Q 01/05

Which drug scandal broke in 1962, just as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring appeared?

A) Laetrile

B) Thalidomide

C) DES

D) Elixir Sulfanilamide

Answer · why

B) Thalidomide

Thalidomide. The FDA's Frances Kelsey had kept the drug, which caused birth defects abroad, off the American market, and the news invited comparisons ...

Q 02/05

Which annual event, first held on April 22, 1970, grew out of the movement Rachel Carson's Silent Spring helped launch?

A) Arbor Day

B) World Oceans Day

C) Earth Day

D) Earth Hour

Answer · why

C) Earth Day

Earth Day. Some 20 million Americans took part in the first one, and its own organizers say Carson's bestseller had set the stage eight years earlier.

Q 03/05

Which federal body was created in 1970 partly in response to the movement Silent Spring inspired?

A) The Fish and Wildlife Service

B) The National Park Service

C) The Environmental Protection Agency

D) The Food and Drug Administration

Answer · why

C) The Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency. Until then the Department of Agriculture both promoted farming and registered pesticides, a conflict Carson had a...

Q 04/05

Which president posthumously awarded Rachel Carson the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

A) Lyndon Johnson

B) Jimmy Carter

C) Ronald Reagan

D) Gerald Ford

Answer · why

B) Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter. A chemical company had threatened to sue to stop her book in 1962; eighteen years later, in 1980, the White House gave her the nation's ...

Q 05/05

Near which Pennsylvania town, on the Allegheny River near Pittsburgh, was Carson born in 1907?

A) Springdale

B) Bethlehem

C) Gettysburg

D) Scranton

Answer · why

A) Springdale

The 65-acre family farm is now the Rachel Carson Homestead, on the National Register of Historic Places.