Q 01/05

Which 1898 war tax was still collected in 2006?

A) Telegrams

B) Rail tickets

C) Patent medicines

D) Phone calls

Answer · why

D) Phone calls

Phone calls: the one-cent levy fell only on costly long-distance calls, and though repealed and revived several times it outlived the war by more than...

Q 02/05

In which harbour did the battleship Maine blow up on the night of 15 February 1898?

A) Veracruz

B) Key West

C) San Juan

D) Havana

Answer · why

D) Havana

Havana: she had been sent after riots in the city to protect Americans there, and the blast killed most of the men aboard, turning a show of the flag ...

Q 03/05

Which territories did Spain cede to the US after the war of 1898?

A) Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines

B) Puerto Rico, Jamaica and the Philippines

C) Cuba, Hawaii and Samoa

D) The Canary Islands, Cuba and Guam

Answer · why

A) Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines

Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines: Cuba, the cause of the war, was not annexed, because Congress had ruled that out in advance, and it became inde...

Q 04/05

Who was US president during the Spanish-American War?

A) Grover Cleveland

B) Theodore Roosevelt

C) William McKinley

D) Benjamin Harrison

Answer · why

C) William McKinley

William McKinley: he held out against the war fever for two months after the Maine blew up, won re-election in 1900, and was shot dead by an assassin ...

Q 05/05

Spanish general Valeriano Weyler earned which nickname in the American press for herding Cuban civilians into camps?

A) The Jailer

B) The Hangman

C) The Wolf

D) The Butcher

Answer · why

D) The Butcher

The Butcher: his camps were meant to cut the rebels off from the countryside, but hunger and disease killed civilians in vast numbers and turned Ameri...