The Land of Opportunity, Arkansas – A Quiz

1.  What national park centers around 143-degree water?
2. What 1848 event in California changed Fort Smith, Arkansas, into a boomtown?
3. What is Hope famous for?
4. Eureka Springs has a museum devoted to figurines of what water creatures?
5. Governor Winthrop Rockefeller founded a museum devoted to one of his favorite hobbies. What?
6. Mountain View is host to what popular music contest?
7. What type of structures are raced in Mountain Home’s annual Bean Days?
8. Rogers has a museum devoted to what type of weapons for children?
9. What town claims that it saw the first fighting for the Civil War?
10. What crucial metal originates in the state of Arkansas?

Answers:

1. Hot Springs
2. The discovery of gold, leading to the gold rush. Fort Smith became a favorite starting place for wagons heading west.
3. Its annual Watermelon Festival. Also, it’s the childhood home of Bill Clinton
4. Frogs; it is the Frog Fantasies collection
5. Cars
6. The Arkansas State Fiddler’s Contest
7. Outhouses
8. Air guns
9. Pine Bluff; several days before Charleston’s Fort Sumter was fired on (the official beginning of the war), Pine Bluff locals fired on a federal gunboat and confiscated its supplies.
10. Aluminum, made from the bauxite ore that is common in Arkansas

The Grand Canyon State, Arizona – A Quiz

1. The University of Phoenix Stadium is host to what football bowl game?

2. The Native Americans who first led Spanish explorers to the Grand Canyon belonged to what tribe?

3, What beautiful spot has served as the most popular background scenery in western movies?

4. Lake Havasu City has what enormous structure, brought over from London?

5. What large, extinct creatures could you see in animated form in the Mesa Southwest Museum?

6. What weather phenomenon waters the green fields of cotton, melons, and lettuce near Phoenix?

7. Known as the Jewel of the Desert, the Biltmore Hotel is in what major city?

8. The beautiful sandstone fort in Pipe Spring National Monument was built by what religious group?

9. What animals can you ride into the Grand Canyon?

10. Why does the town of Bisbee not have mail delivered to people’s homes?

Answers:

1. The Fiesta Bowl
2. Hopi
3. Monument Valley
4. London Bridge
5. Dinosaurs
6. None. The farming is all done by irrigation
7. Phoenix
8. The Mormons
9. Mules
10. The town’s streets are too steep even for mail carriers.

The Last Frontier, Alaska – A Quiz

1. What boom began at Bonanza Creek in 1897?

2. The Diomede Islands off Alaska are divided between the U.S. and what nation?

3. The state song, “Alaska, My Alaska,” uses the tune from what familiar Christmas song?

4. The name of the state sport might remind you of cornmeal. What is the sport?

5. Capt. Vitus Bering, visiting Alaska in 1740, claimed it for what nation?

6. What well-loved cowboy comic died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935?

7. What playful sea animal was almost wiped out by Russian fur traders in the 1700s?

8. Purchased for the U.S. in 1867 by Secretary of State William Seward, Alaska was called Seward’s Folly. What nation was it purchased from?

9. You can visit the Last Chance Mining Museum in what capital of the Last Frontier?

10. Practically no trees grow in this 1,100-mile-long island chair, but there are grasses and flowers. What islands?

Answers:

1. The Klondike Gold Rush
2. Russia
3. “O Christmas Tree,” also known as “O Tannenbaum”
4. “Mushing” – dogsled racing
5. Russia
6. Will Rogers
7. The sea otter
8. Russia
9. Juneau
10. The Aleutians

 

The Heart of Dixie, Alabama – A Quiz

1. The famous Iron Bowl, first held in 1893, is between which two renowned college football teams?

2. What polluted steel town had the nickname Pittsburgh of the South?

3. Cloudmont, an Alabama ski resort, seems too far south for snow. Why is there snow there so often?

4. What city is considered the birthplace of the U.S. space program?

5. What port city has a Mardi Gras second only to the one in New Orleans?

6. What pioneering country music star has a memorial in Montgomery? (Hint: cheatin’ heart)

7. Talladega has a hall of fame for what sport?

8. In what noted college town could you drive on Paul W. Bryant Drive?

9. Tuskegee University is connected with which noted black scientist?

10. How did the town of Haleyville react when the state seceded from the Union in 1861?

Answers:

1. Alabama and Auburn
2. Birmingham
3. The Cloudmont snow is manufactured
4. Huntsville, home of NASA’s Space Flight Center and home to rocket scientist Wernher von Braun
5. Mobile
6. Hank Williams
7. Auto racing
8. Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama
9. George Washington Carver
10. The citizens voted to secede from the state

Painters, Sculptors and Other Artsy Types

!. What painter known for Christina’s World and the Helga paintings died in 2009?

