Presidents 25-44
Set 1
1.
Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) My wife Nellie ran the White House with an iron hand. She fired the traditional
ushers and replaced them with an all African-American staff wearing blue uniforms. She
extracted a $12,000 appropriation from Congress for motorcars. Her chief accomplishment as first lady was obtaining several thousand Japanese cherry trees that continue to
beautify Washington today.
(4 pts.) At the Olympics in Sweden, King Gustav V presented Jim Thorpe with two gold
medals. The medals were eventually taken back when it was discovered that Thorpe had
played professional baseball. I became baseball’s most visible fan. Unlike my predecessor, I enjoyed the national pastime and used my honorary pass often to root for the Washington Senators.
(2 pts.) I am the only president to finish third in a presidential election. The Oval Office
was added to the west wing of the White House – an oval office for an oval-shaped president
(Answer: #27 Taft)
2.
Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) From youth, I read the Bible daily and attended religious services faithfully. Because I believed I acted according to God’s plan, I had a certitude my rivals found infuriating. Knowing what course I wished to take, I used my own typewriter to draft messages
and write speeches.
(4 pts.) An historian has written about me: “In terms of substantive legislation, he has
one of the most impressive records of any president in American history.” My successes
included the Federal Reserve Act, the Federal Trade Commission, the Adamson Act,
which provided for an eight-hour workday for railroad employees, and the Federal Farm
Loan Act.
(2 pts.) My first book was Congressional Government, published as I started graduate
school at John Hopkins University in Baltimore. My second book, The State, compared
the American government to foreign governments. It became a standard textbook and
was translated into several foreign languages. I also wrote History of the American People while I taught at Princeton University, one of my alma maters.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
3.
Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I once held a news conference at the “Little White House” in Key West FL. I recommended that the U.S. halt shipments of war supplies to Chiang Kai Shek’s nationalist
forces. My critics later charged that Secretary of State Marshall’s activities helped the
Communists’ ultimate victory in China.
(4 pts.) I was in Paris when President Wilson arrived for the Peace Conference. 30 years
later I still remembered the ovations the Parisians gave Wilson as the greatest I had ever
witnessed. After my upset election victory, the Washington Post put a sign on its building:
"Mr. President, we are ready to eat crow whenever you are ready to serve it."
(2 pts.) During my presidency, my wife Bess was away for months at a time to take care
of her mother. On my first day in office, Secretary of War Stimson told me about the development of the atomic bomb.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
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4.
Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) I permitted radio to cover my speeches once a month, and in that format I gave
70 to 80 radio addresses in all. Yet because of my inability to connect with my audiences,
the speeches were far from effective in making my case. I also held 79 press conferences
during my first year in office. However, since I had no intention of sharing real news with
the reporters, my press conferences rarely produced useful stories. All this hurt me when
I sought reelection.
(4 pts.) Time magazine, which usually supported Republicans, started calling me “President Reject.” My hair turned white and I lost 25 pounds. When veterans marched on
Washington to demand payment of bonuses owed them from World War I, my First Lady
sent coffee and sandwiches to them in their encampment.
(2 pts.) I failed the entrance exam to Stanford twice and gained only conditional admission. My future wife, Lou Henry, was the only woman studying geology at Stanford. We
lived in Australia and Siberia among other places.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
5.
Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) While governor of my home state, I found myself in financial difficulty when I assumed responsibility for notes signed by a friend. I planned to return to private law practice to pay my debts of $130,000 but supporters started a public fund. 5,000 subscribers
paid off all my debts. Later I became the first presidential candidate to use the telephone
for campaign purposes.
(4 pts.) I died either during my term in office or within five years of leaving office. I did not
serve two terms.
(2 pts.) During my presidency, the Spanish-American War was fought.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
6.
Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) At one point in my presidency, I asked Attorney General Edward Levi to consider
supporting anti-busing advocates in a Boston court case, then accepted advice to drop
the idea. Though I never came out directly against civil rights, my lukewarm approach
demonstrated a weakening of the Federal commitment.
(4 pts.) In foreign affairs, I acted vigorously to maintain U.S. power and prestige after the
collapse of Cambodia and South Vietnam. Preventing a new war in the Middle East remained a major objective; by providing aid to both Israel and Egypt, my administration
helped persuade the two countries to accept an interim truce agreement. Soviet leader
Leonid I. Brezhnev and I set new limitations upon nuclear weapons.
(2 pts.) Midway through my presidency, I had replaced all but three members of the previous cabinet. Only Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz,
and Secretary of the Treasury William Simon remained in their posts. I requested the resignation of Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and CIA Director William Colby. I
appointed as replacements White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld to Defense and
Ambassador George Bush to the CIA.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
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7.
Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I fought the misuse of power by giant corporations and brought suit against the
Northern Securities Company, Standard Oil, and American Tobacco. Also Albert Einstein
published his theory of relativity during my presidency.
(4 pts.) I was born and died in the same state. I was the first president to ride in an automobile, fly in an airplane, and go in a submarine.
(2 pts.) I was a fifth cousin of a later president and the uncle of that president’s wife. I established the Pure Food and Drug Administration and chased Great Britain and Germany
out of Venezuela. During my presidency, the Wright brothers made the first airplane flight
at Kitty Hawk, N.C.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
8.
Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) My domestic agenda came from a sincere desire to help the disadvantaged. I
much preferred domestic issues to foreign policy ones, but foreign policy soon overwhelmed me. I did persuade Congress to pass a law suspending literacy and other voter
tests that had been used to keep African-Americans from voting in the South. I was forced
to send troops to Detroit to put down a riot, one of many that broke out across the country.
(4 pts.) I was conscientious about my appearance: my hair was always trimmed, my
shoes shined. However, after I left office and returned to my ranch, I let my silver hair
grow long, in the manner of the hippies and protesters who had helped drive me from the
presidency.
(2 pts.) When I first became president, I continued to prosecute the Vietnam War because I thought my predecessor would have. However, I soon came to believe that the
U.S. could not win in Vietnam. To Robert McNamara, my Secretary of Defense, I said,
“The game now is in the fourth quarter, and it’s about seventy-eight to nothing.”
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
9.
Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) My wife was the first First Lady to testify before a Grand Jury.
(4 pts.) I spoke at the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
(2 pts.) I was the first president to send an e-mail message via the Internet.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
10. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) In my inaugural address, I said Americans would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to insure the survival and the
success of liberty.” I briefly attended the London School of Economics and then Princeton
before finally attending the school from which I graduated.
(4 pts.) I was the first president who had served in the navy. During my administration,
the U.S. made its first manned space flights.
(2 pts.) I was born in the East before the end of World War I but did not die in the East. A
performing arts center in the nation’s capital is named for me.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
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11. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) Because my parents always called me by my middle name, as a young man I reversed my first and middle names. While playing college football, I badly injured my knee
trying to tackle Jim Thorpe. I was the first president to be a licensed pilot.
(4 pts.) At Abilene High, my classmates predicted I would become a professor of history
at Yale. I wanted to go to Annapolis but was too old, and so I went elsewhere.
(2 pts.) After I gained international fame in World War II, both political parties wanted me
to run for president. I chose the Republican Party.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
12. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) At Duke University Law School, I was known as “Iron Butt” and “Gloomy Gus.”
During my presidency, the Pakistan Civil War ended with the creation of the Republic of
Bangladesh.
(4 pts.) I did not enter politics until the end of World War II. I defeated Jerry Voorhis, a
five-term Democrat, for a seat in the House of Representatives.
(2 pts.) I was the first vice president to appear on the postage stamp of a foreign nation,
which was Ecuador. I was the first president to visit China and Russia.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
13. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I appointed Harlan Fiske Stone of New York as Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court and Hugo Black as an Associate Justice. My “Good Neighbor Policy” strengthened
ties with other Western Hemisphere nations.
(4 pts.) I was of a different political party from at least the two preceding presidents. I
was born and died on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon line.
(2 pts.) One of my first acts upon taking office was to declare a bank holiday. The Social
Security system began during my presidency.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
14. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) Several months before the presidential nominating convention, Harry M. Daugherty commented that none of the candidates would gain enough votes to win the nomination and predicted that the Republican leaders would eventually get together in a smokefilled room to choose the party’s candidate. Daugherty expected that the man selected
would be his long-time friend, and he proved to be right: I got the nomination.
(4 pts.) I was the first man to move directly from the U.S. Senate to the White House. I
was also the first president to show motion pictures at the White House. I convened the
Washington Naval Conference on the limitation of armaments, signed the SheppardTowner Act, which provided funding for state programs on infant mortality and health care
for women and children, and pushed the Federal Highway Act through Congress, which
provided $75 million for a national highway system.
(2 pts.) My wife Florence was a great help during the presidential campaign; she appealed to women voters and was well liked by reporters. However, she tried to hide her
previous marriage and divorce. When asked about it, she first denied it, then changed her
story and said she was a widow.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
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15. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I banned smoking On Air Force One for the first time. Pork rinds dipped in hot
sauce replaced my predecessor’s jellybeans as snacks. Broccoli was not allowed on
board. My First Lady championed the causes of literacy and reading, partly because one
of her sons had been dyslexic. At an assembly in a Washington, D.C., school during
Black History Month, she delighted the students by singing from memory all eight verses
of “We Shall Overcome.”
(4 pts.) Success in foreign affairs lifted my approval ratings in the polls to over 90 percent. However, I came to seem increasingly out of touch with the concerns of working
Americans. By my fourth year in office, my disapproval rating on the management of the
economy stood at 80 percent in one Gallup poll. This led to my defeat for reelection.
(2 pts.) I celebrated my 80th birthday by making a parachute jump over College Station,
Texas, where my presidential library is located. I stated after I left the White House: “I
hate Saddam Hussein. I don’t hate a lot of people. I don’t hate easily, but his word is no
good, and I think he’s a brute.”
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
16. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated during my time in the White House. I refused to call a special session of Congress to appropriate funds to relieve victims of the
Mississippi River flood disaster. My wife and I attended the seventh game of the World
Series in which the Washington Senators defeated the New York Giants for their first
championship; my wife was more of a fan, keeping score.
(4 pts.) I was not an admirer of the Republican who succeeded me in the White House.
“That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad!” I said to a member of my cabinet. I was not thrilled the party selected ‘the boy wonder” to succeed me.
Although my two predecessors had both seen movies at the White House, I was a devotee of the new popular art. Films were shown on the presidential yacht, the Mayflower,
and at the various summer retreats of the First Family.
(2 pts.) I was called “a shrewd, taciturn New Englander who loved big business, privacy,
and saving money.” My wife was an expert mimic who gave a wonderful imitation of my
accent. Comedian Will Rogers, an admitted Democrat, said she was “chuck plumb full of
magnetism.” Her passionate interest in the Boston Red Sox became part of her charm.
The White House staff nicknamed her “Sunshine.”
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
17. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I was a senator and governor of the state in which I was born. As governor, I
gained a reputation for appointing blacks to high state positions. I had not held any Federal office prior to my election as president.
(4 pts.) I was of a different political party from both my predecessor and successor.
Deeply religious, I was born east of the Mississippi River. My sister was an evangelist
credited with converting the editor of Hustler magazine, Larry Flynt, to Christianity.
(2 pts.) I served as an aide to Admiral Hyman Rickover. I was forced to leave the Navy to
manage my family’s business when my father died. After my presidency, I attended
Anwar Sadat’s funeral in Egypt with two other former presidents.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
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18. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) My Surgeon General C. Everett Koop called AIDS “the biggest threat to health
this nation has ever faced.” When Nathan Sharansky was freed after nine years in a Russian prison camp, he came to the White House and asked me never to stop my hard line
speeches. Sharansky said news of those speeches was passed from prisoner to prisoner
in the labor camps. I had trouble with my Supreme Court nominees. First, the Senate rejected Robert H. Bork. Then Douglas Ginsburg had to step down after admitting he had
been a pot smoker. Finally, my third choice, Anthony Kennedy, received unanimous Senate approval.
(4 pts.) An aid once said that my attention span “would compare to that of a fruit fly.” I
was called “an amiable dunce.” My election changed the party in control of the White
House. The slogan for my successful reelection campaign was “Morning in America.”
(2 pts.) While president, I broadcast 1 1/2 innings of baseball play-by-play on national
television from the press box at Wrigley Field. This recreated one of the jobs I did as a
young man before going to California.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
19. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I received a bachelor’s degree in history and served as an F-102 fighter pilot in
the Air National Guard.
(4 pts.) After obtaining a Master’s degree, I started a career in the energy business.
(2 pts.) I have a brother who, like me, has been the governor of a southern state.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
Set 2
20. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I was chairman of the National Governors Association. Before becoming governor, I was attorney general of my native state. During my presidency, a NASA rover landed on Mars and transmitted color pictures of the surface back to Earth.
(4 pts.) As a boy, I stayed in my native town while my mother lived in New Orleans to
study nursing. As president, I hosted a summit of world leaders in Denver.
(2 pts.) My wife also attended law school. Also the name Lance Ito became well known
around the world while I was president.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
21. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I was involved in many controversies. One of these led to my famous “Checkers
Speech.” As president, I appointed Warren E. Burger as Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court.
(4 pts.) I won the Republican nomination for president three times. During my presidency, Congress approved a lottery system for the draft and the U.S. completed withdrawal
of combat forces from South Vietnam.
(2 pts.) I served eight years as vice president but less than eight years as president. One
of my favorite pastimes was suggesting plays to football coaches.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
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22. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I declared that every person is entitled to “Four Freedoms”: freedom of speech,
freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
(4 pts.) I was related by blood or marriage to eleven former presidents. Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany just before I took office.
(2 pts.) I was president for the longest time in history. After my death, a Constitutional
amendment was passed limiting the number of terms a president could serve.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
23. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I am credited by many historians with modernizing the office of the presidency by
bringing in a professional staff led by George B. Cortelyou. Unlike my predecessor, I enjoyed the company of reporters and arranged for them to have their own working space
inside the White House. Another innovation was reliance on the telephone. 115 lines were
installed that ran to the eight executive departments as well as to the House and Senate.
(4 pts.) As a sergeant in the Civil War, I won the hearts of my fellow soldiers at the Battle
of Antietam when I dashed to the front with hot coffee and cooked rations to greet the
men returning from the front lines. Later in life, I liked to be called “Major.” In the House of
Representatives, I rose to be chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and made
myself an expert on tariffs. After losing reelection to a Democrat, I twice ran successfully
for governor of my native state.
(2 pts.) Rioting in Havana against Spanish rule led the American consul there to request
the protection of an American warship. I resisted for a time, not wishing to provoke worse
violence. Eventually I asked permission of the Spanish government to send the U.S.S.
Maine. I invited reciprocal visits of Spanish vessels to American ports.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
24. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I entered politics mainly because of my speaking ability. Joining the Foraker faction, I was elected to the state senate. Later I defeated my friend Foraker for the U. S.
Senate. As president, I signed a peace treaty with Austria, Germany, and Hungary.
(4 pts.) I played the cornet, chewed tobacco, and was publisher of the Marion Star. I was
the first president to own a radio.
(2 pts.) I was the first president to die west of the Mississippi River.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
25. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) Before our marriage, my wife was the Washington Time-Herald’s “Inquiring
Camera Girl.” As First Lady, she restored the interior of the White House with authentic
art and furnishings of America’s past.
(4 pts.) I was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal and the Purple Heart for my
heroics in World War II. I had a quick wit. When asked how I became a war hero, I answered, “It was easy; they sank my boat.”
(2 pts.) I was elected by the narrowest margin in U.S. history. I was the sixth president to
lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
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26. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) During my term, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was kidnapped and later found dead, the
“Bonus March” on Washington occurred, and Adolph Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.
(4 pts.) I was born and died in different states and represented a third state, California, at
the convention that nominated me for president. I defeated a Democrat nicknamed “The
Happy Warrior.”
(2 pts.) I was president when the Stock Market crashed, triggering the Great Depression.
This was the primary cause of my defeat for reelection.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
27. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was governor of a state but not the one in which I was born. For my first term, I
defeated the incumbent president. I was the first president to speak live on radio and the
last to go to my inauguration in a horse-drawn carriage.
(4 pts.) During my administration, the Panama Canal admitted commercial traffic, and an
influenza epidemic killed 25,000,000 people worldwide. I was also infected by it, and
some historians think it may have caused brain damage.
(2 pts.) Born in the South, I attended college in the North. I was also president of a northern college that boasts another president among its alumni.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
28. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I won election to the U.S. Senate from my native state by 87 votes. This led to
several nicknames, including "The Senator from the 13th Precinct." As president, I assured the nation: “America wins the wars that she undertakes. Make no mistake about it!”
Privately, however, I was not at all confident that the war would be won.
(4 pts.) I was difficult to work for. On one occasion, when I didn’t like the way a steward
on Air Force One mixed a drink for me, I threw it on the floor. I would issue instructions to
my aides while sitting on the toilet. I was habitually late. I took six reporters on a personal
tour of my ranch – driving my Lincoln Continental at 90 miles an hour.
