Q 01/05

Which animal was led across St. Louis's new Eads Bridge in 1874 to show the public its steel arches were safe?

A) An elephant

B) A camel

C) A draft horse

D) A bison

Answer · why

A) An elephant

An elephant borrowed from a travelling circus did the job, because people believed the animals refused to step on unsound structures. Andrew Carnegie'...

Q 02/05

Which nickname, shared at first with other steamboat owners, belonged to Cornelius Vanderbilt alone by the late 1840s?

A) The Admiral

B) The Old Skipper

C) The Commodore

D) The Colonel

Answer · why

C) The Commodore

The Commodore was then the highest rank in the US Navy, a fitting title for the man who dominated steamboats on Long Island Sound. He sold his last sh...

Q 03/05

Which lamp fuel was the main product of John D. Rockefeller's Ohio refineries, long before cars needed gasoline?

A) Naphtha

B) Kerosene

C) Benzene

D) Acetylene

Answer · why

B) Kerosene

Kerosene was about 60% of what a refinery got from crude oil, and rivals dumped the rest in rivers. Rockefeller burned the leftover gasoline as refine...

Q 04/05

Andrew Carnegie's money built more than 2,500 of which public buildings, most of them in the United States?

A) Hospitals

B) Concert halls

C) Railway stations

D) Libraries

Answer · why

D) Libraries

Libraries were his thanks to a local colonel who opened his own 400 books to working boys every Saturday night. The teenage Carnegie had been one of t...

Q 05/05

Which private detective firm sent 300 armed agents by river barge to retake Carnegie's Homestead steel works in 1892?

A) Thiel Agency

B) Pinkerton Agency

C) Baldwin-Felts Agency

D) Burns Agency

Answer · why

B) Pinkerton Agency

Pinkerton Agency men were handed Winchester rifles and towed upriver overnight, but the strikers were waiting on the bank. After a day of gunfire the ...