2. Thomas Kinkade, who has been dubbed “America’s most-collected living artist,” is known as the “Painter of” what?

3. James Whistler’s 1872 painting Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1 is better known my what name?

4. What great painter of Americana gained fame for his Saturday Evening Post covers?

5. What noted painter had to go to England to get his Birds of America published?

6. America’s largest art museum, with more that 3 million objects, is what Manhattan landmark?

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?

8. The “Gibson girl” made famous by artist Charles Dana Gibson, was what woman?

9. California’s most famous cemetery has several large reproductions of famous religious paintings. What is the cemetery?

10. What redheaded comic is also famous for his paintings of clowns?

11. Florida’s Ringling Museum of Art was financed with money from what type of entertainment?

12. What president’s much visited statue in D.C. was sculpted by Daniel Chester French?

13. If you wanted to see the largest collection of Rembrandt paintings in America, where would you go?

14. Fulton, Missouri, has a thirty-two-foot sculpture titled Breakthrough. What Cold War relic does it commemorate?

15. If you wanted to see a lot of paintings of dogs, what midwestern city would you visit?

16. What noted Missouri artist’s home can be visited in Kansas City?

17. Sculptor Korzack Ziolkowski began work on the world’s largest statue, a memorial to Sioux chief Crazy Horse. In what state?

18. What great artist is known for his more than one hundred portraits of George Washington?

19. Many limners from the colonial era are known only be the names of the families who paid them. What were they?

20. The Wars of America, a forty-two-figure bronze sculpture in Newark, New Jersey, was sculpted by Gutzon Borglun. What huge outdoor sculpture is he more famous for?

21. What great French sculptor’s works are featured in a Philadelphia museum? (Hint: thinker)

22. What famous woman started painting because her fingers had become too stiff for embroidering?

Answers:

1. Andrew Wyeth
2. Light
3. “Whistler’s Mother”
4. Norman Rockwell
5. John James Audubon
6. The Metropolitan Museum of Art
7. Father and daughter, according to the artist
8. Gibson’ wife
9. Forest Lawn, in Glendale
10. Red Skelton, who died in 1997
11. The circus
12. Lincoln’s, inside the Lincoln Memorial
13. The National Gallery of Art in D.C.
14. The Berlin Wall, which still existed when the sculpture was done
15. St. Louis; it’s Museum of the Dog is a center for dog-related art
16. Thomas Hart Benton
17. South Dakota; the statue was carved from the granite of Thunderhead Mountain.
18. Gilbert Stuart
19. Portrait painters
20. Mount Rushmore, the four presidents
21. Rodin, famous for The Thinker
22. Grandma Moses

TV Openers – A Quiz

1. “Once upon a time, there were three little girls who went to the police academy.”

2. “In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups.”

3. “What you are about to see is not a news broadcast.”

4. “There are pretenders among us. Geniuses with the ability to become anyone they want to be.”

5. “You got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying – in sweat.”

6. “In time of the ancient gods, warlords and kings, a land in turmoil cried out for a hero.”

7. “She is the protector of the jungle, a force of nature, and one with the animals.”

8. “My name is Sydney Bristow. Seven years ago I was recruited by a secret branch of the CIA called SD-6.”

9. “What you are about to see is real. The litigants on the screen are not actors. The are genuine citizens who, having filed their claims in a real small claims court, have been persuaded to drop their suits there and have them settled here, in this forum…”

10. “Gentlemen, you are about to enter the most fascinating field of medical science. The world of forensic medicine.”

11. “Following in his father’s footsteps as a naval aviator Lieutenant Commander Harmon Rabb Junior suffered a crash while landing his Tomcat on a storm-tossed carrier at sea.”

Answers:

1. Charlie’s Angels (1976-81)
2. Law and Order
3. Unsolved Mysteries (1988-99)
4. The Pretender (1996-2000)
5. Fame (1982-87)
6. Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001)
7. Sheena (2000-02)
8. Alias (2001-06)
9. The People’s Court (1981-93)
10. Quincy, M.E. (1976-83)
11. JAG (1995-2005)

Remembrance of Things Past

1. The Sons of Liberty protested the tax on tea with an action that later became known as the what?

2. Who was president of the United States during the Great Depression and most of World War II?

3. What civil-rights figure refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man?

4. The Treaty of Panmunjon ended what conflict?

5. Columbus knew the Earth was round, and thought he could sail in what direction from Europe to reach Asia?

6. Ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt traded across what sea?

7. What explorer, trying to find the Fountain of Youth, ended up giving Spain claim to Florida by exploring St. Augustine?