(2 pts.) Lobbyists opposed to my wife’s campaign to beautify the highways printed IMPEACH LADY BIRD on their billboards.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
29. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) When I took the oath of office as president, I declared, “I assume the Presidency
under extraordinary circumstances.... This is an hour of history that troubles our minds
and hurts our hearts.”
(4 pts.) I was born, obtained a bachelor’s degree, and then a law degree in three different northern states. I described myself as “a moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative
in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs.”
(2 pts.) I was the first vice president chosen under the terms of the 25th Amendment.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
30. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I served as an F-102 pilot for the Air National Guard in my adopted state.
(4 pts.) I was born the year after World War II ended. My father fought in the war.
(2 pts.) My educational agenda as governor and then as president was influenced by my
wife, a former teacher and librarian.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
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31. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My parents seemed well matched: a handsome, wealthy businessman and a
charming, gracious Southern belle whose family was no longer as rich as it once was. My
father hired a substitute to serve for him in the Civil War in deference to his wife’s wish
that he not take up arms against her brothers and cousins. I would be troubled by my father’s failure to serve. My sister Corinne attributed much of my later obsession with war to
a desire to compensate for our father’s deficiency.
(4 pts.) I was elected governor of the largest state in the Union by less than 18,000 votes
out of 1.3 million cast. This election capped six months that utterly transformed my career.
“I have played it in bull luck this summer,” I told a friend. The governor’s salary of $10,000
was better than I had ever made before.
(2 pts.) A series of articles I wrote for Scribner’s magazine was collected into a book titled The Rough Riders. After the death of Garret Hobart, my name started surfacing as
the next vice-president. However, I was not interested. “I really do not see that there is
anything in the vice-presidency for me,” I told a friend. “In the vice-presidency I could do
very little; whereas as governor I can accomplish a great deal.” However, I did accept the
vice-presidential nomination, which turned into another stroke of good luck for me.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
32. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I selected New Hampshire Governor John Sununu as my chief of staff and Brent
Scowcroft as my National Security Adviser.
(4 pts.) I was born and went to college in the North. I was the first sitting vice president to
be elected president since Martin Van Buren.
(2 pts.) I became the fourth left-handed president in history. I met my future wife at a
Christmas party when she was 17 and I was a naval officer.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
33. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Before becoming president, I served in the Senate. Concerned with the world
food crisis, I spoke of “meatless Tuesdays and eggless Thursdays.” The Berlin Airlift took
place during my presidency.
(4 pts.) Rejected by West Point because of bad eyesight, I served in the artillery in World
War I. I was the oldest vice president to become president upon the death of my predecessor.
(2 pts.) I authorized the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
34. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) Among the offices I held were: state legislator, lieutenant governor, and governor. A graduate of Amherst College, I vetoed a bill that would have given the government
control of the Muscle Shoals hydroelectric plant.
(4 pts.) During my presidency, Gutzon Borghum began work on Mount Rushmore, Admiral Byrd flew over the North Pole, and Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight.
(2 pts.) Known for my brevity of speech, I was often “silent” when it came to answering
reporters’ questions. Most of my administration’s actions epitomized the “laissez faire”
style of government.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
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35. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) My first priority was the economy. Less than a month after taking office, in a televised speech, I offered a three-year 30% individual income tax cut. I also proposed slashing over $40 billion from the Federal budget for the fiscal year, cuts that would affect dozens of domestic programs ranging from food subsidies and medical care for the poor to
aid to education.
(4 pts.) To fight the Communist threat in Central America, I sent military aid to El Salvador. I also sent U.S. Marines to join a peacekeeping force in Lebanon. They were recalled
after more than 200 of them were killed in a terrorist attack.
(2 pts.) When elected for the second time, I received more electoral votes than any other
president. I pushed for a “star wars” program to put nuclear weapons in orbit around the
Earth.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
36. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was the first civil governor of the Philippines and later provisional governor of
Cuba. During my presidency, the Union of South Africa was founded, and the Mexican
Revolution began.
(4 pts.) A Republican, I was born in the Midwest but attended college in the East. I did
not seek or enjoy the presidency. Later in my life I said, “The truth is that ... I don’t remember that I ever was president.”
(2 pts.) Weighing over 300 pounds, I needed a special bathtub in the White House.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
37. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) The son of a mechanic, I was not born in the North. My vice president was a future president.
(4 pts.) Some important events of my two-term presidency were the Army-McCarthy
hearings, the signing of the St. Lawrence Seaway Bill, and the Supreme Court declaration
that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional.
(2 pts.) An avid golfer, I made a hole-in-one at the Seven Lake Country Club in Palm
Springs, California. Before moving into the White House, I was president of Columbia
University. I took a leave of absence from that post to organize NATO forces in Europe.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
38. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) One White House staff member, who served many presidents, has said, “In
terms of pure I.Q., [he] was probably the smartest president since Jefferson or Wilson.
But in terms of political intelligence and how you grasp complex problems and create
successful public policy, [his successor] may have been the smartest.” I spent more time
working in my office than any president before Clinton. My National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinksi briefed me at 6:30 every morning.
(4 pts.) I embarked on a nine-day trip, visiting Poland, Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
France, and Belgium. I placed a wreath at the Tomb of Poland’s Unknown Soldier; I also
placed flowers at the monument to Jews who died in the World War II uprising against the
Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto. While I was president, John Lennon was shot and killed by
David Chapman. John Hinckley stalked me at Dayton OH and Nashville TN.
(2 pts.) I started selling peanuts at age 5. Secret Service agents stayed with my daughter
Amy each day as she attended public schools in Washington.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
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Set 3
39. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Before becoming president, I taught school in my home state but quit to enlist in
the Union Army. By the end of the Civil War, I had attained the rank of captain.
(4 pts.) While in the House of Representatives, I authored a tariff act that bears my
name. In order to obtain western votes for the bill, I supported the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. I did not serve two full terms as president.
(2 pts.) “Remember the Maine!” was the battle cry during my administration.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
40. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) My administration’s support for prayer in the public schools and its opposition to
abortion aroused much controversy. My first secretary of state was Alexander Haig.
(4 pts.) I sought the Republican nomination twice before obtaining it. As president, I
caused controversy with a speech at the Bittberg cemetery in Germany. Because of a
slipup by my staff, I was unaware that Nazi S.S. soldiers were buried there.
(2 pts.) Within two months of inauguration, I was shot in the side by John Hinckley outside a Washington hotel. Press Secretary James Brady was seriously wounded in the
head.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
41. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I loved sweet potatoes so much that I had them shipped to the White House from
my home. During my presidency, automobiles, along with electric lights and telephones,
came into widespread use. Marconi sent the first radio message across the Atlantic
Ocean, and a telegraph cable was laid across the Pacific to the Philippines.
(4 pts.) I was born in the East. However, after my wife and mother died on the same day,
I retired to a North Dakota ranch. There I acquired western manners and speech.
(2 pts.) I lost sight in one eye because of a hard punch I received in a boxing practice
session at the White House. I also kept a .44 caliber revolver near my bed.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
42. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) During my administration, the Berlin Wall was erected, and John Glenn orbited
the earth. My brother was my attorney general.
(4 pts.) I won the Pulitzer Prize for my book Profiles in Courage, which some claim I did
not actually write.
(2 pts.) I am the only Roman Catholic to become president and the youngest man ever
elected president.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
43. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I became the second president to address the Japanese parliament. I was photographed jogging while wearing a black cap with a white X on it.
(4 pts.) My middle name is the last name of a previous president. I was once defeated by
Republican Frank White for reelection as governor of my native state.
(2 pts.) The summer Olympics in Atlanta were disrupted by a bomb blast during my presidency.
(Answer: #42 William Jefferson Clinton)
119
44. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was the first president to visit Europe while in office. During my administration,
the 17th, 18th, and 19th amendments were added to the Constitution.
(4 pts.) I was president when the British tanker Lusitania sank with the loss of 128 American lives; also the Treaty of Versailles was signed.
(2 pts.) I won the Nobel Peace Prize for my idea of the League of Nations.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
45. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) An argument over tariffs during a special session of Congress resulted in a resolution calling for an income tax amendment to be submitted to the states for ratification.
Two years after I entered the White House, the mid-term elections were a disaster for the
GOP. The Republicans lost 58 seats in House, yielding control to the Democrats for the
first time since 1894. The Republicans maintained control of the Senate but their margin
was slashed from 29 to 10.
(4 pts.) I was presiding judge of the sixth federal circuit, which comprised Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan. My judicial gifts caused the president to select me to head
the Philippine Commission. I accepted only when he made clear that the post wouldn’t
sidetrack my legal career. A Supreme Court appointment, when a seat came open, was
mentioned. After the commission completed its task, the president persuaded me to stay
on as governor general.
(2 pts.) I was an easy man to misjudge. It was said of me: “He was smart, but like many
fat men – he weighed well over three hundred pounds, at six foot two – he often gave the
impression of laziness.” My older half-brother’s money financed much of my successful
presidential campaign.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
46. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Six days before leaving office, I signed a bill authorizing funds for the Mount
Rushmore sculpture. My successor, even though he was of the same party as me, would
not have signed the bill.
(4 pts.) I said, “Wealth is the chief end of man.” The Democrats took over 100 ballots to
nominate John W. Davis, a corporate attorney, to run against me. Robert LaFollette also
ran on the Progressive Party ticket.
(2 pts.) My only vice president, Charles Dawes, won half of the Nobel Peace Prize for revising Germany’s reparations payment schedule. I stated one of the rules I lived by like
this: “You don’t have to explain something you haven’t said.”
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
47. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I spent 14 months as head of the U.S. diplomatic mission in China. The man I defeated for the presidency was born in the same state I was.
(4 pts.) I appointed a prominent Democrat, Robert Strauss, as ambassador to the Soviet
Union. Like my wife, I was diagnosed as having Graves’ Disease, which causes an overactive thyroid. The White House water was checked to see if it was the source of the disease.
(2 pts.) During World War II, I bailed out of a burning plane and spent several hours in
the Pacific Ocean before being picked up by a submarine.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
120
48. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) The Office of Management and Budget was established to replace the Bureau of
the Budget. My administration pushed through environmental legislation and expanded
spending on social programs. It also opened unprecedented contact with China. I have
been dubbed by one commentator as “the last liberal president.” However, most people
do not remember me as being liberal.
(4 pts.) One historian has written, “He could be brilliant in his analysis of foreign policy
questions, and he had an encyclopedic grasp of American politics.” That political
knowledge had been gained from many years experience in both houses of Congress
and as vice-president. I had also lost races for the presidency and for the governorship of
my native state.
(2 pts.) I resigned after the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment against me.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
49. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) Before becoming president, I was the youngest Senate Democratic leader ever.
During my presidency, Time magazine got on my bad side by publishing an account of
my driving a Lincoln Continental at 90 m.p.h. along the back roads of my ranch while
drinking beer from a paper cup. After my presidency, it came to light that I used Pentagon
money to fund improvements to my ranch. Supposedly, I even ordered marine helicopters
to herd my peacocks.
(4 pts.) In 2001, the book Reaching for Glory by Michael Beschloss was released. It was
based on thousands of newly released tapes from the Presidential Library recorded on
the covert White House taping system. The author also had access to daily diary tapes
made by my First Lady.
(2 pts.) Two American destroyers patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin east of Vietnam reported
they had been attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Neither ship sustained damage. But after consulting advisors, I authorized retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnamese naval targets. Needing a show of congressional support for my escalation actions
against North Vietnam, I submitted to Congress the Southern Asia Resolution, popularly
called the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. This gave me congressional support to “take all necessary measures to repel armed attack against the forces of the U.S....” The resolution
passed both houses of Congress overwhelmingly.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
50. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) My first goal in office was to curb inflation. Then, when recession became the
most serious domestic problem, I shifted to measures aimed at stimulating the economy.
In my first 14 months as president, I vetoed 39 measures. My vetoes were usually sustained by Congress.
(4 pts.) A few weeks before my election to the House of Representatives, I married Elizabeth Bloomer. We had four children: Michael, John, Steven, and Susan. I ended up
serving 24 years in the House.
(2 pts.) Pardoning my predecessor undoubtedly cost me reelection. On his Inauguration
Day, my successor began his speech by thanking me “for all he has done to heal our
land.”
(Answer: #38 Ford)
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51. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I was an ensign when I married. My first three children (all sons) were born in different Navy hospitals. I served in the Navy until the age of 29.
(4 pts.) I kept a personal diary while president, speaking into a tape recorder. It eventually ran to 6000 pages. I appointed three women to my cabinet and named no fewer than
41 women to federal judgeships. White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan was accused of using cocaine. Jordan’s case marked the first time a special prosecutor was appointed to investigate a government official as allowed by the Ethics in Government Act.
Eventually, the charges against Jordan were dismissed for lack of evidence.
(2 pts.) In 2001, I wrote a book with my wife Rosalynn called An Hour before Daylight:
Memories of a Rural Boyhood. In it, I reflected on my stern father whom I respected but
never felt very close to. I also wrote about many black neighbors who became my friends,
tutors, and sometimes models.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
52. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I took a leave of absence from private business to work as a consultant and
speechwriter for a Republican presidential candidate. The candidate won the election.
That same candidate later advised me in my run for the Oval Office.
(4 pts.) My father and I received bachelors’ degrees from the same university.
(2 pts.) I defeated Anne Richards, the incumbent, for the governorship of a southern
state. I billed myself as a “compassionate conservative.”
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
53. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) One alteration I made in the White House was the installation of a swimming
pool. During my first term, I developed plans for my presidential library in a northern state.
It opened for research shortly after my time in the White House ended. This started a
trend whereby presidents donate their papers to their own libraries.
(4 pts.) This has been written about my wife and me: “They were cousins, from one of
the oldest aristocratic families in [their native state]. He was handsome, patrician, confident, and outgoing; she was plain, painfully shy, insecure, and socially awkward. Together, [they] forged a political marriage … that was perhaps the most influential in American
history …”
(2 pts.) I first met Winston Churchill during World War I while I was assistant secretary of
the navy. “I have always disliked him,” I told a friend. However, I came to like and admire
Churchill when we worked together to defeat one of the greatest threats in world history.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
54. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The term “fall guy” comes from an incident in my administration. The Lincoln
Memorial was dedicated while I was president.
(4 pts.) A Republican, I was born north of the Mason-Dixon Line and east of the Mississippi. The Reparations Commission set the cost that the Axis countries would have to pay
for World War I at 132 billion gold marks. Inflation in Germany reached the point where
one dollar equaled 4.2 billion marks.
(2 pts.) I sought to revive confidence in my administration by making a speaking tour. I
crossed the country and made the first presidential visit to Canada and Alaska. On my
way home, I died suddenly in the Palace Hotel 17 years after it had been rebuilt following
an earthquake and fire.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
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55. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The great Mississippi River flood made me a national hero and directly led to my
nomination for president. Before the flood, I was not listed among my party’s nominees for
president. After I directed the flood relief efforts, I became the favorite candidate. Fluent in
five languages, my wife held a degree in geology from my alma mater. As First Lady, she
spoke on national radio to young people about their duties in the home.
(4 pts.) I responded to more than one crisis in my lifetime. When World War I broke out, I
was living in London. From there, I helped over 120,000 Americans fleeing the war zone
to get back to the U.S. and also set up the first international relief agency. When the U.S.
entered the war, President Wilson brought me back to America and put me in charge of
the Food Administration.
(2 pts.) The gross national product was cut almost in half during my term. Adding to the
economic woes the nation faced, a fire broke out in the White House on Christmas Eve.
My wife and I gave thousands of dollars of their own money to strangers who wrote the
White House begging for help. We insisted the gifts be kept anonymous.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
56. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I signed the act changing the name of the Boulder Dam to Hoover Dam. However, I was not of the same party as Hoover. I also awarded the Medal of Honor to Commander Joseph T. O’Callaghan, the first chaplain to receive the award.
(4 pts.) The son of a farmer, I got my political start in the Prendergast machine. As president, I suggested increases in Social Security, compulsory national health insurance, and
wage and price controls to stabilize the economy. This increase in government was bankrolled by tax increases, which were insufficient, however, to prevent the national debt
from surpassing the record set by my Democratic predecessor.
(2 pts.) Two of my sayings were “The buck stops here” and “If you can’t take the heat,
get out of the kitchen.” Considered a failure when I left office, I am now ranked as one of
our best presidents.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
57. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) In the last year of my presidency, I received an honorary degree from Notre
Dame; at the ceremony, I sat alongside another honorary degree winner, Cardinal Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. Four years earlier, my brother Milton had argued strenuously
that I should not run for reelection because of my health.
(4 pts.) During my second term, I found the national political environment less friendly.
