Q 01/05

What is the capital of Missouri?

A) Jefferson City

B) St. Louis

C) Kansas City

D) Columbia

Answer · why

A) Jefferson City

Jefferson City was built on an undeveloped tract because lawmakers wanted the capital in the center of the state, overlooking the Missouri River.

Q 02/05

What is Missouri's famous unofficial nickname, printed on its licence plates?

A) The Cave State

B) The Gateway State

C) The Bullion State

D) The Show Me State

Answer · why

D) The Show Me State

The Show Me State echoes a saying that Congressman Willard Vandiver helped popularize when he declared in a speech that frothy eloquence neither convi...

Q 03/05

Which mineral did Union forces mine inside Missouri's Meramec Caverns during the Civil War?

A) Lead ore

B) Saltpeter

C) Sulfur

D) Iron ore

Answer · why

B) Saltpeter

Saltpeter was a gunpowder ingredient, and Confederate forces ended the mining by destroying the Union works inside the cave.

Q 04/05

Missouri's name traces to the Missouria people, whose name in another tribe's language is said to refer to what?

A) Their horses

B) Their canoes

C) Their bison herds

D) Their tall bluffs

Answer · why

B) Their canoes

Their canoes are what the name is said to describe, and the Missouria, ravaged by smallpox and warfare, later settled among the Otoe.

Q 05/05

Which Missouri-born general commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I?

A) Omar Bradley

B) George S. Patton

C) John J. Pershing

D) Douglas MacArthur

Answer · why

C) John J. Pershing

John J. Pershing had earlier led a 1916 expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa, but he never caught him.