8. What international organization was the first to win the Nobel Peace Prize twice?

9. Greece was known as the birthplace as what form of government?

10. A runaway slave was killed by British soldiers in the Boston Massacre. What was his name?

11. He was born in Greece, and was founder as well as the first president of Republic of Turkey. Who was he?

12. Where did General Robert E. Lee surrender to General Grant to effectively end the Civil War?

Answers:

1. Boston Tea Party
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt
3. Rosa Parks
4. The Korean War
5. West
6. The Mediterranean Sea
7. Ponce de Leon
8. The Red Cross
9. Democracy
10. Crispus Attucks
11. Kemal Ataturk
12. Appomattox Courthouse

The Usual Suspects – A Quiz

1. Angela Lansbury played Laurence Harvey’s politically ambitious- and murderous-mother in what 1962 thriller?

2. What wisecracking criminal, nicknamed Gotham City’s “clown prince,’ taunted the authorities by leaving playing cards at the scene of his crimes?

3. What black-clad woman sought revenge on her sister’s accidental death by threatening that she “could cause accidents too”?

4. What criminal mastermind enjoyed having old friends for dinner-especially “with fava beans and a nice Chianti”?

5. What rogue scientist and self-described Prometheus is obsessed with annihilating his high-flying nemesis, obliterating Metropolis, and ruling the planet?

6. Who’s the two-toned, fur-loving, evil diva who is so cruel that her country home is nicknamed “Hell Hall”?

7. What brilliant professor and mathematician, known as the Napoleon of Crime, hides an air rifle in his cane?

8. What Asian villain with “a face like Satan”, created by British author Sax Rohmer, was the inspiration for James Bond’s nemesis, Dr. No?

9. What is the name of the squat, toadlike woman whose interests in the dark arts include taking sadistic pleasure in terrorizing her students?

10. What 1988 action film features Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, a techno-terrorist who plots to steal bank bonds from the vault of a skyscraper?

Answers:

1. The Manchurian Candidate
2. The Joker (Batman)
3. The Wicked Witch of the West (The Wizard of Oz)
4. Hannibal Lector (The Silence of the Lambs)
5. Lex Luthor (Superman)
6. Cruella de Vil (101 Dalmations)
7. Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes)
8. Dr. Fu Manchu
9. Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter)
10. Die Hard

Culture Vultures – A Quiz

Art, Ballet, Classical Music

1. Where would you go to see Michelangelo the Pietà ?

2. The works of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms belong to what musical genre?

3. What Dadaist artist submitted an actual urinal, titled Fountain, to an art exhibit in 1917?

4. In what city is the Museo del Prado located?

5. What author of Dover Beach wrote that having culture means to “know the best that has been said and thought in the world”?

6. The Thinker is one of the most recognized sculptures in the world. Who was the sculptor?

7. What French artist is well known for his paintings of ballet dancers?

8. “Jaunty John joked about the jolly jack-o’-lantern.” Is that an example of assonance, alliteration, or onomatopoeia?

9. Who wrote The Rape of Lucrece?

10. Jacques Derrida founded (and coined the term for) what process in literary criticism and philosophy?

11. The Temple of Athena on the Acropolis of Athens is better known by what name?

12. Grand jeté is a part of what art form?

Answers:

1. St. Peter’s Basilica (Vatican City)
2. Classical music
3. Marcel Duchamp
4. Madrid
5. Matthew Arnold
6. Auguste Rodin
7. Edgar Degas
8. Alliteration
9. William Shakespeare
10. Deconstruction
11. The Parthenon
12. Classical ballet

 

Made in America – A Quiz

The original American Inventors

1. The inventor of this classic weapon of the American West got his first big order from the U.S. War Department. What did he invent?

2. What founding father invented, among other things, bifocals, an iron furnace stove, and an odometer to measure the length of mail routes?

3. Philo T. Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworykin are the two men most often credited with inventing what “tube”ular device?

4. Before it became the generic term for women’s stockings, nylon was first used commercially in toothbrush bristles. What company developed it in 1938?

5. In the 1950s, admiral and engineer Hyman O. Rickover was the first to use this vessel, which the United States now has many of.

6. Mary Anderson of Alabama wanted to improve drivers’ vision during stormy weather, so she invented and patented what?

7. Willis Haviland Carrier invented this chilly “Apparatus for Treating Air” in 1902. What do we call it today?

8. Which came first – dry cleaning or blue jeans?

9. Walter Hunt perfected this handy item in 1849 and sold it for $400. People who plan for emergencies – like a broken shoulder strap at a prom – carry one. What is it?

10. The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, built in 1884-85 by Major William Le Baron Jenney, was the first modern what?

11. In 1960, using a manmade ruby, physicist Theodore H. Maiman created the first working one of these items. What did he invent?

Answers:

1. Samuel Colt developed the Colt revolver, or “six-shooter”
2. Benjamin Franklin
3. The television
4. DuPont
5. Nuclear submarine
6. Windshield Wipers
7. Air conditioner
8. Dry cleaning. It was invented (accidentally) in 1855. Blue jeans were patented in 1873.
9. The safety pin
10. Skyscraper; the building was 10 stories tall.
11. The laser