Flashback Friday: Presidents Day Trivia Contest

FLASHBACK FRIDAY

This Trivia Quiz was created in 2012, 

but should be just as much fun today.

With this coming Monday being Presidents Day, this is as good a day as any to think about presidents. By presidents we're talking about U.S. presidents here. Sorry, I mean no offense to my readers in Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Zambia or Laos who were not required to memorize U.S. president-trivia in their schools while growing up. For the rest of you, here's a quiz to help keep your brain cells from atrophying. You can check your answers against my guesses at the end of this quiz. Be sure to keep score.

 
Disclaimer: This quiz is for entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as having any usefulness for passing your U.S. citizenship exam. 

 

1. Which president was nicknamed His Accidency? 

a. Harrold Wilson 

b. John Tyler 

c. Chester Arthur 

d. Grover Cleveland Alexander 

2. Which President was called The Do-Nothing President? 

a. Pat Buchanan 

b. William Buckley 

c. William Howard Taft 

d. James Buchanan 

3. Which president was sometimes called The Big Lub? 

a. Grover Lightfoot 

b. William Howard Taft 

c. Teddy Roosevelt 

d. Herbert Hoover 

 

4. Who was the only president with a Ph.D.? 

a. Charles Smedley 

b. Woodrow Wilson 

c. Calvin Coolidge 

d. Benjamin Harrison 

 

5. Who was the first president to actually dine with a black man in the White House? 

a. Abraham Lincoln 

b. Ulysses S. Grant 

c. Teddy Roosevelt 

d. John F. Kennedy 

 

6. Teddy Roosevelt was evidently into pets. Match the the following pets to their names. 

a. Guinea Pig 

b. Snake 

c. Bull Dog 

d. Chesapeake Retriever 

Their names were: Pete, Father O'Grady, Emily Spinach, and Sailor Boy... but in which order? 

7. Who was the first president's wife to be called the First Lady of the Land? 

a. Letitia Tyler 

b. Lucy Hayes 

c. Eliza Johnson 

d. Frances Clara Cleveland 

 

8. Who was the first president to fly in a helicopter? 

a. Silent Cal 

b. FDR 

c. Ike 

d. Harry S. Truman 

 

9. Who was the first president to fly in an airplane? 

a. Herbert Hoover 

b. Teddy Roosevelt 

c. FDR 

d. Calvin College 

10. This president raised 11 children, none of whom were his own. (He is one of three presidents to have had adopted children.) 

a. Chester Arthur 

b. Andrew Johnson 

c. Andrew Jackson 

d. James Polk 

 

11. When he was vice president, he presided over the Senate wearing a pair of pistols, as a precaution against the frequent outbursts of violence. (See? Contentiousness in the congress is nothing new.) 

a. Hebert Hoover 

b. Andrew Johnson 

c. Martin Van Buren 

d. Lyndon Johnson 

 

12. Which president was the first to see a baseball game and saw the Cincinnati Reds beat the Washington Senators 7-4? 

a. Benjamin Harrison 

b. Teddy Roosevelt 

c. William McKinley 

d. Woodrow Wilson
 
13. How many presidents did not win the popular vote yet won the election? 

a. 5 

b. 8 

c. 15 

d. 11 

 
14. How many Americans understand how the Electoral College works?
a. 5
b. 8
c. 15
d. 11 

 
15. Who was the first president not born on the continental United States?
a. George Washington
b. John D. Rockefeller
c. Andrew Johnson
d. Barack Obama
 
Bonus: Which website did I borrow all this information from?
a. ClassroomHelp.com 
b. NationalGeographic.com
c. Infoplease.com
d. None of the above. I took good notes in school and remembered all this stuff. 

ANSWERS
1. (b) 2. (d) 3. (b) 4. (b) 5. (c) TR dined with Booker T. Washington. 6. Some of the pets TR had in the White House for his family included a Bull Dog named Pete, a Guinea Pig named Father O'Grady, a snake named Emily Spinach and a Chesapeake Retriever named Sailor Boy. 7. I think it was Lucy. 8. (c) 9. There is a dispute here as my sources conflict. One source says it was Teddy, the other says FDR. 10. (c) Yes, Jackson had 11 adopted children. 11. (c) 12. (a) 13. (c) 14. Trick question. Nobody knows how it works. 15. (d) He was born in Sasketchewan. No, wait, Rio. Actually it was Hawaii, which was not a state until I was in elementary school. Bonus Question: a, b and c. Score five points for having read this all the way through, and one point for each correct answer. If you did better than 18, you're pretty sharp. Take a bow.

