Q 01/05

Sacramento sits at the confluence of the Sacramento River and which other river?

A) The Feather

B) The Yuba

C) The American

D) The Merced

Answer · why

C) The American

The American River is where gold was found at Sutter's Mill in 1848, and the Gold Rush that followed made Sacramento grow rapidly as a supply town.

Q 02/05

Which indigenous people lived in the Sacramento area before the Spanish arrived?

A) Nisenan

B) Chumash

C) Ohlone

D) Yurok

Answer · why

A) Nisenan

The Nisenan and other Native people were made to build Sutter's Fort, and their exploited labor ran the fort's many industries.

Q 03/05

Which railroad, financed by four Sacramento merchants, was built eastward from the city over the Sierra Nevada?

A) Union Pacific

B) Central Pacific

C) Northern Pacific

D) Great Northern

Answer · why

B) Central Pacific

The Central Pacific met the Union Pacific at Promontory, Utah, in May 1869, completing the first transcontinental railroad.

Q 04/05

Which author visited Hawaii in 1866 as a correspondent for the Sacramento Union newspaper?

A) Bret Harte

B) Ambrose Bierce

C) Mark Twain

D) Robert Louis Stevenson

Answer · why

C) Mark Twain

Mark Twain's letters from the islands were so popular that he set out on his first lecture tour when he returned.

Q 05/05

Which Sacramento-born writer wrote the 1968 essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem?

A) Susan Sontag

B) Joan Didion

C) Nora Ephron

D) Joyce Carol Oates

Answer · why

B) Joan Didion

Joan Didion won a Vogue essay contest as a Berkeley senior, and the win took her straight to a job at the magazine.