Q 01/05

Which icon of Western films is a Russian weed that reached South Dakota in 1870s flax seed?

A) Sagebrush

B) Tumbleweed

C) Mesquite

D) Prickly pear

Answer · why

B) Tumbleweed

Tumbleweed is mostly Russian thistle, which snaps off at the stem once it is dry and scatters its seeds as the wind rolls it across open country.

Q 02/05

Which mail relay to California lasted only 18 months before the telegraph killed it off?

A) Wells Fargo

B) Overland Mail

C) Star Route

D) Pony Express

Answer · why

D) Pony Express

Pony Express riders cut coast-to-coast message time to about 10 days, but the transcontinental telegraph, finished in October 1861, made them obsolete...

Q 03/05

What nickname for the storm-prone central US began as the title of a 1952 weather research project?

A) Hail Alley

B) Dixie Alley

C) Tornado Alley

D) Hurricane Alley

Answer · why

C) Tornado Alley

Tornado Alley has no official boundaries: it is simply where warm, humid air meets cold, dry air from Canada, helping give the US more twisters than a...

Q 04/05

What name did a 1935 news report give the drought-hit southern Plains after the Black Sunday storm?

A) The Dust Bowl

B) The Dirty Thirties

C) The Great Die-Up

D) No Man's Land

Answer · why

A) The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl got its name from Associated Press coverage of April 14, 1935, a day when an estimated 300,000 tons of topsoil blew off the prairie.

Q 05/05

Which mountain range walls in the Great Plains on the west, from Alberta south to New Mexico?

A) Sierra Nevada

B) Cascade Range

C) Appalachian Mountains

D) Rocky Mountains

Answer · why

D) Rocky Mountains

The Rocky Mountains run about 3,000 miles, and the Plains spread east from their base for 300 to 500 miles before giving way to wetter, lower country.