My unwillingness to endorse the Supreme Court’s decision involving the desegregation of
schools helped lead to the Little Rock crisis. The economy soured toward the end of the
decade. Meanwhile, the Democrats retained control of both houses of Congress. In Iran
and Guatemala, the United States orchestrated coups to topple governments presumed
to be leaning toward the Soviet side or that were antagonistic to American interests.
(2 pts.) My son John wrote a memoir about me in 2003 called General Ike: A Personal
Reminiscence.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
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Set 4
58. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My father invested in the railroad business. When I was young, I was shy and
had few friends. After I entered college, I became very popular. One of the men I defeated
for president was Wendell Willkie.
(4 pts.) During my first “Hundred Days” in office, Congress passed more decisive legislation than in any previous Congressional session. The many agencies that were set up
were called an “alphabet soup.”
(2 pts.) I met with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at Teheran, Iran, and at Yalta in
the Crimea.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
59. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I lived on the family farm until I went to college. We didn’t have electricity until I
was 13 years old. I have written that, as a boy, “all my close neighbors were black families.” The party in charge of the White House changed when I was elected president.
(4 pts.) “Billy Beer” was marketed to take advantage of the fame of my brother. I tried to
distance myself by explaining that my brother was seriously ill and that I had no control
over him. My public approval rating sank to 22 percent, the lowest rating of any president
since the poll began in 1939. Even Nixon had a 25 percent rating before he resigned.
(2 pts.) After the presidency, I became an active volunteer for Habitat for Humanity, a
charitable group that constructs housing for the needy. One of the books I have written is
Christmas in Plains.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
60. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I denied clemency to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who had been convicted of
spying for the Soviet Union. The Atomic Energy Act permitted private power companies to
own nuclear reactors for producing electricity.
(4 pts.) I was of a different political party than my predecessor. The Senate refused to
confirm Lewis L. Strauss as secretary of commerce, the first Cabinet nominee since 1925
to be rejected. The Senate did, however, approve my appointment of a Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court.
(2 pts.) My highest rank in the West Point cadet corps was color sergeant. I am one of
four men who were not elected to any political office before becoming president.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
61. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) When I was young, my haberdashery business failed, after which I entered politics and studied law.
(4 pts.) I made the first coast-to-coast television broadcast. After my presidency, I devoted much time to writing and establishing a library in my hometown where my official papers are housed.
(2 pts.) Friends called my wife “Bess.” I called her “The Boss” and my daughter Margaret, “The Boss’ Boss.” My accomplishments as president led Winston Churchill to tell me,
“You, more than any other man, have saved Western Civilization.”
(Answer: #33 Truman)
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62. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) Cambodian Communist troops seized the Mayaguez, a U.S. merchant ship, in
the Gulf of Siam. I sent 200 Marines, who quickly recaptured the ship and rescued its 39
crew members.
(4 pts.) While in Congress, a member of my staff, John Stiles, and I wrote a book about
Lee Harvey Oswald called Portrait of the Assassin.
(2 pts.) I pardoned my predecessor, an act that probably cost me reelection.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
63. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) Our first daughter, Robin, died of leukemia at age four. That was when my wife’s
hair turned prematurely gray. We had five other children. Our 14 grandchildren include
twin girls. I cut my political teeth when I ran for County Party Chairman in my adopted
state. Four years later, I ran for the U.S. Senate but, after easily winning my party’s primary, lost to the incumbent, Ralph Yarborough, in the general election.
(4 pts.) After Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, I lobbied President Ford to appoint
me as vice-president. When Nelson Rockefeller was chosen instead, Ford gave me my
choice of another assignment. I chose to head the U.S. Liaison Office in Peking, China.
(2 pts.) I am one of only three men to serve eight years as vice-president before becoming president. When I won the Republican nomination for president, I chose Dan Quayle
as my running mate because I thought his good looks would attract women voters.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
64. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) As a man of international distinction, I was courted by both Republicans and
Democrats. The Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles during my last year as president.
(4 pts.) I was from the same party as the president right before me but not the president
who followed me.
(2 pts.) I am one of four presidents who were not elected to any political office before becoming president. Because of the worldwide economic crisis, I proposed a one-year
freeze on debts owed by nations following World War I.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
65. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) In my home state, I practiced law, served in the legislature, was lieutenant governor, and finally governor. During my presidency, “speakeasies” flourished despite efforts by government agents like Elliot Ness to enforce the national prohibition on sales of
alcoholic beverages.
(4 pts.) My administration appointed J. Edgar Hoover director of the Bureau of Investigation, which became the F.B.I. and which he headed for 48 years. Although farmers successfully lobbied Congress for relief from depressed conditions, I vetoed the resulting
McNary-Haugen Bill. I held no press conferences.
(2 pts.) I wrote an autobiography. Like my two predecessors, I favored entrance of the
U.S. into the League of Nations. However, I made no effort to gain ratification of the
League Covenant by the Senate.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
125
66. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I established the White House press room. However, I referred to some reporters
as “muckrakers.”
(4 pts.) An easterner by birth, I lived for at least ten years after leaving office. I persuaded Congress to establish the Bureau of Corporations, an investigative agency in the newly created Department of Commerce and Labor.
(2 pts.) I was the first American to receive a Nobel Prize. I earned it for my services in
ending the Russo-Japanese War.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
67. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was one of the Allied leaders known as the “Big Four.” During my presidency,
the prohibition amendment was passed, and women were given the right to vote in Federal elections.
(4 pts.) Near the end of my second term, I suffered a stroke that incapacitated me for the
rest of my presidency. My health continued to worsen after I left office, and I died a few
years later.
(2 pts.) A cartoon summarized my election to my first term: “An Elephant Divided by a
Bull Moose Equals a Donkey.”
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
68. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was from the Midwest. My wife relied on clairvoyants (crystal ball gazers). The
men who wanted me to run for president knew they had her assistance because one of
her seers told her she would some day be First Lady. Her favorite clairvoyant in Washington was “Madame Marcia.”
(4 pts.) Because I was not nominated until the ninth ballot, I was called “everyone’s second choice.” One of my beliefs was “What we want in America is less government in
business and more business in government.”
(2 pts.) My secretary of the interior, Albert Fall, caused my administration its most embarrassing scandal involving the leasing of government lands to oil companies.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
69. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I gained national prominence with a dazzling speech supporting Barry Goldwater’s presidential bid. Brief radio addresses were one way I kept in touch with my conservative base after I left the governorship of my adopted state.
(4 pts.) When I sent troops into Grenada during my first term in the White House, that
country became the first nation that had been Communist to stop being Communist. The
State of the Union address gained new show business aspects during my administration.
My addresses introduced heroes, prominent Americans, and human examples of policy
needs among the guests sitting in the visitors’ gallery.
(2 pts.) My successor gave the eulogy at my funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington. Among the dignitaries attending the service were former Soviet Premier Mikhail
Gorbachev, the interim president of Iraq, Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, and Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whom I had appointed.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
126
70. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I gained national fame as a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee. I pressed charges against Alger Hiss, a former state department official accused
of passing information to a Russian spy ring during the 1930s. The publicity helped me
win election to the Senate.
(4 pts.) A Quaker, I was born and attended college in the same state. My wife, Thelma
Ryan, was born on St. Patrick’s Day.
(2 pts.) During my administration, two American astronauts became the first people to
walk on the moon, and the voting age in the U.S. was lowered to 18 by a Constitutional
amendment.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
71. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) A few days before my first presidential election, I admitted that 24 years earlier I
had been arrested for drunk driving in Maine. However, I had stopped drinking entirely ten
years after that arrest.
(4 pts.) In my first year in office, I signed the No Child Left Behind Act. I also signed the
broad-based tax cut that I had promised in my campaign.
(2 pts.) My first political involvement was in my father’s successful presidential campaign.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
72. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I was elected attorney general of my native state. Two years later, at age 32, I
became the youngest governor in the United States.
(4 pts.) As a high school senior, I went to Boys Nation in Washington, a special youth
leadership conference. When the group went to the White House, I shook President Kennedy’s hand in the Rose Garden.
(2 pts.) In high school, I won first chair in my state band’s saxophone section. Mike Tyson imitated Dracula in his rematch with Evander Holyfield during my second term in the
White House.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
73. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Arizona and New Mexico were admitted to the Union, making me president of 48
states. I was a horseman of considerable ability and a good dancer.
(4 pts.) My predecessor called me “hopeless” and “a fathead.” I responded by calling my
former friend “a dangerous egotist” and “a demagogue.” I was the first golfing enthusiast
to live in the White House.
(2 pts.) Although renominated for a second term, I received only eight electoral votes. I
was actually relieved and wrote, “The nearer I get to the inauguration of my successor the
greater the relief I feel.”
(Answer: #27 Taft)
74. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I lost my bid for an eighth term in Congress but a year later became governor of
a Midwest state.
(4 pts.) When I won the presidency using a “front porch” campaign, I became the last
Civil War soldier to become president.
(2 pts.) I was shot by Leon Czolgosz.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
127
75. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I could trace my ancestors back seven generations to settlers living in Virginia in
the 17th century. My family also has a tradition of public office: my great grandfather had
been a sheriff, justice of the peace, and judge in Georgia; my father served in the Texas
House of Representatives; and my son-in-law, Chuck Robb, served as Governor of Virginia.
(4 pts.) Although I had intended to focus on domestic programs, U.S. involvement in
Southeast Asia soon came to dominate my presidency. The U.S. had supported South
Vietnam with weapons, military advisors, and economic aid. I increased our commitment
by sending American combat troops to South Vietnam.
(2 pts.) Arguably the two most influential leaders of the civil rights movement, Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, were assassinated during my time in office. I decreed the day of Dr. King’s funeral a day of national mourning.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
76. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) My administration built the Situation Room in the West Wing where today’s presidents plan their wars. It replaced the Map Room that Franklin Roosevelt used during
World War II. It was in the Situation Room that Bill Clinton, who admired me greatly,
made his TV confession about Monica Lewinsky.
(4 pts.) Both my wife and I had a big impact on American culture. Life magazine printed
my top ten list of favorite reading, which included From Russia with Love. This helped
popularize the James Bond books and led to a series of movies. Before signing a ban on
the import of Cuban goods, I stocked up with 1,000 Cuban cigars. I was born in the North.
(2 pts.) The son of an Irish saloonkeeper, my father Joseph graduated from Harvard, became a bank president at age 24 and a millionaire at 35. He bought 30,000 copies of my
first book, While England Slept, making it a best seller. Joe accepted a post as Chairman
of the Securities and Exchange Commission under Franklin Roosevelt. It is speculated
that if FDR had not run for a third term, dad might have been the Democratic nominee.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
Set 5
77. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) My wife and I attended the Rose Bowl while I was president-elect and saw undefeated Ohio State defeat undefeated U.S.C. with O.J. Simpson. Governor Ronald Reagan
and his wife Nancy attended with us. As president, I traveled to Moscow, where Soviet
leader Leonid Brezhnev and I signed SALT I, a treaty that limited the buildup of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
(4 pts.) My Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman, served eighteen months in prison for conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice. John Dean, my legal counsel, pleaded guilty to
conspiracy to obstruct justice but served only four months in prison due to his cooperation
with prosecutors.
(2 pts.) After the presidency, I was permanently disbarred from practicing law. However, I
made over $3,000,000 from my books and television appearances, in addition to my annual federal pension. Anthony Summers wrote a biography of me entitled The Arrogance
of Power.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
128
78. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) When the United States entered World War II, my father was managing partner
of Brown Brothers Harriman in New York City. On October 20, 1942, the U.S. government
ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations that were being conducted by my
father.
(4 pts.) I was from the same party as my predecessor. Some of my sayings were: “a
thousand points of light,” “line in the sand,” “kinder and gentler nation,” “voodoo economics,” and “read my lips, no new taxes.” I brought my love of horseshoes to the White
House by having a pit installed; my successor had it removed.
(2 pts.) In 2002, I paid a visit to the watery grave of my Avenger bomber, downed by
ground fire after a run on a radio tower on the South Pacific island of Chichi-jima in 1944.
My wife Barbara said she would like to see Saddam Hussein hanged; he had, after all,
called for her husband’s death.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
79. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) While in the Navy, I studied at Union College in Schenectady, New York. While I
was president, a near-disaster occurred when the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island, Pa., malfunctioned.
(4 pts.) Many called me too idealistic in foreign policy. My popularity was not helped
when a beer was named for my younger brother.
(2 pts.) My greatest triumph was the Camp David Treaty that I helped Menachim Begin
of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt to negotiate.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
80. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) A Federal court ordered the Univ. of Mississippi Law School to accept James
Meredith as its first black student. I sent troops to ensure his enrollment.
(4 pts.) I wrote the book Why England Slept based somewhat on my experiences in England where my father was ambassador. I was constantly troubled by back problems resulting from a football injury.
(2 pts.) A book and movie, both entitled PT-109, spotlighted my military experiences. I
donated my presidential salary to charity.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
81. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I appointed the first Jew, Louis Brandeis, to the Supreme Court and the first
woman as a sub-Cabinet member. Before becoming president, I said, “Nothing has
spread socialistic feeling in this country more than the use of the automobile. To the country man they are a picture of the arrogance of wealth with all its independence and carelessness.”
(4 pts.) I thought inaugural balls were frivolous, so I didn’t have one. Yet my secret desire
was to be a vaudeville actor, and I allowed my second wife to learn to ride a bicycle in the
corridors of the White House.
(2 pts.) I disappointed many liberals by maintaining the “Big Stick” policy toward Latin
America. I sent General Pershing with 6,000 troops into Mexico in pursuit of the bandit,
Pancho Villa.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
129
82. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The landlord of the house I rented as a Summer White House would not renew
the lease because of the mobs of sightseers. I was the first president to have government
automobiles at my disposal.
(4 pts.) I authorized Secretary of State Knox to pursue what was called “Dollar Diplomacy,” using trade and commerce to increase U.S. influence. The U.S. made loans to China,
Nicaragua, Honduras, and other countries to encourage investments by bankers in these
countries.
(2 pts.) Any function I attended as president was automatically a “weighty” affair.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
83. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) During my presidency, the Kellogg-Briand Pact condemned the use of war to
solve international problems. I gave an address at the dedication of Mount Rushmore as
a national memorial, which marked the start of Gutzon Borglum’s work on the faces of the
presidents he carved out of the mountain side.
(4 pts.) I couldn’t understand why Great Britain couldn’t pay its war debt of over $4 billion. “They hired the money, didn’t they?” I said.
(2 pts.) When informed that I had died, the wit Dorothy Parker remarked, “How can they
tell?” I was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite presidents. However, George Bush replaced
my picture in the White House with that of another Republican, Theodore Roosevelt.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
84. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) As a young man, I studied for the ministry and clerked in a post office in the town
of Poland. I was known for my devotion to my epileptic wife, Ida Saxton.
(4 pts.) My election changed the party in the White House. The Boxer Rebellion against
foreigners in China took place during my presidency.
(2 pts.) At the Pan-American Exposition, the bullets of an anarchist ended my presidency.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
85. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) In 1998, the second largest Federal building (after the Pentagon) was named for
me. In 1999, Arthur Morris wrote an “authorized biography” in which the author was a
character in a semi-fictional account. I claimed to have rescued 77 people as a lifeguard.
Some say that as president I rescued the U.S. in a time of despair.
(4 pts.) My election transferred control of the White House from a man from one coast to
a man from the other. In honor of a famous speech I made at the Berlin Wall, a section of
the wall is in my library/museum. My second term was marred by illness including colon
cancer and prostate surgery as well as by the “Irangate” scandal.
(2 pts.) In 2000, my wife Nancy published selections from my letters to her over our lifetime. In 2001, I became the president who lived to the oldest age, surpassing John Adams.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
130
86. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) As vice president, I served as chairman of the Space Council, the Peace Corps
National Advisory Council, and the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. The
president sent me as his special representative to trouble spots of the Cold War. When
the Communists built the Berlin Wall, I traveled to Germany to reassure the people of
West Berlin that the U.S. stood firmly behind them.
(4 pts.) I won one of the greatest landslide victories in history. My Republican opponent,
Barry Goldwater, won only Arizona and five southern states.
(2 pts.) I took my first oath as president on an airplane with my predecessor’s wife as
well as my own wife at my side.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
87. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) When coal miners went on strike and railroad workers threatened to follow suit, I
seized the mines and railroads. Settlements were reached, but my actions made me
many enemies.
(4 pts.) I fired General Douglas MacArthur with the explanation, “He wouldn’t respect the
authority of the presidency.”
(2 pts.) I called my program the “Fair Deal” because I thought it would help both rich and
poor.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
88. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was the first president to ride a car to my inauguration, which was the first at
which a public address system was used and the first to be described over the radio.
(4 pts.) I moaned to a friend, “I knew this job would be too much for me.” To another I
said, “I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.”
