Q 01/05

The name Arkansas comes from a French rendering of a word for which Native American people?

A) The Osage

B) The Cherokee

C) The Caddo

D) The Quapaw

Answer · why

D) The Quapaw

The Algonquian term akansa is thought to mean "south wind people"; the same root gave another state its name.

Q 02/05

How did the Arkansas legislature officially rule the state's name should be pronounced in 1881?

A) As two syllables

B) With the stress on the second syllable

C) With the final "s" silent

D) With a hard "z" sound at the end

Answer · why

C) With the final "s" silent

The resolution called the AR-kan-zas version "an innovation to be discouraged"; a 2007 resolution added that the possessive is Arkansas's.

Q 03/05

Arkansas joined the Union on June 15, 1836, as which number state?

A) 28th

B) 25th

C) 23rd

D) 19th

Answer · why

B) 25th

Congress approved its constitution after a 25-hour session; it was the 13th slave state, with about 60,000 residents.

Q 04/05

Which Spanish explorer crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas in 1541 and died there the following year?

A) Hernando de Soto

B) Francisco Coronado

C) Cabeza de Vaca

D) Ponce de León

Answer · why

A) Hernando de Soto

His men sank his body in the Mississippi at night and told locals he had ascended into the sky to keep up the pretence that he was immortal.

Q 05/05

What was the first European settlement in the future state, founded by Henri de Tonti in 1686?

A) Fort Smith

B) Arkansas Post

C) Arkadelphia

D) Petit Jean Landing

Answer · why

B) Arkansas Post

It later served as the territorial capital until 1821 and saw the state's only Revolutionary War action, a 1783 siege.