Q 01/05

In what year was the Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of the FBI, created?

A) 1935

B) 1908

C) 1924

D) 1917

Answer · why

B) 1908

The attorney general hired 34 people with Justice Department expense funds after Congress barred him from borrowing Secret Service men.

Q 02/05

Which attorney general organized the Bureau of Investigation in 1908?

A) William Moody

B) Philander Knox

C) George Wickersham

D) Charles Bonaparte

Answer · why

D) Charles Bonaparte

He was a grandson of Napoleon's brother Jérôme and his American wife Elizabeth Patterson.

Q 03/05

Which president pushed to create an investigative service answering only to the attorney general?

A) William Howard Taft

B) Woodrow Wilson

C) Theodore Roosevelt

D) William McKinley

Answer · why

C) Theodore Roosevelt

McKinley's 1901 assassination had stoked fears of anarchists, and the Oregon land fraud scandal exposed how short-staffed Justice was.

Q 04/05

Who was the Bureau's first 'chief', the title now called director?

A) Stanley Finch

B) A. Bruce Bielaski

C) William J. Flynn

D) William J. Burns

Answer · why

A) Stanley Finch

Bonaparte only notified Congress of the new agency in December 1908, months after it began work.

Q 05/05

The Bureau's first official task was surveying brothels to prepare to enforce which 1910 law?

A) The Comstock Act

B) The Espionage Act

C) The Volstead Act

D) The Mann Act

Answer · why

D) The Mann Act

It was better known as the White Slave Traffic Act.