(2 pts.) I pardoned the Socialist Eugene V. Debs and 23 others convicted of espionage
and other wartime activities. My administration secretly leased Naval reserve #3, called
“Teapot Dome,” to Harry F. Sinclair.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
89. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) A sickly child, I could not go to school. However, I recovered from asthma and
lived a strenuous adult life. Everyone in my family had a pair of stilts.
(4 pts.) While governor of my native state, I angered many in my party by exposing corruption. To get me out of the way, the party nominated me for vice president.
(2 pts.) I became a hero at the Battle of San Juan. My secretary of state, who was also
one of my best friends, was my handpicked successor. However, after four years I disliked what my friend had done so much that I ran for president on the “Bull Moose” ticket.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
90. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) I earned more than $500,000 a year from part time jobs after leaving the presidency. When a journalist questioned all this merchandising of an ex-president, I replied, “I
have to earn a living.”
(4 pts.) My wife was outspoken both as First Lady and ex-First Lady. She was open
about her alcoholism and breast cancer.
(2 pts.) Although I was the only child of my real parents, I had six half-brothers and six
half-sisters as both my parents remarried.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
131
91. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I approved extension of Social Security to millions of self-employed citizens, increased aid to farmers, raised the minimum hourly wage to $1, and started construction of
the 42,500-mile Interstate Highway System.
(4 pts.) I was the first president to serve a limited term as provided by the 22nd Amendment. After serving two terms, I retired to my home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
(2 pts.) I was the last president born in the 19th century.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
92. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) One of my few setbacks as president was my attempt to pack the Supreme
Court. Frustrated that many of my laws had been ruled unconstitutional by the “old men”
on the Court, I wanted to increase the number of seats on the Court. However, Congress
refused.
(4 pts.) I married my distant cousin and was the first president to ride in an airplane. During a reelection campaign, I provided destroyers to Great Britain despite Congressional
opposition. This precedent was later cited by the Reagan administration to justify aid to
the Nicaraguan Contras.
(2 pts.) My political career was considered over when I contracted polio. However, I went
on to become governor of my native state and then president.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
93. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) My first taste of the political arena came at age 26 when I worked on the campaign of Senator Winton Blount of Alabama.
(4 pts.) I was born in the North. My election changed the party in the White House.
(2 pts.) For many years, I worked in the oil and gas business in my adopted state.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
94. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My wife served as national president of the Girl Scouts, who called her “Buffalo.”
A Farm Board, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, and the Home Owners Loan
Corporation were set up during my term. I was born and died on opposite sides of the
Mississippi River.
(4 pts.) I served as chairman of the Colorado River Commission and the St. Lawrence
Waterway Commission. The first time I ran for president, I received 444 electoral votes;
the second time, only 59.
(2 pts.) When questioned about the food shipments I supervised to Russia, I replied,
“Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they should be fed.”
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
95. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I went to Catholic elementary school for several years. One of my teachers was
Sister Mary Amaia McGee.
(4 pts.) My father was killed in an automobile accident three months before I was born.
Needing to support herself and her child, my mother, Virginia, moved to New Orleans to
study nursing. When she remarried, my last name was legally changed to my stepfather’s
name.
(2 pts.) For my first term in the White House, I defeated my predecessor. For my second
term, I defeated the man who had been Senate Majority Leader.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
132
Set 6
96. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Both my father and father-in-law were Presbyterian ministers. My first two years
in the White House were marked by great success in domestic affairs. However, my last
six years were dominated by foreign affairs.
(4 pts.) As a boy, I was called “Tommy.” I didn’t learn to read until I was ten years old. A
later generation of doctors and educators probably would have diagnosed dyslexia, but in
my time I just seemed slow. The first college I attended was Davidson in North Carolina.
(2 pts.) When my wife died during my first term as president, I was so depressed that I
had difficulty carrying out my duties. I even considered not running for a second term.
However, my physician introduced me to a widow, Edith Gault, who lifted me out of my
depression. Advisors wanted me to wait until after reelection to marry her but I wouldn’t
hear of it. We had a small ceremony at her house in Washington and honeymooned in
Hot Springs, Virginia.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
97. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) My aunt was a gifted piano player and teacher. When I was 12 and showed
promise on the piano, I left my family for six months to live with her and take daily lessons. I was a substitute lineman on the football team of the small college I attended in my
native state.
(4 pts.) I am the only man to become president after leaving the vice presidency. During
my first year in the White House, a quarter of a million protesters gathered in Washington
for Moratorium Day. Four years later, Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn created TCP/IP and
coined the term “Internet.” My White House staff kept an “Enemies List,” which included
Bill Cosby, Jane Fonda, and Paul Newman, among many others.
(2 pts.) In 2001, the National Archives set up a competition among electronics experts to
see if any could recover some of the conversation from the 18 1/2 minute gap of my conversation with my aide Robert Haldeman a few days after the Watergate break in. My
personal secretary Rose Mary Woods had said that she accidentally erased that part of
the tape.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
98. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My theme song was “A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” On my honeymoon, I
cast my first vote in a presidential election – for Garfield. During the Civil War, my father
purchased a substitute to fight for myself. He did this partly because his wife was from
Georgia and had brothers in the Confederate Army.
(4 pts.) One of my nicknames was “Trust Buster” because I fought against monopolies. I
served more than one term as president.
(2 pts.) At age 55, I led an expedition through South America to map the “River of
Doubt,” which was later renamed in my honor.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt – the river’s name is now “Rio Teodoro”)
133
99. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) During my presidency, Benito Mussolini declared himself the Dictator of Italy.
Just before I left office, Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta.
(4 pts.) On paper, I was one of the most eloquent presidents. However, I once said, “The
American people want a solemn ass as president and I think I’ll go along with them.”
(2 pts.) The country prospered during my administration but seven months after I left office came “Black Tuesday” on Wall Street.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
100. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) The convention, which nominated me for my first term, was the last convention of
my party that took more than one ballot to decide the nominee. One of my opponents for
the presidency was the last nominee of my party not to win on the first ballot.
(4 pts.) Prior to the presidency, I served as assistant secretary of the navy and was my
party’s nominee for vice president with presidential nominee James Cox in the first election in which women could vote.
(2 pts.) During my first presidential campaign, my party first used its theme song, “Happy
Days Are Here Again!” The book and movie Gone with the Wind both appeared during my
presidency.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt – 1932 was the last Democratic convention to take more
than one ballot for president and 1940, Wendell Willkie, was the last Republican one.)
101. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I inherited from the previous administration the most serious economic recession
since the Great Depression. I vetoed 48 bills within my first 21 months in office, saying
that most would be too costly for the American people.
(4 pts.) As a young man, I worked as a forest ranger and model. One of my sons later
became an actor.
(2 pts.) My selection of Nelson Rockefeller, the former Governor of New York, as my vice
president angered the conservative wing of my party. My predecessor had converted the
White House swimming pool into office space. I restored the pool but ruled that swimming
was strictly a “suits on” affair.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
102. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Just one week after my inauguration, the State Department charged Czechoslovakia with violating the Helsinki agreement on human rights and the next day criticized
the Soviet Union for its efforts to silence Andre Sakharov. In February of that first year,
the U.S. reduced aid to Argentina, Ethiopia, and Uruguay because of human rights violations. The next month, I discussed the rights issue in an address before the General Assembly of the United Nations.
(4 pts.) My first presidential campaign included the second series of televised debates
between presidential candidates. However, they were the first ones involving a sitting
president. The first debate between vice presidential candidates was also held during the
campaign.
(2 pts.) I was the first president to graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy, the first sworn
in using my nickname, and the first to walk from the Capitol to the White House after my
inauguration.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
134
103. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) As governor, I pushed anti drug and anti crime measures, including the death
penalty. I promoted substantial new spending on public education and bilingual programs.
This helped my popularity with Hispanic voters.
(4 pts.) I debated my Democratic opponent several times during the campaign. While
polls showed that most people considered the Democrat to have shown a better grasp of
the issues during the debate, the polls also showed that more people found me more
trustworthy.
(2 pts.) When I took the oath of office, I became the second president who was the son
of a former president.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
104. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) In my first year as president, I announced the Apollo program. A group of Freedom Riders entered Montgomery, Alabama, by bus to test local segregation laws. Rioting
broke out and the attorney general sent U.S. marshals to restore order.
(4 pts.) While a senator, I had an operation on my back. I was so close to death that the
last rites were administered.
(2 pts.) Born in the North, I died in the South. During my term, the Russian cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth, and Alan B. Shepard, Jr., became the first American in
space with a 15-minute suborbital flight.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
105. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) As a young man, I applied for flight school and was approved. However, my fiancé’s father withdrew his consent for my marriage to his daughter so I withdrew my application and married the following year. However, I learned to fly at age 46 in the Philippines. Later I rode in the first presidential helicopter flight.
(4 pts.) I attended college and died in the North. I ordered complete desegregation of the
armed forces, saying “There must be no second class citizens in this country.”
(2 pts.) I had 27 homes in 38 years at army posts all over the world. British Railways refitted a Pullman car called “Joan” to serve as my mobile headquarters.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
106. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I grew up in a dysfunctional family, with an abusive stepfather and a party-loving,
gambling mother. I promised voters that I would feel their pain as president.
(4 pts.) While I was engaged to her, my fiancée was on the staff of the House of Representatives investigation of the Nixon impeachment. Even before she married me, she
predicted I would be president. I called her “the smartest woman I ever met.”
(2 pts.) In the summer of 2004, my long overdue autobiography, My Life, was finally published. This tardiness was not unexpected because, as president, I was notorious for my
lack of punctuality. I was called “more brilliant than disciplined.” Also “few presidents have
been more gifted orators.” Sometimes I improvised on the themes of my speech as it
rolled through the teleprompter.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
135
107. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) As a young man, I taught school before serving in the military. Upon discharge, I
entered the law. As president, I supported the Dingley Act that raised tariffs.
(4 pts.) My wife developed epilepsy following a nervous breakdown caused by the
deaths of our only two children in infancy. Whenever she had a seizure in public, I would
place a handkerchief over her face to conceal her contorted features.
(2 pts.) Since I refused to leave my wife’s side, I ran a “front porch” campaign for president. My supporters, including some of the nation’s wealthiest citizens, were brought to
my home where the front porch served as the setting for our discussions.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
108. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I served as a state and Federal judge and solicitor general of the U.S. My father
was attorney general in Grant’s Cabinet.
(4 pts.) My inauguration day saw one of the worst blizzards to hit Washington in years. I
turned to my wife and said, “I always said it would be a cold day when I got to be President of the U.S.”
(2 pts.) From boyhood, friends called me “Lubber.” By the end of my presidency I
weighed 335 pounds. I eventually dieted down to 244 pounds, only one pound more than
I weighed as a college senior.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
109. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) As a young man, I worked as a timekeeper for a construction crew on the Santa
Fe railroad, as a clerk and later a bookkeeper in two banks, and operated the family farm.
My first political office was county judge.
(4 pts.) During my administration, the armed forces were united under the secretary of
defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) began.
(2 pts.) Japan surrendered on board the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo harbor.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
110. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My picture appeared on the cover of the second issue of a new magazine called
Time. I was popular while in the White House, but my reputation suffered after my presidency.
(4 pts.) Born the year the Civil War ended, I was elected president on a platform opposing U.S. entrance into the League of Nations.
(2 pts.) H.L. Mencken coined the term “Gamalielese” to refer to my pretentious way of
speaking. The adjective “roaring” was applied to the decade in which I served in the White
House.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
111. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) My autobiography was entitled Where’s the Rest of Me? My insistence on a tax
cut coupled with increased military spending led to the largest deficit in U.S. history.
(4 pts.) During my first term, the U.S. conducted a successful invasion of the island nation of Granada. My first wife, Jane, and I had one child, a daughter named Maureen.
(2 pts.) I was president of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947-1952 and in 1959. Despite
this background, labor unions opposed me every time I ran for president, which I did four
times.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
136
112. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) While I was president, the Appalachia Bill improved living standards in an elevenstate Appalachian Mountain region. Also Medicare, a health insurance plan for the elderly, was created.
(4 pts.) I served seven years as the Senate Majority Leader. In this role, I worked closely
with the president, who was from the opposite party.
(2 pts.) I was riding in a motorcade in my home state when my predecessor was shot.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
113. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) When I accepted my party’s nomination for president, I declared, “We in America
today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any
land.”
(4 pts.) I signed the act making “The Star Spangled Banner” the national anthem. General MacArthur and a young assistant named Eisenhower directed troops who dispersed
20,000 homeless war veterans in Washington.
(2 pts.) During my only term, the number of unemployed rose to 17 million.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
114. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I am the only president who was born in June. After leaving the White House, I
said: “It’s amazing how many people beat you at golf now that you’re no longer president.” I inherited my athletic ability from my mother, Dorothy Walker, who once smacked
a home run in a family softball game just minutes before going to the hospital to deliver
her first child.
(4 pts.) In the House of Representatives, I represented a state that was not my native
state. While serving in the House, I visited President Lyndon Johnson to seek his advice
on whether I should give up a safe House seat to run for the Senate. I resigned the House
seat but lost the race for the Senate.
(2 pts.) As vice president, I was grilled by Dan Rather on The CBS Evening News about
my role in the Iran-Contra affair; I chided Rather for walking out of the studio the previous
year and leaving six minutes of dead air. During my presidency, Reginald Denny was
bludgeoned on live television during the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
Set 7
115. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I am one of only two men ever nominated for national office five times. The other
was Franklin Roosevelt. While president, I signed an agreement with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev to limit the production of nuclear weapons. Later that year, Russia became
a major buyer of U.S. wheat.
(4 pts.) In my youth, I was rejected by J. Edgar Hoover as an F.B.I. candidate. During my
presidency, a loss of power and oxygen in the command module of Apollo 13 forced the
crew to transfer to the lunar module and return to Earth.
(2 pts.) One of my biographers has called me “the most visible vice president of the 20th
century and the most successful.” While I was president, the killing of four students by
National Guardsmen at Kent State University during an anti-war demonstration touched
off nationwide protests.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
137
116. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) A month before I became president, I survived an assassination attempt when a
bystander, Mrs. William F. Cross, deflected the assassin’s arm causing him to hit others
in the party.
(4 pts.) Serving more than one term, I took the U.S. off the gold standard. I also got Congress to pass the Neutrality Act, which prohibited U.S. ships from carrying arms to warring
nations.
(2 pts.) My wife Eleanor served as First Lady longer than any other woman.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
117. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) Early in my term, Cuban rebels invaded their homeland to overthrow Fidel Castro. The assault ended in disaster in what became known as the “Bay of Pigs.” I accepted
the blame even though most of the planning had been done by the previous administration.
(4 pts.) The Atomic Test Ban Treaty barred all except underground nuclear tests. The
Freedom March took place in Washington, D.C., to demonstrate Negro demands for
equal rights.
(2 pts.) I was the first president born in the 20th century.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
118. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I won my first political election when I defeated the incumbent Ann Richards.
Four years later, I won reelection with 68% of the vote.
(4 pts.) My only real opposition for the GOP nomination for president was Senator John
McCain of Arizona. I called myself a “compassionate conservative.”
(2 pts.) During my first year in the White House, I declared a “War of Terror.” A few
weeks later we began air strikes against terrorist camps in Afghanistan.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
119. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I asked Congress for an enlarged Social Security program, a Fair Employment
Practices Commission, government aid for scientific research, and public power projects
on the Arkansas, Columbia, and Missouri Rivers. However, a Congress controlled by the
opposite party blocked most of my policies.
(4 pts.) I am the only president born in my state. I spent much of my presidency living in
Blair House while the White House was being repaired.
(2 pts.) “Give ‘em Hell” was my campaign slogan. Actor James Whitmore later played me
in a one-man play that was also shown on television.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
120. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) During my first weeks as president, I held biweekly press conferences and attended town meetings across the country.
(4 pts.) I am the only president born in my state. I married after my college graduation
and fathered four children, one of whom still lived with us in the White House.
(2 pts.) My brother Billy was a problem for me with his alcoholic behavior and business
dealings with Libya.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
138
121. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) In college, I enjoyed the study of government. I formed a debate club and wrote
about politics. My senior essay, “Cabinet Government in the United States,” was published in the International Review. I enrolled in law school not because I liked that field but
because I thought it would prepare me for my future as a statesman. I later opened a
practice with a partner in Atlanta.
(4 pts.) When elected president, I used the secretary of state position to soothe the ruffled feelings of the man I had displaced as leader of the Democratic Party, William Jennings Bryan. I won reelection by 600,000 popular votes but only 23 electoral votes.
(2 pts.) I never lost a political election. The only public office I held before becoming
president was the governorship of a state that was not my native state. I remarried while I
was president. My second wife Edith sat beside me in the Oval Office each morning reading important diplomatic messages.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
122. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) During my presidency, the Beatles appeared on the “Ed Sullivan” television
show, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., won the Nobel Peace Prize, and Premier Kosygin of
Russia used the direct line from the Kremlin to the White House for the first time. The occasion was the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli War.