Who Was the Worst President In U.S. History? I Nominate This One

Warren G. Harding was one of the worst they say.
His sex scandals weren't even a consideration
By that measure we'd see FDR, JFK, Bill C
and others listed as well.

When it comes to voting for the best and worst presidents in our history, one must first establish some criteria. Currently there's no doubt a large contingent who say there's no point asking the question. Trump is most obviously such an odious president that there's no point in going further with this discussion. C'est la vie.

What triggered this blog post, though, was a book title that caught my eye on Amazon.com with the title: The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. 

Really?

According to the promotional info on this book the author compiles more than 200 "inconvenient truths" to support his assessment including "his shocking abuses of taxpayer dollars; his bitterly divisive style of governing; his shameless usurping of the Constitution; his many scandals and cover-ups; his policy failures at home and abroad; the unprecedented expansion of government power...and more."

Now to be honest, in my opinion many of these accusations could be made against many presidents. Divisive? Abuses of taxpayer dollars? Policy failures? And as regards the last, "the unprecedented expansion of government power" I would suggest that the past 120 years of this nation has seen a continued and ongoing expansion of government power. The past three presidents have made "executive orders" a modus operandi for expanding the power of the executive branch. It's an innovation that frees presidents from bipartisan wrangling altogether. "Let's Make a Law" is practically a new program on The Game Channel.

So, I decided to ask Google and was directed to a U.S. News & World Report page that claimed it was able to identify our worst presidents.

The first listed was Zachary Taylor. His crime? He was a war hero who was utterly forgettable. He died in office and failed to complete his term, so I'm not sure he got a fair shake when it comes to making his mark. There are plenty of presidents who did more damage than that

Herbert Hoover gets the second nod, assuming we're going from worst to first. A poor communicator is his crime, as well as ushering in the Great Depression. Big problems create big opportunities for those who succeed in tackling them. Some of his decisions exacerbated, rather than alleviated, the challenges we faced as a nation. 

USN&WR gives John Tyler and Millard Fillmore a tie for 7th worst. Tyler was a defender of slavery and abandoned the party platform he was elected on. "You voted for me on this, but guess what? I am going to do my own thing now. Sorry, you losers." Fillmore's sins were greater still, beginning with the Missouri Compromise that permitted the spread of slavery. 

Warren G. Harding is tagged as sixth worst in this list. Scandals permeated his presidency I'm not sure he knew what his primary responsibilities were. "When the cat's away, the mice will play." 

William Henry Harrison died 30 days after giving his unnecessarily long inaugural address in the rain. I have a hard time saying he was a bad president. He never really had a chance to get any traction. 

Franklin Pierce. 

Franklin Pierce  is another of those presidents a majority of our citizens would be unable to identify in a final exam. It was his view that pursuing abolitionist would be a threat to the Union. Therefore, he acquiesced to the pro-slavery Southern Dems. "Staus Quo is the way to go," must have been his motto. "Don't rock the boat."

Andrew Johnson takes the #3 slot in this list. He opposed Reconstruction, was an enabler of carpetbaggers and scalawags, among other things. Ultimately there was an attempt to impeach him, but he was acquitted. These were turbulent times and it didn't help that he had a somewhat obstinate personality. Those first years after the Civil War would have been a trial for anyone.

USN&WR lists Donald Trump as #2 in this list of "worst" presidents. Whereas it's true that he never had more than a 50% approval rating, there were numerous presidents with a lower approval rating at the end of their service in the White House. Gallup Polls (measuring only since FDR) show Truman, Nixon, Carter and both Bushes to have the lowest approval ratings at the end of their tenures. In light of the ongoing media hostility toward the 45th president it's quite surprising his ratings were as high as they were.

According the this list, James Buchanan (1857-1861) gets to wear the moniker of "Worst President." He did nothing to stand in the way of the spread of slavery and set the stage for the secession by the Confederacy.

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Personally, I believe Millard Fillmore can't be far behind as an instrument of stupidity with regards to these matters. The absence of Andrew Jackson and his treatment of the Native peoples that resulted in the "Trail of Tears" seems an error somehow. 

You can probably poke a few holes in the inflated importance of Woodrow Wilson as well, in my estimation, the Ivory Tower President who really couldn't grasp the significance of many of the events unfolding in the aftermath of the First World War. His unrestrained use of propaganda to generate a hatred of Germans (our largest immigrant population) and Germany had consequences that extended far beyond his visual horizon. 

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