Teddy Roosevelt Trivia
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This Teddy Roosevelt trivia quiz has 59 free questions with answers and follows the 26th president from a sickly, asthmatic boyhood in Manhattan to the Dakota Badlands, the charge up Kettle Hill, the White House at 42, the Nobel Peace Prize, the Bull Moose campaign and the River of Doubt. Along the way it covers the Square Deal, the trust busting, the Panama Canal, the Great White Fleet, the 230 million acres he protected, the day both his wife and mother died, and how a bear hunt in Mississippi gave the world's most famous toy its name. The easy questions are ones most people know (which mountain his face is carved on, what "speak softly" continues). The medium ones ask about his family, his books, his ranch and his sports. The hard ones dig into the 1912 shooting, the Antiquities Act, his Medal of Honor and his last words. It works as a history class warm-up, a Presidents' Day round, or a challenge for anyone who has read Edmund Morris. Every answer has been checked against a reference encyclopaedia, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you have answered.
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Q 01What did Roosevelt renounce after winning the 1904 election?
Another term
Another term: he counted the years served after his predecessor's murder as his first, came to regret the promise, kept it in 1908, then ran again in 1912.
Q 02Roosevelt became president at 42, the youngest ever, but who is the youngest ever elected?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy was 43 when he won in 1960; Roosevelt was never elected at 42 but was sworn in after his predecessor was killed, which is why the two records have different holders.
Q 03Roosevelt became president after the assassination of which predecessor?
William McKinley
William McKinley died eight days after being shot in Buffalo, and the country's top Republican boss groaned that 'that damned cowboy' was now president.
Q 04Which chronic illness plagued Roosevelt as a sickly child?
Asthma
Asthma: as a teenager he resolved to 'make his body' with weights and gymnastics, built a rugged physique, and ever after preached what he called the strenuous life.
Q 05Of which natural wonder did Roosevelt tell a crowd in 1903, 'You cannot improve on it'?
Grand Canyon
Grand Canyon: he begged Arizonans to keep it as it was, and when Congress fought his efforts to make it a national park he protected it himself as a national monument in 1908.
Q 06Which university did Roosevelt enter in 1876, graduating Phi Beta Kappa four years later?
Harvard
Harvard: he arrived meaning to become a naturalist and published a pamphlet on Adirondack birds as a student, but he left set on law and politics instead.
Q 07Roosevelt's first book, a naval history published in 1882, was about which conflict?
The War of 1812
The War of 1812: he began The Naval War of 1812 while still a student, and within a few years the US Navy itself had taken the book up as reading for its officers.
Q 08Roosevelt's first wife died on Valentine's Day 1884, hours after which relative?
His mother
His mother died of typhoid fever and, hours later in the same house, his wife of kidney failure two days after giving birth; he left the newborn with his sister and went west to grieve.
Q 09After a double family tragedy in 1884, Roosevelt went west to ranch cattle in which territory?
Dakota
Dakota Territory: two years into ranching there he was a deputy sheriff, and with two ranch hands he chased down and captured three thieves who had stolen his boat.
Q 10In 1886 Roosevelt sailed abroad to marry his childhood friend Edith Carow in which European capital?
London
London: he had courted Edith in secret, and he sailed to England soon after losing the race for mayor, marrying her a month after the vote.
Q 11In 1895 Roosevelt took a job in New York City heading which body?
The Board of Police Commissioners
The Board of Police Commissioners made him its president, and at 2 a.m. he toured the beats with reporter Jacob Riis, finding one patrolman in ten at his post and one snoring on a butter tub.
Q 12Which post did Roosevelt resign in 1898 to go and fight in the Spanish-American War?
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
As Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1897 he had readied the fleet for war with Spain, cabling Commodore Dewey to prepare for action; in May 1898 he resigned to join the fighting in Cuba.
Q 13The Rough Riders were the nickname of which unit?
Q 21Which 1906 Upton Sinclair novel pushed Roosevelt to demand the Meat Inspection Act?
The Jungle
The Jungle was written to expose the misery of packing-house workers, but readers fixed on the filthy meat instead; Sinclair said he had aimed at the public's heart and by accident hit it in the stomach.
Q 22Roosevelt won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the end of which war?
The Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ended in the 1905 treaty he brokered at Portsmouth, New Hampshire; the peace that won him the prize set off riots in Tokyo, where crowds felt cheated of the spoils of victory.
Q 23Why were the 1905 peace talks Roosevelt brokered held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, rather than Washington?
The 1st US Volunteer Cavalry
The 1st US Volunteer Cavalry was cavalry in name only by the time it fought: the troopers' horses were left behind in Tampa for lack of room on the ships, so the Rough Riders charged on foot.
Q 14Which army doctor, later the namesake of a Missouri fort, first led the Rough Riders with Roosevelt as his deputy?
Leonard Wood
Leonard Wood led the regiment through its first fight at Las Guasimas, then was moved up to run the brigade when a general fell ill with fever, which left Roosevelt in command for the famous charge.
Q 15Where in Cuba did Roosevelt ride his horse Little Texas in the Rough Riders' famous charge of 1 July 1898?
Kettle Hill
Kettle Hill, as the troops came to call it, was the first height taken: about forty yards from the top he hit a wire fence, jumped off Little Texas and ran the rest of the way on foot.
Q 16Roosevelt is the only president to have received which military decoration, awarded posthumously in 2001?
The Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor was a prize he coveted: he and his friends lobbied the War Department for it after Cuba and were turned down, so it reached his family 82 years after his death.
Q 17Returning from Cuba a war hero, Roosevelt was elected to which office in 1898?
Governor of New York
Governor of New York, by a narrow margin: once in office he pushed through a tax on the franchises of gas, water and streetcar companies.
Q 18Which words complete Roosevelt's famous maxim "Speak softly and..."?
...carry a big stick
'...carry a big stick; you will go far' appears in a private letter of January 1900, where he rejoiced at forcing his party's bosses to drop a corrupt official and called the line a West African proverb.
Q 19What did Roosevelt call his domestic programme of fairness, trust-busting and pure food and drugs?
The Square Deal
The Square Deal was his phrase for the 1902 coal strike settlement, reached after he threatened to have troops seize and run the mines; the label then stuck to his whole programme.
Q 20Roosevelt's first big antitrust case broke up Northern Securities, a monopoly in which industry?
Railroads
Railroads: Northern Securities was a giant rail combination built by J. P. Morgan's syndicate, and the 1902 suit shocked a business world that expected him to leave it alone; the Supreme Court ordered it dissolved.
Its cooler summer climate
Its cooler summer climate spared the envoys a sweltering August in Washington, and the navy yard there offered security; Roosevelt himself never set foot in Portsmouth while the talks went on.
Q 24The Panama Canal route Roosevelt backed ran through territory that in 1903 belonged to which country?
Colombia
Colombia: when its congress turned down his canal terms, Roosevelt sent warships to shield a Panamanian revolt, recognised the new republic within days, and had his canal zone by treaty before the year was out.
Q 25Where did Roosevelt go in November 1906 on the first official presidential trip abroad?
Panama and Puerto Rico
Panama and Puerto Rico: he went to inspect the canal being dug and took a turn at the controls of a large steam shovel, then called at Puerto Rico.
Q 26What name was given to the 16 battleships Roosevelt sent around the world?
Great White Fleet
The Great White Fleet took its name from hulls painted white, the navy's colour of peace, though the point of the voyage was to show every rival how far American battleships could now reach.
Q 27Which naturalist took President Roosevelt camping in Yosemite in 1903 and urged him to protect more wild land?
John Muir
John Muir made his case by the campfire: Roosevelt took Yosemite Valley back under federal control in 1906 and left office having protected about 230 million acres of public land.
Q 28Which Wyoming landmark did Roosevelt make the first US national monument in September 1906?
Devils Tower
Devils Tower came first because the Antiquities Act, signed that June, let him protect a landmark by proclamation alone; he went on to create 18 national monuments without waiting for Congress.
Q 29In 1903 Roosevelt created the first national wildlife refuge, Pelican Island, in which state?
Florida
Florida's Pelican Island is a tiny speck in a lagoon, and a bird society, not the government, paid its first warden; from it grew a refuge system that now reaches every state.
Q 30How was future First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt related to Theodore Roosevelt?
His niece
His niece: she was the daughter of his younger brother Elliott, and as president he gave the bride away in 1905 when she married her distant cousin Franklin.