(4 pts.) In my one election to the presidency, I won 61% of the popular vote, the most
ever. I liked to skinny dip in the White House pool.
(2 pts.) My First Lady traveled across the country planting trees and riding the rapids, involving local groups in the preservation of their communities. After my death, Stephen
Mark Brown filed suit against my widow claiming he was my illegitimate son.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
123. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) During my presidency, the A.F.L. and C.I.O. merged, and the Geneva Conference split Vietnam at the 17th parallel.
(4 pts.) John Foster Dulles, my secretary of state, dealt with the Suez Crisis and the
takeover of Cuba by Fidel Castro.
(2 pts.) I sat with two other former presidents, Hoover and Truman, at John Kennedy’s
funeral. I wrote the book Crusade in Europe.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
124. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) For my second inauguration, the nine-degree temperature in Washington caused
the parade to be canceled. Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan became the first cabinet member in history to be indicted while in office. He resigned after being charged with
defrauding the New York City Transit Authority of $7.4 million. He was acquitted, however, following a one-month trial.
(4 pts.) I am said to have saved 77 people from drowning while a lifeguard. Rudy Giuliani
held the #3 position in my Justice Department.
(2 pts.) I traveled to France to mark the 40th anniversary of D-Day. My presidential library and museum is in Simi Valley CA.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
139
125. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I once remarked that perhaps the best way to handle a former president was to
chloroform and ceremonially cremate him when he left office in order to fix his place in
history and let the public pass on to new men. The Payne-Aldrich Act was passed regarding tariffs. It raised some and lowered others. Neither side was satisfied, and my popularity fell.
(4 pts.) I was a professor of law at Yale, and the first president buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
(2 pts.) I am the only president who later swore in another president.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
126. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) A year and a half into my presidency, my popularity dipped to 38%. I helped raise
my standing by hiring David Gergen as my counselor. Gergen had served in three previous administrations starting with Nixon. Gergen advised me to cut down on my well-publicized partying with Hollywood types, including producer Harry Thomason.
(4 pts.) I appointed U.S. District Court Judge Louis J. Freeh to head the F.B.I. When the
president of South Korea sent me a birthday greeting by e-mail, a debate raged in the
White House over whether the thank you should be returned over the same medium. Protocol officers finally ruled: put it on stationery.
(2 pts.) After the presidency, I opened an office in Harlem. I produced benefit concerts,
including one for AIDS in Africa, and did fund-raising for earthquake victims in India. Both
my wife and I signed book deals. My daughter followed in my footsteps as a Rhodes
Scholar after she graduated from Stanford.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
127. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I welcomed Richard Byrd home from flying over the South Pole and appointed
him admiral. Congress adopted the “Star Spangled Banner” as our National Anthem.
(4 pts.) My Republican inauguration was the first captured by newsreel with sound.
When I threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the baseball season in Washington, the
crowd chanted, “Beer, beer, we want beer!”
(2 pts.) At 27, I was called “the highest paid man of my age in the world.” I refused to accept a salary as president. By the end of my term, many citizens felt I was worth exactly
what I had been paid.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
128. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) During my administration, organized crime expanded greatly. Also the Army Air
Corps was organized and Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the
North Pole.
(4 pts.) During my presidency, which lasted less than two terms, the first woman governors were elected in Wyoming and Texas.
(2 pts.) Known for my thriftiness, I even had the telephone lines removed from the White
House in a cost-cutting move.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
140
129. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) I decreed that the Executive Mansion should henceforth officially be called by its
traditional but unofficial name, the White House. In my first message to Congress, I said
that anarchists “should be kept out of this country, and if found here they should be
promptly deported to the country whence they came.” I believed that the chief executive
can do whatever is not expressly forbidden in the Constitution. I launched modern conservation with executive orders that created national parks, wildlife refuges, and national
monuments.
(4 pts.) While campaigning for president, I was shot at close range. I immediately said of
my assailant, “Don’t hurt him. Bring him to me!” I looked into the eyes of the man who
shot me, John Schrank. A doctor determined that, though the bullet had lodged in my
chest, it did not pierce my heart or lungs. So I went to the Milwaukee Auditorium and told
the audience I had been shot but would give my speech anyway. Only when I pulled my
notes from my breast pocket did I show surprise: the bullet had passed through the 50
folded-over sheets of paper before it hit me. My long-windedness had literally saved my
life.
(2 pts.) The incident referred to in the 2-point clue took place four years after I left the
White House. It happened during the only campaign that involved three men who served
as president.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
130. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Described as “comfortable as an old shoe,” my temperament inspired confidence
and affection. I was called “the most popular chief executive since Abraham Lincoln.” Still,
to strengthen my chances for reelection, I decided to replace my vice-president, Garret
Hobart. As it turned out, Hobart died before my term ended so that no public announcement had to be made.
(4 pts.) A letter from the Spanish minister in Washington, Enrique Dupuy de Lome, fell into the hands of a friend of the Cuban rebellion. de Lome described me as “weak and a
bidder for the admiration of the crowd, besides being a would-be politician who tries to
leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party.” When leaked to the anti-Spanish press, the letter triggered an explosion of outrage
over this insult to the president.
(2 pts.) I was buried in my hometown of Canton, which is today the site of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. My successor broke ground for a statue of me which still stands today
in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Something much larger in another West Coast
state is named for me.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
131. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) While in the House of Representatives, I fought against expansion of the role of
the national government and consistently opposed Federal aid to education. I also made
an unsuccessful attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.
(4 pts.) On the day I became president, I stated that “our long national nightmare is over.
Our Constitution works. Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here
the people rule.”
(2 pts.) After leaving office, I supervised an invitational golf tournament in Vail, Colorado,
and played myself on the TV series “Dynasty.” Before becoming president, I was a King.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
141
132. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The night before I was nominated as the Republican candidate for president, I
was called to the hotel suite of party leader George Harvey who asked me, “You should
tell us now, on your conscience and before God, whether there is anything that might be
brought up against you that would embarrass the party ....” After thinking awhile, I stated
that there was no impediment to my nomination. The leaders did not know that I was lying
to them.
(4 pts.) As the campaign for president approached, I had high blood pressure, a heart
condition, and a long record of “breakdowns” which required me to retreat to a sanitarium
to recuperate. My wife Florence was almost 60 and in poor health herself. Before the
presidential race, she visited Madame Marcia, a popular Washington astrologer, to ask for
a reading on my destiny. Marcia said I was a “great statesman” and was destined to become president. But I would die in office. Well, two out of three is not bad.
(2 pts.) After my presidency, Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny of my administration
went to jail. Albert Fall gained the dubious distinction of being the first cabinet officer convicted of criminal misconduct in office. Found guilty of accepting bribes, Fall was sentenced to a year in a federal penitentiary and fined $100,000.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
133. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) While president, I was amazed at seeing an electronic price scanner in operation
at a supermarket checkout counter. The Secret Service said of me, “He can’t sit still. He is
in perpetual motion.” Unlike my predecessor, I hated to give speeches. However, I liked
talking to people individually and in small groups.
(4 pts.) A photograph exists of my rescue from Chi Chi Jima by a U.S. submarine. I was
the first president to attend a major league baseball game in Canada. After my presidency, one of my sons became a Catholic, the faith of his Hispanic wife.
(2 pts.) My wife Barbara confessed in her memoirs that her opinion on abortion differed
from mine, but she concealed it during her White House years. In Beijing during my ambassadorship, she made an effort to learn Chinese at the age of 50 so she could communicate with her hosts.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
Set 8
134. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) During my first presidential campaign, I admitted in an interview in Playboy magazine that I lusted after women in my heart. My first Republican opponent captured his
party’s nomination after a battle with the man who won the next nomination. After my
presidency, my daughter was arrested for protesting CIA recruiting on her college campus.
(4 pts.) When I decided to run for president, I had a hair stylist cut my hair in imitation of
John F. Kennedy. I took a crash course from a memory man who taught me to mentally
fix names, faces, and biographical details of people I aimed to impress. I also began a
regular practice of sending flowers to party leaders all over the land on national holidays,
family anniversaries, weddings, and funerals.
(2 pts.) One of the reasons I was not reelected was the takeover of the U.S. embassy in
Teheran by Iranian terrorists. The 52 American hostages were not freed until my last day
in office.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
142
135. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Puerto Rico became a U.S. Commonwealth, and the Philippines was granted independence during my administration. Puerto Rican terrorists fired shots at Congressmen
in the House of Representatives.
(4 pts.) I represented the U.S. at the Potsdam Conference. Later I met General MacArthur on the island of Guam and was embarrassed by him there.
(2 pts.) One of my nicknames was “Statesman of the Atomic Age.” I started the policy of
“containment” against the spread of Communism.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
136. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) A teacher like both my parents, I began my political career as secretary to a
Congressman in Washington. In a special election, I was elected to the House to fill a
seat vacated by death. I ran unopposed for three more terms. I was the first member of
Congress to enter World War II after obtaining a leave of absence from the House.
(4 pts.) The first time I sought the nomination for president, I had to settle for vice president. I was the first member of the Disciples of Christ to become president. My most popular quote was from the book of Isaiah: “Come, let us reason together.”
(2 pts.) My wife was called “Lady Bird.”
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
137. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I began the practice of deeding my presidential papers to the public and placing
them in a special library. However, I did not live to see the library open. The Wagner Industrial Labor Relations Law was passed during my presidency.
(4 pts.) My administration was marked by three R’s: relief, recovery, and reform. My election began the heavy shift of African-American voters to the Democratic Party.
(2 pts.) Some say I knew in advance about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but let it
happen because I knew the U.S. must enter the war.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
138. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I suggested a revenue sharing plan by which the Federal government would
share its tax revenues with state and local governments.
(4 pts.) After graduating from law school, I worked in the Office of Price Administration
during World War II before serving as a naval officer in the Pacific.
(2 pts.) Sixteen years after my presidency, my Presidential Library was opened in Yorba
Linda, near the town where I grew up.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
139. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) There were rumors that I had been secretly married before marrying the woman
who was my First Lady, and that I had divorced the previous wife or had the marriage annulled. During my presidency, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in South Africa, not to be
freed until 1990.
(4 pts.) My mother celebrated her 100th birthday during George H. W. Bush’s presidency. My mother’s maiden name was my middle name.
(2 pts.) My performance in the first televised debate between presidential candidates is
considered an important factor in my victory. My opponents claimed that inflated vote
counts in Mayor Daley’s Chicago were another factor.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
143
140. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I had an extraordinary rise in politics. Within two years and 170 days, I rose from
a citizen who had never held public office to President of the U.S.
(4 pts.) The Federal Reserve banking system was set up during my presidency. I worked
to end child labor.
(2 pts.) World War I was fought during my presidency.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
141. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) My son died of blood poisoning that developed from a blister on his toe. I said,
“When he went, the glory of the presidency went with him.” I would answer reporters’
questions only in writing.
(4 pts.) I was sworn in as president by a notary public but later had a second ceremony
because many questioned the legality of the first. One observer on my becoming president: “It was as if a bowl of field flowers had replaced an ashtray full of cigars.”
(2 pts.) My nickname was “Silent.” The decade in which I was president “roared” in but
“crashed” out.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
142. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I called my program the “New Republicanism.” I stated, “... outer space should be
used only for peaceful purposes. We face a decisive moment in history in relation to this
matter. Both the Soviet Union and the U.S. are now using outer space for the testing of
missiles designed for military purposes. The time to stop is now.”
(4 pts.) During my two terms, the laser was invented, and Hawaii and Alaska became the
49th and 50th states. I enjoyed painting as well as golf.
(2 pts.) Born in the Lone Star state, I died at the Walter Reed Army Hospital.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
143. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I sent a message that circled the globe and returned to me in 12 minutes thanks
to cables across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. I also sent the “White Fleet” of warships
around the world as a show of U.S. naval strength.
(4 pts.) I helped negotiate the Treaty of Portsmouth. My home at Sagamore Hill featured
a den filled with trophies. My son, Quentin, was killed in World War I.
(2 pts.) I resigned my post as assistant secretary of the navy to enlist as a soldier in the
Spanish-American War.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
144. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) During my administration, the U.S. went from a creditor to a debtor nation, owing
more money than any other country in the history of the world. The country ran up a trillion dollar Federal debt. During my second term, my former aide, Michael Deaver, was
convicted of lying to Congress.
(4 pts.) For my first election, I defeated the incumbent president; for my second, I defeated the vice president of my predecessor. During my presidency, the Vietnam Memorial
was dedicated in the nation’s capital.
(2 pts.) I wore number 33 when I played guard for my college’s “Golden Tornadoes.” As
president, I liked to munch on jellybeans.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
144
145. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) When I was still a toddler, our family moved to a state far away from the state of
my birth. My little sister Robin soon died from childhood leukemia.
(4 pts.) Following in the footsteps of my father and grandfather, I attended prep schools
in several states. I went on to obtain degrees from two different Ivy League colleges.
(2 pts.) I defeated my Democratic opponent for president in what is probably the most
controversial election in our history. It took a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling to finalize the results.
(Answer: #43 G.W. Bush)
146. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) During my presidency, both houses of Congress investigated the C.I.A. and the
F.B.I. I proposed a sweeping reform of both agencies. I appointed as Director of the C.I.A.
a man who would later be elected president.
(4 pts.) I was born west of the Mississippi. My successor belonged to the opposite party.
(2 pts.) Alex Haley published his novel Roots, which was later turned into a television
miniseries. The former President of the Teamsters Union, Jimmy Hoffa, was reported
missing. No trace of him has ever been found.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
147. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The first broadcast from KDKA in Pittsburgh, the first commercially licensed radio
station in the nation, was an announcement of my election victory. Both vice presidential
candidates in this election later became president.
(4 pts.) I died in a state different from the one in which I was born and attended college.
During World War I, I had an affair with a woman who was a German sympathizer. I invented the phrase “Our Founding Fathers.”
(2 pts.) Theodore Roosevelt’s daughter visited the White House and found “a table piled
with cards and rows of poker chips, trays with tall glasses [and] every imaginable brand of
whiskey. The air was rancid with cigar smoke ...” I “was not a bad man,” she concluded; I
“was just a slob.”
(Answer: #29 Harding)
148. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) At age two, I nearly died of the croup. Fortunately my uncle, a doctor, revived
me. I was six when my father, a blacksmith, died and nine when my mother passed away.
I ended up living with the uncle who had saved my life.
(4 pts.) My wife formed the Women’s Division of the National Amateur Athletic Federation when I was secretary of commerce. She opposed competitive sports as undemocratic
and opposed women’s participation in the Olympic games. While living in China early in
our marriage, she became proficient in Chinese. In fact, she and I sometimes conversed
in Chinese to foil eavesdroppers.
(2 pts.) I served as an economic advisor to President Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles
Peace Conference. During my victorious run for the presidency, I refused to make an issue of the fact that my Democratic opponent was a Roman Catholic.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
145
149. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Congress created the Tariff Board to investigate tariff rates and the Postal Savings System and parcel post during my presidency. I asked my Cabinet members and
their staffs to submit detailed reports of their financial needs.
(4 pts.) When I became president, my administration took charge of the building of the
Panama Canal. 22 civil suits and 45 criminal indictments were brought under the anti-trust
laws.
(2 pts.) I twice refused an appointment to the Supreme Court. I was 6’2” tall but am not
known for my height.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
150. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was a good student and a naturally gifted orator. I helped organize and direct
my school’s literary and debating societies. I studied for a year at Allegheny College in
Pennsylvania but was forced to drop out because of physical exhaustion from excessive
studying.
(4 pts.) I defeated the same Democratic candidate in both my presidential victories. I
once said, “I have never been in doubt since I was old enough to think intelligently that I
would someday be made president.”
(2 pts.) I who was raised in Poland – Poland, Ohio, that is – have a mountain in Alaska
named after me.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
151. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Soon after entering office, I had to deal with the worst crisis in the savings and
loan industry since the Great Depression. More than 1,000 savings and loan institutions
had failed, and hundreds more neared bankruptcy. I proposed legislation to rescue and
restructure the savings and loan industry, and the U.S. government committed billions of
dollars to fund the bailout.
(4 pts.) When I took office as president, one of my major concerns was drug traffic. I presented a Federal strategy for reducing the use of illegal drugs in the U.S. The strategy included a recommendation for stronger law enforcement efforts against drug abusers and
outlined ways to reduce the production and trafficking of illegal drugs.
(2 pts.) I took bold military action in Central America by ordering U.S. troops into Panama
to overthrow the dictatorship of General Manuel Noriega.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
152. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I called my administration a “new covenant” between citizens and government. I
gained only 43% of the popular vote when I was elected to the White House.
