Q 01/05

After a 1998 Supreme Court ruling, most of Ellis Island's land officially belongs to which state?

A) New York

B) New Jersey

C) Connecticut

D) Delaware

Answer · why

B) New Jersey

New Jersey was awarded the 22.8 acres of landfill added over the years to enlarge the island. New York kept about 4.7 acres, including the original is...

Q 02/05

Which poet wrote The New Colossus, the sonnet on a plaque inside the Statue of Liberty's pedestal?

A) Emily Dickinson

B) Walt Whitman

C) Emma Lazarus

D) Julia Ward Howe

Answer · why

C) Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus wrote the sonnet in 1883 to raise money for the pedestal, and it played no part in the 1886 opening. A friend had it cast in bronze and m...

Q 03/05

Which Bavarian-born immigrant to Gold Rush San Francisco later shared the patent for riveted jeans?

A) Levi Strauss

B) Henry Steinway

C) Adolphus Busch

D) Claus Spreckels

Answer · why

A) Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss came west to open a branch of his family's dry goods business, not to make clothes. A Reno tailor named Davis invented the riveted pants ...

Q 04/05

The failure of which crop in the 1840s drove more than a million people to leave Ireland?

A) Wheat

B) Potato

C) Barley

D) Turnip

Answer · why

B) Potato

Potato blight destroyed the staple food of Ireland's poor, and roughly a million people died as well. Hunger and departures together cut the country's...

Q 05/05

Which physicist, abroad when Hitler took power in 1933, never went home and settled in Princeton?

A) Albert Einstein

B) Werner Heisenberg

C) Enrico Fermi

D) Max Planck

Answer · why

A) Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein joined Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study and became an American citizen in 1940. He also kept the Swiss citizenship he had gain...