Q 01/05

Which holiday did Puritan Massachusetts Bay outlaw in 1659, fining anyone caught celebrating it five shillings?

A) Easter

B) Michaelmas

C) Christmas

D) May Day

Answer · why

C) Christmas

Christmas was banned because Puritans said the festival had pagan roots and no place in scripture. Celebrating it only became fashionable around Bosto...

Q 02/05

Which fish, vital to Massachusetts Bay's early trade, is honored by a wooden carving displayed in the State House?

A) Herring

B) Codfish

C) Mackerel

D) Bluefish

Answer · why

B) Codfish

Codfish was the catch behind the colony's first industry. A carving nearly five feet long, called the Sacred Cod, has watched over Massachusetts lawma...

Q 03/05

Which college, founded by a Massachusetts Bay vote in 1636, was named for a minister who left it his library?

A) Amherst

B) Princeton

C) Dartmouth

D) Harvard

Answer · why

D) Harvard

Harvard took its name from John Harvard, a young Charlestown minister who died in 1638 and left the school his 400-volume library and a large sum of m...

Q 04/05

Which biblical image did John Winthrop use in 1630 to warn Massachusetts Bay settlers the world was watching?

A) A city upon a hill

B) A new Jerusalem

C) A light in the wilderness

D) A promised land

Answer · why

A) A city upon a hill

A city upon a hill echoes the Sermon on the Mount. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan both borrowed the image centuries later to describe Am...

Q 05/05

Despite the popular image of burning, how were the nineteen people condemned in the 1692 Salem witch trials executed?

A) Drowning

B) Hanging

C) Beheading

D) Poisoning

Answer · why

B) Hanging

Hanging was the fate of all nineteen, fourteen women and five men. A twentieth victim, Giles Corey, was crushed under heavy stones for refusing to ent...