(4 pts.) Many of my ideas as president were shot down by Congress. Twice my appointments to the position of attorney general failed because of a scandal that became known
as “Nanny Gate.” I was the first president of my party in nearly 50 years who did not have
at least one of the two houses of Congress controlled by his own party.
(2 pts.) I turned down a music scholarship to Louisiana State University; instead I went to
the university of my native state. I later taught at that university’s law school.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
146
Set 9
153. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I became the youngest Senate Majority Leader in history. I was awarded a Silver
Star during World War II for having been a passenger on board a B-26 hit by Japanese
bullets.
(4 pts.) As a young Congressman, I idolized Franklin Roosevelt. When FDR died, I said,
“There are plenty of us left here to try and run interference, but the man who carried the
ball is gone.” I became the first president to ride in an armor-plated presidential limousine.
(2 pts.) I won my first term as senator by 87 votes. This caused the press to nickname
me “Landslide.”
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
154. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) Nine days after becoming president, I recommended the return of beer sales
across the country. Much later, I created the secret Map Room on the ground floor of the
White House in what had been a trophy room, a small area for official gifts to the First
Couple. During my second term, Congress air-conditioned the Capitol building.
(4 pts.) “This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny,” I said during my
first term. I was often pictured with my outlandish cigarette holder at a rakish angle, a
symbol of my confidence. I created the modern Federal Government, big departments in
huge gray buildings sprawling across the capital.
(2 pts.) I did “hydro-gymnastics” at the “Little White House” in Warm Springs GA to
strengthen my legs. Due to world conditions and my frail health, my last inauguration took
place on the South Portico of the White House. I delivered a six-minute address, and the
entire ceremony was over in 15 minutes.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
155. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) There is a town of the U.S. with the same name as every president except me. I
presided at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
in New York City. I clashed with Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus.
(4 pts.) I am one of two presidents born in my home state. However, I attended college
and died in a different part of the country.
(2 pts.) After my presidency, I spoke of my appointment of Earl Warren as Chief Jus-tice
of the Supreme Court. “That was the biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made.” My golf
shoes made holes in the cork floor of the Oval Office.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
156. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I served less than two terms as president. I was of a different party than my successor. I impressed people as being plain, simple, unpretentious, and down-to-earth and
they had no great expectations for my presidency.
(4 pts.) During my presidency, the White House architect reported that the second floor
was about to collapse. Congress appropriated $5,400,000 to renovate the building. Eventually nearly $7 million was spent on the project.
(2 pts.) I was the first president whose State of the Union address was televised. It was
shown on five stations during the afternoon. I was also the first president to buy television
time for a campaign speech. I appointed David Lilienthal as the first chairman of the
Atomic Energy Commission.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
147
157. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) At my inauguration, Robert Frost read a poem he had written for the occasion.
The guests at the Inaugural Ball included Milton Berle, Nat “King” Cole, Mahalia Jackson,
Laurence Olivier, and Leonard Bernstein. I never lost an election.
(4 pts.) I attended college in the state in which I was born but died in a different state. I
succeeded a president of the opposite party.
(2 pts.) My father, while Ambassador to Great Britain, opposed Franklin Roosevelt’s bid
for a third term. I came from a family of nine children. My older brother was killed while flying a mission against Germany in World War II.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
158. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was the first president whose State of the Union address was carried on radio.
During my presidency, the first national radio network was formed by the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
(4 pts.) I am one of two presidents born in my home state. However, I attended college
and died in another state.
(2 pts.) When asked at a White House dinner why her husband was not seeking reelection, my wife answered, “Poppa says there’s a depression coming.” On another occasion,
after church, my wife said to me, “I’m sorry I missed the sermon. What was it about?” I
replied, “Sin.” My wife asked, “What did the minister say about it?” I replied, “He was
against it.”
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
159. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) It is estimated that my estate was worth over $1,000,000 when I died. My vice
president, Charles Curtis, was proud of the fact that he was half Indian and liked being
called “Indian Charlie.”
(4 pts.) During my term, 30,000 businesses failed in one year and the national income
dropped from $80 billion to $40 billion.
(2 pts.) I lived longer as ex-president, 31 years, than any man in history.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
160. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) In August of my first year in office, U.S. Navy jets shot down two Libyan fighter
planes while I slept in my home state. My aides did not awaken me.
(4 pts.) During my administration, the U.S.S. Stark was hit by two Iraqi missiles while patrolling the Persian Gulf. Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, was assassinated.
(2 pts.) I was the first president to transfer authority to my vice president under the provisions of the 25th Amendment. This happened while I was in surgery for colon cancer. After the presidency, my wife and I moved into a $2.5 million home in my home state.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
161. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) My brother was involved in a savings and loan scandal that cost taxpayers 1.3
billion dollars.
(4 pts.) I was the head football cheerleader at my high school in Massachusetts. I also
played rugby in college.
(2 pts.) My opponent for reelection was also a Yale graduate. It was revealed months after the election that my 78 average at Yale was slightly better than my opponent’s 77.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
148
162. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) The first test tube baby, Louise Brown, was born in England. The program “Dallas” began its long run on television.
(4 pts.) My wife had regular “working” lunches with me. In 1991, I visited China to lecture
at the Foreign Affairs College.
(2 pts.) I said in a televised speech that the nation suffered from “a crisis of confidence
that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will.” This lack of confidence was a leading cause of my defeat for reelection.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
163. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My administration supplied arms to forces trying to overthrow the dictator Victoriano Huerta in Mexico. When 14 U.S. sailors were arrested in Tampico, I ordered American forces to occupy the port of Vera Cruz. 18 Americans were killed in action. At this
point, I accepted an offer from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to arbitrate the dispute and a
peaceful settlement was worked out.
(4 pts.) I met my second wife in the White House elevator. The Panama Canal was
opened to traffic, and the U.S. bought the Virgin Islands during my presidency.
(2 pts.) I tried to dominate the peace conference following World War I but was opposed
by leaders like Lloyd George of Great Britain and Georges Clemenceau of France.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
164. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I used protectionism as my platform for election to the U.S. House of Representatives. However, after serving 14 years, I was defeated after Democrats gerrymandered my district. I rebounded by winning the governorship.
(4 pts.) The economy began to climb out of its three-year depression at about the time of
my first inauguration. Business leaders worried that a foreign war would short-circuit the
recovery. Near the end of my administration, I made the most significant speech of my
presidency, announcing a policy of reciprocal trade agreements with foreign nations to
encourage improved markets for American goods. This was a change from my earlier
protectionist philosophy.
(2 pts.) When I at first resisted calls for war against Spain, I was burned in effigy. As one
who was proud to be addressed as “Major,” I did not expect to be called a traitor.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
165. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) During my second campaign for president, I was interviewed by Mike Wallace for
the “60 Minutes” television program. When elected president, I offered Mike the job of
White House Press Secretary. He decided to stay with “60 Minutes.” My daughter Tricia
conducted the first televised tour of the family quarters upstairs in the White House for “60
Minutes.”
(4 pts.) The Senate rejected my nomination of G. Harold Carswell to the Supreme Court.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission was empowered to ban unsafe products from
the market place.
(2 pts.) Barry Goldwater, a fellow Republican, wrote of me: “He was the most dishonest
individual I ever met in my life.” Nevertheless I won reelection by a vote of 520-17.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
149
166. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My elder sister, Anna, nicknamed “Bamie,” suffered from a congenital bone disease that warped her spine and left her partly disabled. My younger sister, Corinne, had
asthma. My younger brother Elliott suffered from emotional illness and eventually alcoholism. My grandmother Bulloch, a Georgia native, believed in the justice of the cause of the
Confederacy. So did her daughter, my mother.
(4 pts.) As president, I oversaw talks that led to Great Britain’s release of the U.S. from
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, which prevented either country from building a canal
without the consent of the other. I invited Booker T. Washington to the White House. After
Washington’s visit, the Memphis Scimitar declared my action “the most damnable outrage
ever perpetrated by any citizen of the United States.”
(2 pts.) While I hunted in Africa after leaving the White House, my wife Edith toured Italy
and neighboring countries. Sensitive to charges of bloodthirstiness, I took pains to cast
my safari as a scientific expedition. I pledged my prizes to the Smithsonian museum. I
killed over 70 large animals. I judged the trip, which lasted nearly a year, worth the nearly
$20,000 I spent of my own money.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
167. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I signed legislation authorizing the raising of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor. I was chairman of the American Polish Relief Committee during World War I.
(4 pts.) My wife Helen vetoed Cabinet appointments, attended important meetings, and
walked into private conferences unannounced. She insisted that a diplomat serving in Europe be dismissed because he had treated her badly 20 years earlier.
(2 pts.) I did not want to be president. I confessed that, whenever someone said “Mr.
President,” I looked around for my predecessor. Caught between the Old Guard conservatives and the Progressives in my party, I tended to side with the Old Guard. This angered my predecessor.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
168. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I had to deal with the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the staggering mushrooming of the Federal budget. In international affairs, I sent American troops to participate in conflicts in three separate areas of the world in three short years.
(4 pts.) My vice president, a former senator from Indiana, was often ridiculed by comedians and the press, especially for his poor spelling.
(2 pts.) After two years in the White House, I had the highest approval rating of any president. However, a failing economy caused me to be defeated for reelection.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
169. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I appointed Andrew Cuomo, son of Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York,
as secretary of housing and urban development. Also Sheila Widnall became first female
secretary of the air force.
(4 pts.) My election changed the party in control of the White House. However, the opposition party held a majority in both houses of Congress.
(2 pts.) The late Erma Bombeck said that I belonged in the White House, “a place he can
play his sax without the neighbors complaining.”
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
150
170. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) I was the son of a poor farmer and a part-time veterinarian who later turned, with
no additional training, to the doctoring of people. After graduating from college at the age
of 16, I worked at odd jobs – teaching school, selling insurance, and organizing the town
band.
(4 pts.) My election changed the party in control of the White House. My party leaders hit
on a simple strategy for the campaign – keep me at home. One fellow senator said that if
I went on tour, “somebody’s sure to ask him questions, and he’s just of the sort of
damned fool that will try to answer them.”
(2 pts.) I grew up in Corsica – not the island in the Mediterranean but a town in Ohio. I
won the presidency in the greatest landslide in history to that point.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
171. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) The U.S. hastily evacuated its embassy in Saigan as the U.S. military role in
Southeast Asia ended with the collapse of the South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments into Communist hands. Back home, the first “Rocky” movie was released.
(4 pts.) I went to law school at an “Ivy League” school after graduating from another
northern college where I gained national fame on the gridiron.
(2 pts.) I was born the year before World War I began. While in the House of Representatives, I served on a commission headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
Set 10
172. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Midway through my only term as president, I sent a message to Congress that
said, in part, “the fundamental strength of the economy is unimpaired.” Asked why so
many unemployed men were selling apples on street corners, I said, “Many people have
left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples.” In my last year in office, I said,
“Nobody is actually starving. The hoboes, for example, are better fed than they have ever
been. One hobo in New York got ten meals in one day.”
(4 pts.) Carrying out a promise made during my campaign, I called a special session of
Congress to take up tariff revision. I primarily wanted to have tariff rates raised on agricultural products. Congress, however, produced the Smoot-Hawley Act, which included
some of the highest rates in history.
(2 pts.) During my campaign for reelection, as my train moved across the country, people
threw eggs and tomatoes at it. 158 Congressmen were defeated for reelection along with
me.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
173. Range: #33-433
(6 pts.) I was called to duty in World War II, but poor vision restricted me to service in the
U.S. As president, I was allowed to address Russian listeners over the Voice of America.
(4 pts.) Within eight months of my first inauguration, I guided the Economic Recovery Act
through Congress. Over a three-year period, it created the largest tax cut of the postwar
era: $162 billion.
(2 pts.) My wife’s “Just Say No” drug program gained international coverage. By the end
of my administration, her influence was so great that the New York Times described her
as an “associate president.”
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
151
174. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I almost lost my leg as a child when I developed blood poisoning from a cut. The
doctor wanted to amputate, but my family said no and the leg healed. My picture is on the
largest U.S. coin.
(4 pts.) My book on World War II was made into a television series. I defeated Adlai E.
Stevenson, former Governor of Illinois, in both my presidential campaigns.
(2 pts.) I had the squirrels on the White House grounds rounded up after they interfered
with my putting practices.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
175. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) 44 years after the Battle of Little Big Horn, I dedicated the statue of General Custer in his hometown of Monroe, Michigan. During my presidency, Henry Ford set up the
first assembly lines to produce Model-T Fords.
(4 pts.) As secretary of war, I visited Panama shortly after the digging of the Panama
Canal by the United States began. As president, I urged Congress to pass an income tax
law. However, Congress did not do it until my successor was in office.
(2 pts.) When I threw out the first ball of the baseball season, a special chair was brought
to the stadium for me.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
176. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I sent the first message to Congress to be illustrated with photographs. It was the
“Special Message Concerning the Panama Canal,” which I sent right after returning from
Panama.
(4 pts.) My six children had free run of the White House. They played ball in the East
Room and walked on stilts all over the White House. A lover of animals, I let them kept
many pets.
(2 pts.) I was from the same political party as both the man I succeeded and the man
who succeeded me. Although I probably could have been reelected, I chose instead to
turn the presidency over to my good friend, the secretary of state.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
177. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) According to political scientist Fred Greenstein, during my term in office “the
presidency itself had undergone a fundamental transformation, replacing Congress as the
principal energy source of the political system.” Another scholar, James Pfiffner, contends
that the period “marked the transformation of the presidency from a small personalized office to a collection of specialized bureaucracies with hundreds of professional staffers.”
Though born into a wealthy family, I believed in and fought for plain people.
(4 pts.) My first vice-president, John “Cactus Jack” Garner, served as a liaison between
the White House and Congress but still declared “the vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher
of warm spit.” I appointed “Wild Bill” Donovan, a classmate at Columbia Law School, as
head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was the forerunner of the CIA.
(2 pts.) When Germany attacked Russia, I extended Lend Lease to Russia, sending
trucks, tanks, guns, bombers along with food, blankets, shoes, and boots. I promoted
George C. Marshall to Chief of State of the U.S. Army over 34 other officers. After flying
with Amelia Earhart, my wife Eleanor wanted to get her own pilot’s license. However, I vetoed the idea, saying I couldn’t afford to lose my First Lady in an airplane accident.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
152
178. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) Upon becoming president, I said, “I’m not big enough for this job.” I told reporters,
“Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now.” I sailed on the battleship Augusta to Europe for
a summit meeting, code named “Terminal.” Accompanying me was the newly appointed
secretary of state, James Byrnes.
(4 pts.) I was sworn in as president in the Cabinet Room of the White House. During my
first month in office, after my first meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, I crowed,
“I gave him the one-two, right to the jaw.”
(2 pts.) I chaired a senate committee that saved taxpayers more than $15 billion in wartime spending. This made me so well known that a poll of newspaper reporters rated me
second only to the president in contributions to the war effort. However, I was told not to
investigate spending for the “Manhattan Project.”
(Answer: #33 Truman)
179. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) After sixth grade, I attended private schools, including a private college in my
home state. Because I hated to wear hats, wearing of hats by men went out of style during my presidency.
(4 pts.) My family loved sports. While I was president, they gathered to play touch football. Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut to make a space flight.
(2 pts.) My grandfather threw out the first ball at the opening game at Fenway Park. I
threw out the first ball at a Washington stadium that was later renamed for my brother.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
180. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I remembered seeing General Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis when I was a
boy. The son of a minister, I loved the theater, played golf, and was a good singer.
(4 pts.) My second wife, Edith, sat in on my private conferences. She was the only other
person who knew the codes used to send messages to generals in Europe. The last part
of my presidency was called “petticoat government” because she would let no one and no
document reach me without her approval.
(2 pts.) At age 45, I became president of the college that counted James Madison among
its graduates. This post was my stepping-stone into politics.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
181. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) In college, I was a debater and football player. I won a scholarship to the new
Duke University School of Law. An accomplished pianist, I loved classical music. I
claimed my two great unfulfilled ambitions were to conduct a symphony orchestra and
play an organ in a cathedral.
(4 pts.) During my second term, I became the first president to visit Saudi Arabia. My
wife was the first First Lady to visit an overseas combat zone. She was also the first First
Lady to go on record as pro choice on abortion.
(2 pts.) In one of my taped conversations in the Oval Office, I said to my aide, John Ehrlichman: “No assassin in his right mind would kill me. They know if they did that they
would wind up with Agnew.” Those tapes, released to Congress only after a legal battle,
were a key factor in my downfall.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
153
182. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) Although Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, I am the only president born
on Independence Day. I was a good horse rider from an early age. After attending private
schools, I graduated from a college in my native state with honors. I went on to become a
lawyer.
(4 pts.) I was visiting my father on the family farm when I learned that I was president. I
appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the scandals of my predecessor’s administration.
