt thought such concerns overblown. What alarmed him more was that, as he saw it, the very spirit of “American-ness” was being eroded by such social factors as immigration. He intended to use the rifle to reinvigorate the concept. The weapon he played a role in forging was the Springfield Model 1903, which he proclaimed would be an all-American one made on modern Taylorite principles. He himself would use one as his personal hunting arm, and the entire army was issued with them. (At the time, the dispirited military was using a Norwegian piece, the Krag-Jorgensen.) Magnificently manufactured and enjoying the highest standards of performance, the rifle represented American prowess, power, and confidence in the future. For the president, therefore, what his rifle meant mattered as much as what it did.

In Roosevelt’s Springfield, the symbolism of Washington and the practicality of Lincoln finally merged into what would become the first of the modern American rifles. An old book (Brown’s Story of Ordnance in the World War, published in 1920) I read while writing my own, American Rifle: A Biography, summed it up perfectly: “It is amazing to consider how deeply national characteristics are imbedded in mechanical design.” Quite so.

©2008 Alexander Rose

Author Bio

Born in the United States, Alexander Rose was raised in Australia and Britain. A military historian and former journalist, he is the author of Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring, and his writing has appeared in the New York Observer, the Washington Post, Studies in Intelligence, and many other publications.