(2 pts.) My wife’s personality was almost the opposite of mine. She loved smoking, short
hair, airplane travel, and the Boston Red Sox.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
183. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) Independence was declared in the former British colonies of Kenya, Nyasaland,
and Northern Rhodesia. I was from the same party as my predecessor but from a different party than my successor.
(4 pts.) I asked the chief justice of the Supreme Court to head a commission that eventually produced a 26-volume report. The Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic
Church ended in Rome while I was in the White House.
(2 pts.) Elected president in a landslide, I was so unpopular four years later that I decided not to seek renomination from my party. 26 years after I left office, my secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, expressed shame in his autobiography over our administration’s conduct of the Vietnam War.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
184. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Anglo-Egyptian forces under Kitchener recaptured Khartoum and moved across
the Sudan reclaiming land lost earlier in the fight against Mahdists. In China, the Boxers,
an anti-foreign organization, was established. I sent American troops to join with European and Japanese troops to put down the rebellion. Under the terms of the Boxer Protocol,
the Chinese government agreed to pay the foreign governments $333 million in compensation. The U.S. received $25 million, most of which was used to establish scholarships
for Chinese students.
(4 pts.) My predecessor’s administration replaced the tariff act bearing my name with the
Wilson-Gorman Act, but when my party and I came into power, we raised the tariff once
more through the Dingley Tariff Act.
(2 pts.) I was elected to a second term but served less than 200 days of that term.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
185. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) I won 60.3% of the popular vote, making me the first president in history to win
60% of the vote. My reputation as a public speaker had led to my being chosen to give
the keynote address at my party’s convention four years earlier.
(4 pts.) My wife worked at my newspaper before accompanying me to Washington. Although in her 60’s, she dressed in the same styles favored by Hollywood starlets, relying
on cosmetics and hair styling to help her appear younger.
(2 pts.) I enjoyed golf, poker, burlesque shows, and “bloviating,” which was my term for
swapping stories with my friends.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
154
186. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I promised during my presidential campaign to avoid tapping Social Security except in cases of war, recession or a national emergency. Less than one year after being
elected into office, I told my budget director, “Lucky me. I hit the trifecta.”
(4 pts.) I established a position within my cabinet for Office of Homeland Security. This
Office is headed by an Assistant to the President whose mission “shall be to develop and
coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United
States from terrorist threats or attacks.” Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge was
the first person to serve in this office.
(2 pts.) I married Laura Welch, a former teacher and librarian, and we had twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. Our family also included our dogs, Spot and Barney, and a cat,
India. I have also been known to have trouble eating pretzels while watching NFL football.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
187. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) When elected, I became the third straight left-handed president. At age 51, I became the youngest Chief Executive ever outfitted with dual hearing aids. The runways at
Los Angeles International Airport were shut down while I received a $200 haircut from
Cristophe, a Beverly Hills barber brought on board Air Force One.
(4 pts.) Although I knew nothing about computers, I pushed for a complete modernization
of the White House computer system. As president, I quickly developed a reputation for
being late for almost everything. I commissioned a jogging track for the White House
grounds. However, I continued to jog through Washington’s streets instead of using the
new track.
(2 pts.) I was defeated for reelection as governor of my native state after raising the state
gasoline tax to finance an ambitious highway-building program. However, I won the office
back on the next try. I was the first president to use the line-item veto. Since the Supreme
Court ruled it unconstitutional, I may be the last president to use it.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
188. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) My wife’s biography outsold mine 2 to 1; we wrote our next book together. A nuclear submarine deployed in 2001 was named for me. One of my faults as president was
that I tried to micromanage everything; for example, you had to get my permission to play
on the White House tennis court.
(4 pts.) I was code named “Deacon” by the Secret Service – probably because of my
strong religious beliefs. I had a habit of jogging up and down the White House stairs. I
promised to balance the federal budget by the end of my term but didn’t come close. I
pardoned draft evaders, deregulated the airline and trucking industries, and provided food
stamps to those who were eligible.
(2 pts.) A spokesman for my administration claimed that no liquor – only wine – was
served in the White House, including state dinners. However, my mother “Miss Lillian”
contradicted this in an interview with the New York Times. She said she managed to have
a nip of bourbon every afternoon she was at the White House. My daughter Amy got married 15 years after we left the White House while attending Tulane University Graduate
School in New Orleans.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
155
189. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I was a member of the “Skull and Bones,” an elite secret society at my college.
During my term in the White House, the first meeting of Russian and Chinese leaders in
30 years took place.
(4 pts.) Aides nicknamed me “The Mexican Jumping Bean” and my wife, “The Silver
Fox.” Four years after we left the White House, our dog Millie, an English Springer spaniel, died at our summer home in Kennebunkport.
(2 pts.) I was elected president after serving as vice president for eight years under my
predecessor.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
190. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) I was the third left-handed president in history. During my administration, the first
female was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy.
(4 pts.) My wife Betty surprised reporters with her frank views on such controversial matters as abortion and the possibility that her children had tried drugs. She had been married once before she married me. Also my parents had been divorced when I was a little
boy.
(2 pts.) I am the only president to pardon a former president for any crimes he may have
committed while in office.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
Set 11
191. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) During my first year as president, I attended meetings on project “Downfall.” On
July 4 of my second year as president, the Philippines were made independent.
(4 pts.) More than 400,000 Chinese soldiers crossed the Yalu River from Manchuria to
assault United Nations troops in Korea. Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, said that an all-out war with China “would probably delight the Kremlin more than
anything we could do.”
(2 pts.) During my first speech to Congress, I received my most enthusiastic ovation
when I demanded unconditional surrender. At the Potsdam Conference, I quickly determined that Joseph Stalin was “an s.o.b.” who thought of himself as “The Big I Am.”
(Answer: #33 Truman)
192. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) After winning election to the White House, I left for a hunting trip in East Africa
while my enemies cried, “Good luck to the lions!” I earned 321 electoral votes to 162 for
the “Great Commoner,” William Jennings Bryan. Among my achievements prior to the
presidency were putting down a potential rebellion in Cuba and organizing construction of
the Panama Canal.
(4 pts.) I was from the same political party as my predecessor but from a different party
than my successor. During the first year of my administration, the United States Copyright
Law took effect and protected U.S. authors, publishers, and composers under terms that
would remain unchanged for 68 years.
(2 pts.) A reluctant politician, I finally obtained the position I always wanted many years
after leaving the presidency.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
156
193. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) After Charles Lindbergh flew solo to Paris, he planned to continue a flight around
the world. However, I asked him to come back to the United States, where I presented
him with the Distinguished Flying Cross. The Commerce Department sent “Lucky Lindy”
on a 40,000-mile tour to promote flying.
(4 pts.) I was born and died in the North. I served less than two terms as president.
(2 pts.) During one of the years I was in the White House, Al Capone had an income of
$105 million, an all-time record for the highest gross income ever received by a private
U.S. citizen. Of course, most of the Chicago gangster’s money came from bootleg liquor
operations, and he took in $35 million more than Henry Ford made in his best year in the
automobile business.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
194. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) A Chicago Tribune headline proclaimed: “18 Football Players Dead and 159 Seriously Injured,” to which I responded, “I demand that football change its rules or be abolished.” This led to the appointment of a rules committee. The first wireless signal was received from Europe during my presidency.
(4 pts.) Of Benjamin Harrison I said, “He is a cold-blooded, narrow-minded, prejudiced,
obstinate, timid old psalm-singing Indianapolis politician.” And Harrison was from the
same party as me! Of Woodrow Wilson I said, “He is an utterly selfish and cold-blooded
politician always.”
(2 pts.) I boxed while in the White House, once going a few rounds with heavyweight
champion John L. Sullivan, who scored a hard blow to my face that permanently blinded
my left eye. I kept this disability a secret for years because I feared the humiliation that
might result from the news that I had been seriously injured during a simple sparring session in the White House basement.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
195. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) Many years after my presidency, I wrote a work of fiction, The Little Baby
Snoogle-Fleejer that was illustrated by my daughter Amy, a graduate art student.
(4 pts.) I presided over a peace conference at Camp David that ended with Anwar Sadat
of Egypt and Menachim Begin of Israel signing an agreement to conclude a peace treaty
between their countries within three months. For doing so, Sadat and Begin won the Nobel Peace Prize.
(2 pts.) My first and middle names are the same as the first and middle names of the actor who was the voice of Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies.
(Answer: #39 Carter)
196. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was related to eleven other presidents. I was the seventh cousin, once removed, of Winston Churchill. My five children had 19 marriages. My son James served in
the House of Representatives.
(4 pts.) During my second term, I signed the Fair Labor Standards Act setting the minimum wage at 25 cents per hour.
(2 pts.) My wife convinced me to send the Tuskegee airmen to duty in North Africa. Many
years after her death, she was in the news as a spiritual adviser to Hillary Clinton.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
157
197. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I was such a sickly child that my older brother teased that a mosquito took a big
risk in biting me. One of the guests at my wedding was Richard Nixon. During my presidency, the Supreme Court declared public school prayers unconstitutional.
(4 pts.) I was born and went to college in the North. I worked as a journalist for a short
period before entering politics.
(2 pts.) My wife died 31 years after me. My son, a lawyer, was one of the founders of the
political magazine George and once dated actress Daryl Hannah. He also appeared on
the television show “Murphy Brown.”
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
198. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I was born in a rented apartment above a bakery. I was an average-to-good student, but my studies competed with extracurricular activities such as sports and school
plays. I was the first president to address the Japanese parliament.
(4 pts.) During my presidency, which lasted more than one term, Prince Charles and Diana Spencer were married in London as 750 million watched worldwide.
(2 pts.) As governor of California, I advocated lethal injection as a method of execution:
“Being a former farmer and horse raiser, I know what it’s like to try to eliminate an injured
horse by shooting him. Now you call the veterinarian and the vet gives it a shot and the
horse goes to sleep – that’s it.”
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
199. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) After Leonard Bernstein led a concert at the White House, I told him, “I liked that
last one; it had a tune to it.” Fred Vinson retired as Chief Justice of Supreme Court.
(4 pts.) Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, a future Hall-of-Famer, returned to active
service to fly combat missions in Korea as a Marine pilot. During my first term, the Air
Force Academy was founded
(2 pts.) After losing to me the first of two times, Adlai Stevenson left on an around-theworld tour to troubled spots. I sent a telegram to Winston Churchill urging unity in Vietnam.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
200. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) A hurricane destroyed Galveston. The governor of Texas received a telegram
from me offering condolences and the promise of aid. Over a third of the city had been
swept out of existence. The death toll eventually exceeded 6,000. During one year of my
presidency, over 100 lynchings occurred. Most of the victims were black men.
(4 pts.) My second vice president could not have been more different from me. I was an
amiable 19th-century man, good-natured and cordial, conservative in dress and manner. I
didn’t like taking chances and would do nothing to embarrass the presidency or myself.
When photographers came around, I removed my cigar lest I corrupt the young.
(2 pts.) During the Civil War, I was decorated for driving a mule team during the Battle of
Antietam to bring hot food and coffee to the men under fire. Both times I ran for president,
I conducted a “front porch campaign.”
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
158
201. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) While I was president, cigarette ads were banned from radio and television, the
voting age was lowered to 18, and the Beatles broke up. Also the Yom Kippur War occurred in the Middle East.
(4 pts.) I traveled to 55 countries while vice president and was the first president to visit
all 50 states. I wasn’t always warmly greeted as shown by the fact that I was attacked and
stoned while in Peru and Venezuela.
(2 pts.) A longtime politician, I was a member of the House of Representatives, a Senator, and vice president before rising to the highest office. While in the House, I served on
the Committee on Un-American Activities and was credited with forcing the famous confrontation between Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
202. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) As governor, I opposed a hate crimes bill that was filed after a black man was
chained to a pickup truck and dragged to death. When the bill passed the House, I
worked successfully to defeat it in the state Senate because it provided protection for
gays and lesbians. I was Time magazine’s Man of the Year for the year of my election to
the White House.
(4 pts.) I described myself as a “compassionate conservative.” I promised, “I will restore
dignity to the White House.” In pushing for a large tax cut, I said, “it’s the people’s money
and I want to give it back to them.”
(2 pts.) I was born on the same day as actor Sylvester Stallone and 44 days before my
predecessor. I played Little League baseball and was a mediocre pitcher at Yale.
(Answer: #43 G. W. Bush)
203. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) One of my ancestors, John Wheeler Burton, signed the Declaration of Independence of my native state. My father-in-law contributed $10,000 for my first political contest
– a special election to replace a deceased Congressman. During my 11 years in the
House of Representatives, I introduced only seven bills.
(4 pts.) I met General MacArthur in Australia while on an inspection mission at the beginning of World War II. My combat experience consisted of riding as an observer on one
B-59 bombing raid from Australia. However, back in Washington as a Congressman, I
greatly exaggerated my wartime record.
(2 pts.) At the start of my presidency, there were 16,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam; at the
end of my presidency, there were 549,000. This was the major reason I did not seek my
party’s renomination for president.
(Answer: #36 L.B. Johnson)
204. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) I was elected president on a platform favoring an income tax, and I signed the
measure enacting an income tax into law. Only about one percent of the population owed
the government money under this law.
(4 pts.) On my last day in office, I signed a bill that began the operation of choosing an
unknown soldier from World War I to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Later I
rode in an open carriage in the procession leading to the ceremony in which the remains
of a soldier killed in France were reburied at Arlington.
(2 pts.) I was of a different party than both the president before me and the president after me. I had a very brief career in politics prior to my election as president.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
159
205. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) While campaigning for the White House, I cited the case of Willie Horton, a black
convict who raped a woman and stabbed a man while on furlough from a Massachusetts
prison. I blamed the crimes on the policies of my Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis,
who was governor of Massachusetts.
(4 pts.) I was the youngest American pilot to see action in World War II. The first encounter between a former KGB chief and a former CIA chief occurred when, as vice president,
I met Yuri Andropov, the Russian premier, at the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, former head
of the Soviet Union.
(2 pts.) During my one term as president, I awarded Bill Gates the National Medal of
Technology in a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House. My Presidential Library was
opened at Texas A & M University four years after I left office. I celebrated my 75th birthday by skydiving.
(Answer: #41 G.H.W. Bush)
206. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) My First Lady made enemies in the South by inviting Mrs. Oscar DePriest, wife of
an African-American congressman from Chicago, to tea in the White House. The Texas
legislature passed a formal rebuke. She also invited the choir of the Tuskegee Institute, a
black college, to perform at the White House. She was a devoted outdoorswoman who
had grown up riding and camping in the California hills.
(4 pts.) When asked why he wanted a higher salary than me, Babe Ruth said, “I had a
better season than he had.” Charles Lindbergh, a national hero after flying solo across the
Atlantic during the previous presidential administration, married Anne Morrow during my
administration. They had a son, Charles, Jr., who was kidnapped and murdered. I gave
Amelia Earhart the National Geographic Society’s gold medal for her transatlantic solo
flight.
(2 pts.) Before I became president, The New York Times rated me among the ten greatest living Americans. Franklin Roosevelt said he would be proud to run as my vice president. Roosevelt did not realize that I was not a Democrat!
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
207. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Within months of moving into the White House, my wife learned she had breast
cancer. When she revealed her condition to the public, thousands of women across the
country flocked to their doctors for checkups. In a “60 Minutes” interview with Morley Safer, she said she probably would have tried marijuana if it had been available when she
was young. When asked what she would say if her 17-year-old daughter told her she was
having an affair, she said she would not be surprised but would counsel her. When watching the taped interview when it was shown, I told her after the marijuana remark: “You just
cost me ten million votes!” After the premarital sex reply, “Twenty million!”
(4 pts.) While minority leader in the House of Representatives, I chaired my party’s national convention in Miami that nominated my predecessor for the presidency. After two
assassination attempts on me during my presidency – both by women – the Secret Service insisted that I wear a bulletproof vest when meeting the public.
(2 pts.) I was defeated in my only campaign for the presidency. On the trip back to
Washington after the election, my staff showed their displeasure by throwing peanuts
around Air Force One.
(Answer: #38 Ford)
160
208. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) Theodore Roosevelt and I are the only two presidents who studied law but did
not fulfill the requirements to practice law. I nicknamed my wife, “The Duchess.” She was
the first First Lady to fly in an airplane and to hold press conferences for women reporters. However, for over two decades, I conducted an affair with Carrie Phillips, the wife of
one of my best friends.
(4 pts.) My election changed the party in control of the White House. An excellent public
speaker, I spoke at the ceremony in which the remains of an unknown soldier of World
War I were reburied at Arlington National Cemetery.
(2 pts.) I missed two-thirds of the votes during my five years in the Senate. Recently
opened papers of assistant White House physician Joel T. Boone reveal that I died of a
heart attack, not poisoning.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
209. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) During my first run for president, my campaign manager James Carville coined
the slogan “It’s the economy, stupid.” My success at improving the economy was a big
factor in my reelection.
(4 pts.) The writer Toni Morrison called me “America’s First Black President.” My administration adopted a policy that gays could serve in the military as long as they did not admit to being gay. I was the first president to throw out the first pitch from the pitcher’s
mound.
(2 pts.) I liked to tell students that I used to be just a fat kid playing saxophone in the
marching band. Actually I was a bright, ambitious student; my teachers and classmates
predicted I would go far in public service. My dog “Buddy” was killed by a car after I left
the White House.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
Additional Questions (Includes Repetitions of Presidents)
210. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) During my presidency, regular transcontinental mail was established, and Paul
Whiteman, called “The King of Jazz,” arranged a concert in New York that featured
George Gershwin playing his composition “Rhapsody in Blue.”
(4 pts.) My party also controlled the White House right before and right after I was president.
(2 pts.) I gained national fame while governor of a state that was not my native state.
Vice president was my first national political office.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
211. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Two years before being elected president, I appeared on the television show
“What’s My Line?” and nearly stumped the panel. As president, I restored the citizenship
of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. The U.S. officially recognized the People’s Republic of China, and the Alaskan oil pipeline began operation.
(4 pts.) I was born in the largest state east of the Mississippi River. Although my family
was well off by local standards, they had neither electricity nor running water. I was a
model student, which allowed me to go to college.
(2 pts.) Taking over the family business after the death of my father, I made myself a millionaire. I became active in local civic affairs, emerging as a voice of reason during the
desegregation crises in my area.
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(Answer: #39 Carter)
212. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My wife was the first woman graduate in geology in the U.S., receiving her degree from the same university I attended.
(4 pts.) I won election during a campaign marked by bigotry due to my opponent Alfred
E. Smith’s Catholic religion.
(2 pts.) At age 35, I published a book entitled Principles of Mining.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
213. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to help convoy Nationalist Chinese supplies
from Taiwan to the Quemoy Islands. I also broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba.
(4 pts.) My election changed the political party in the White House. My two inaugural addresses were almost exactly the same length. During one of my inaugural parades, three
elephants and an atomic cannon were used.
(2 pts.) The Space Age began during my administration with the launching of Sputnik I
and II by Russia. Stung at being beaten into space, Congress established the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (N.A.S.A.).
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
214. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I sent U.S. advisors and arms to El Salvador during the civil war in that country.
Also Shiite Muslim terrorists held the passengers of an American airplane hostage in
Lebanon early in my second term.
(4 pts.) The first Space Shuttle flight occurred during my presidency when the Columbia
took off from Kennedy Space Center. I broke my promise to support the one Federal union that supported me for election. In fact, I caused the breakup of that union.
(2 pts.) My first wife and I adopted a son. My second wife and I appeared together in a
television play, “A Turkey for the President.”
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
215. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) During my first term, Queen Liliuakalani was forced at gunpoint to surrender her
throne to the U.S. government. The secretary of state was the brother of General William
Tecumseh Sherman of Civil War fame.
(4 pts.) I was born, went to college, and died in the North. I served 12 years in the House
of Representatives.
(2 pts.) While I was in the White House, the term “Yellow Press” was first used for the
newspapers that called for the U.S. to declare war against Spain.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
216. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) As a boy, I was called “Specs.” I had a brother called “Moon” by my parents, Nell
and Jack. My son covered my summit meeting with the Russian leader in Geneva for
Playboy magazine.
(4 pts.) During my first term in the White House, U.S. health officials chose the term
“AIDS” for a new disease. I once said, “There’s nothing better for the inside of a man than
the outside of a horse.”
(2 pts.) I quoted actor Clint Eastwood’s character “Dirty Harry,” daring Congress to pass
a bill I threatened to veto: “Go ahead, make my day.” The Iran-Contra scandal cast a
shadow over my eighth year in the White House.
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(Answer: #40 Reagan)
217. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The Republican convention that nominated me for president was the first one
broadcast on the radio. As president, I sent U.S. Marines to restore a dictator to power in
Nicaragua. One of my statements was, “The man who builds a factory builds a temple.”
(4 pts.) Uncharacteristically I waxed eloquent after seeing the Shenandoah, the U.S.’s
first lighter-than-air airship, arching above the White House. I called it “a thrilling spectacle.” Within a year, Shenandoah crashed while flying through a storm in eastern Ohio. I
laughed in agreement when Will Rogers, my favorite performer, said of me, “He didn’t do
nothing, but that’s what we wanted done.”
(2 pts.) I have the same nickname as the Baltimore Oriole infielder who broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. During my service in the White House, which
lasted more than one term, a ticker-tape parade in New York City for Charles Lindbergh
ended with 1800 tons of trash in the streets.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
218. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I said, “Politics ... makes me sick.” My wife Nellie pushed me into accepting the
nomination to the presidency. Ten weeks into my presidency, Nellie suffered a stroke that
partially paralyzed her.
(4 pts.) During my one term in the White House, the Carlisle Indian School football team,
coached by Glenn “Pop” Warner and led by Jim Thorpe, upset Harvard. About a month
before I left office, Wyoming’s legislature cast the 36th “yes” vote, making the Sixteenth
Amendment the law of the land.
(2 pts.) While attending the theater one night, I got stuck in my seat.
(Answer: #27 Taft)
219. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) Television cameras were allowed in the Lincoln and Monroe rooms for the first
time as my wife gave a live tour of the White House that was shown simultaneously on
CBS, NBC, and ABC. She was the youngest First Lady since the 1880s.
(4 pts.) I was born and attended college in the North. I also attended school in a foreign
country.
(2 pts.) My nephew Michael separated from his wife Victoria, the daughter of sportscaster Frank Gifford, in the spring of 1997, allegedly because Michael had a five-year affair
with his children’s baby sitter. In December 1996, the Washington Redskins played their
last game in the stadium named for Michael’s father. In 2005, the Montreal Expos, renamed the Washington Nationals, began playing their home games in that stadium.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
220. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I was reelected the year the Miami Dolphins went undefeated, which is fitting
since I was a football fan. For eight years, I had an office across the hall from John F.
Kennedy’s office in the Senate; I wept when he nearly died after back surgery. I was a
guest at his wedding.
(4 pts.) I was born in the state whose motto is “Eureka!” While vice president, I met Martin Luther King, Jr., at the White House following the successful bus boycott he led in
Montgomery.
(2 pts.) In a television speech during my first national campaign, I said my children would
not give back the gift of a cocker spaniel named “Checkers.”
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(Answer: #37 Nixon)
221. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) The second left-handed president in history, I recognized the state of Israel 11
minutes after it was proclaimed. General Douglas MacArthur gave a 37-minute speech
before a joint session of Congress. The members of my cabinet were conspicuously absent. MacArthur said he would “just fade away.”
(4 pts.) I was called “the Senator from Prendergast,” which was not a compliment. However, I impressed the public with my hard work. I also impressed my predecessor, who
selected me as his vice presidential running mate.
(2 pts.) The doctrine named for me promised aid to countries that attempted to resist
Communist aggression. I was seated next to Winston Churchill when the former British
Prime Minister gave his “iron curtain” speech at Westminster College in Missouri.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
222. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) As a candidate for president, I sat in a box seat at the World Series at Wrigley
Field in Chicago and watched Babe Ruth hit a home run that he supposedly called in advance. While visiting the New York World’s Fair, I became the first president to appear on
television. My son served three terms in Congress before dying of lung cancer in 1988 at
age 74.
(4 pts.) By the end of my second term as president, my vetoes represented more than
30% of all measures vetoed since 1792. I selected the first female envoy and the first
woman judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. These appointments pleased my wife,
who constantly pushed me to put more women in government positions.
(2 pts.) Among my distant relatives were Ulysses S. Grant, Zachary Taylor, and Winston
Churchill. Even my wife was my fifth cousin, once removed. Of over 35,000 photographs
of me, only two show me in a wheelchair.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
223. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) While I was president, Paris hosted the Olympic games, the first successful flight
of a dirigible took place, and the population of the United States passed 75 million.
(4 pts.) My wife Ida suffered from severe epilepsy, and I personally cared for her in the
White House. One of the doctors who treated her was Captain Leonard Wood, who soon
gained great fame for his achievements in other areas.
(2 pts.) Thomas Edison supervised the filming of my assassin’s execution in the electric
chair. A copy of the film still exists today.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
224. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My amazing energy could have come from my lifelong habit of popping nitroglycerine pills for a dicey heart. I thought nothing of downing 12 eggs at a sitting. I had a dog
named “Skip.”
(4 pts.) I read one to three books a day while pouring out an estimated 150,000 letters
and conducting the business of the presidency with such efficiency that I could usually
spend the entire afternoon goofing off.
(2 pts.) My wife died of kidney disease, and my mother of typhoid fever on the same day.
By the time I became president, I had remarried. My second wife Edith and I brought the
largest family in White House history, six children, from a teenage daughter Alice from my
first marriage to Quentin, nearly four.
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(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
225. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I appointed Henry Cabot Lodge, the vice presidential candidate of my opponent
for the presidency, as ambassador to South Vietnam. I was interviewed by the son-in-law
of Premier Khrushchev of the Soviet Union for an article in Izvestia. The U.S. Navy suffered its worst peacetime disaster when the nuclear submarine “Thresher” sank off the
New Hampshire coast during routine sea trials. All 129 crewmembers were killed.
(4 pts.) During the campaign for the presidency, I met with Protestant ministers to answer questions about my religion. Several of my nephews have served in the House of
Representatives. My niece, Kathleen Townsend, has been Maryland’s lieutenant governor. One of my nephews was killed in a skiing accident in December, 1997.
(2 pts.) A 1997 book by Seymour Hersh claims that I was married to Palm Beach socialite Durie Malcolm and never bothered to get a divorce. I later got married in Newport,
Rhode Island. In recent years, my wife’s effects were auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York
for $34.5 million. Our children were following a suggestion she made in her will.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
226. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Some of the events of my administration were: The space shuttle Challenger exploded killing the seven astronauts on board. Israel, using U.S.-supplied planes, bombed
and destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor. Terrorists bombed U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 Americans. Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship
Achille Lauro.
(4 pts.) I danced with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain at a state dinner.
I was a down-to-earth individual, easy to talk to. My ability to remember names amazed
my staff. Unfortunately I didn’t keep this ability for very long after leaving the White
House. I had a dog named Lucky. One of my Christmas gifts to my wife was Rex, a King
Charles spaniel.
(2 pts.) Ever since an actor fired a pistol near my head during a movie production, I was
hard of hearing. I began wearing a hearing aid in my right ear during my first term as
president and another in my left ear during my second term. Nearsighted since childhood,
I wore contact lenses.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
227. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My son played tennis on the White House court. He didn’t wear socks and developed an ugly blister that became infected. He slowly died of blood poisoning. I never got
over the loss. “When I look out the window, I always see my boy playing tennis on that
court out there,” I told one of my aides. I began to stay in bed eleven hours a night. Each
afternoon I took a long nap. I became such a hypochondriac that I often had an electrocardiogram taken twice in the same day.
(4 pts.) My wife Grace and I were bothered by a widespread rumor that she was pregnant even though she was 46 years old. Later there were rumors that Grace planned to
divorce me as soon as we left the White House. The Ku Klux Klan held a demonstration
in Washington at which 40,000 members marched down Pennsylvania Avenue. In the
same year, laws were passed in Tennessee and Texas forbidding the teaching of evolution in public school classrooms.
(2 pts.) My reputation for penny-pinching would have been permanently exploded if reporters told all they knew about the amount of money I spent on clothes for my wife. I
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called my successor “the wonder boy.” Even though he was from the same party as I
was, this was not a sincere compliment.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
228. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) The convention that nominated me for my first campaign for the presidency was
the last convention that required a second ballot to elect a candidate. The other contender
was Robert Taft, son of the former president. During my administration, the Soviet Union
detonated a hydrogen bomb, and the first 29 exchanged prisoners of war returned home
from Korea. 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African-American, was lynched in Mississippi,
and the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott began, inspired by Rosa Parks’ refusal to
give up her seat to a white man.
(4 pts.) My wife and I moved 34 times – including seven times in one year – before
reaching the White House. I was the subject of the first presidential television commercial.
However, my vice presidential running mate made more effective use of television, defending himself against charges of misconduct.
(2 pts.) I first played football at age 15 in high school in Kansas; in college I played
against Jim Thorpe, an all-american at the Carlisle Indian School. I warned Richard Nixon
not to debate John Kennedy on television. If Nixon had followed my advice, history might
be different.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
229. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) The secretary of the treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo, married my daughter Eleanor during my first term in the White House. I suffered from arteriosclerosis, making
overwork especially dangerous for me. The Olympics scheduled for Berlin during my
presidency were cancelled.
(4 pts.) My first wife Ellen was a gifted painter who had given up her career to marry me.
Our daughter Margaret had an excellent singing voice. My second wife, Edith, was invited
by John F. Kennedy to ride in his inaugural parade. She was in her late 80s when she did
so.
(2 pts.) I was the first Democrat to win a second consecutive term since Jackson. The Titanic liner had a twin, the Brittanic, the most luxurious of its line. It was redesigned to
benefit from the lessons learned from the Titanic disaster. Still, during World War I while I
was president, Britannic sank to the bottom of the Aegean Sea.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
230. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) As a senior in high school, I worked on the class yearbook. I copied lines from a
poem by Tennyson, which I would carry in my wallet for the rest of my life. In my first year
as president, public debt stood at $280 billion, roughly six times what it had been four
years earlier. The first televised World Series, between the New York Yankees and the
Brooklyn Dodgers, took place during my presidency.
(4 pts.) The vice presidential candidate of my Republican opponent for the White House
was Earl Warren, who was later named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by my successor. I named George Marshall Secretary of State, the first general to hold that office.
(2 pts.) Near the end of my presidency, Winston Churchill told me: “The last time you and
I sat across a conference table was at Potsdam. I must confess, sir, I held you in very low
regard ... I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you, more than any other man, have
saved Western civilization.” When my presidency was finished and I arrived back in Independence, reporters asked me on my first day home what I intended to do. “Carry the
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grips up to the attic,” I replied, a remark that became famous because it seemed to sum
up my personality as an “uncommon common man.”
(Answer: #33 Truman)
231. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) I went into the hospital for major surgery twice during my presidency, once for
removal of my gall bladder and a second time for removal of throat polyps. The first Super
Bowl was played during my presidency.
(4 pts.) I was born and attended college in the same state.
(2 pts.) I was the only senator from a southern state who did not sign the so-called
“Southern Manifesto” which condemned the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing racial
segregation in schools.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
232. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My earliest surviving letter, written at age 10, mourns the cutting down of a tree. I
was the first conservationist president, responsible for five new national parks, 18 national
monuments and untold millions of acres of national forest. “Is there any law that prevents
me from declaring Pelican Island a National Bird Sanctuary?” I asked, not waiting long for
an answer. “Very well, then,” reaching for my pen, “I do declare it.”
(4 pts.) I attended school for a few months; however, for most of my childhood I had tutors. As president, I visited New Orleans during a yellow fever epidemic.
(2 pts.) I was informed that I was president by a park ranger on the summit of Mount
Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was once heard shouting to me, “If you knew how ridiculous you look up that tree, you’d come down at once!”
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
233. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) A few weeks before I took office, an unemployed bricklayer named Guiseppe
Zangais fired a gun at me from point-blank range. However, a woman deflected the assassin’s aim and bullets hit the mayor of Chicago, fatally wounding him. I walked the 35
yards from the Capitol rotunda to the podium for my first inauguration on the arm of my
son James.
(4 pts.) During my Democratic administration, I took a 10-day cruise on the Tuscaloosa
through the Caribbean. Queen Wilhemina and her government fled to London from the
Netherlands. One of my Secretaries of War was Henry Stimson, who had been Taft’s
Secretary of War and Hoover’s Secretary of State.
(2 pts.) Historian Keith Simonton wrote of me: “I’m not sure [he] would have done well in
Washington’s time. He wouldn’t have had the radio to do his fireside chats.” On my first
inauguration day, one quarter of the work force was unemployed, and the national income
was half of what it had been prior to the Stock Market Crash.
(Answer: #32 F. Roosevelt)
234. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) While campaigning for the presidency, my brother and I interceded to get Martin
Luther King, Jr., released from an Atlanta penitentiary after he was jailed for participating
in a sit-in. This gained me African-American votes that may have given me the election. I
was called “the Fastest Speaker in Public Life” because I could speak 350 words per minute.
167
(4 pts.) John Glenn gave me a model of Glenn’s Friendship 7 Project Mercury space
module and Atlas booster rocket. In 1988, my daughter Caroline gave birth to a daughter
Rose, who was named for my mother.
(2 pts.) My son died in a plane crash in the summer of 1999.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
235. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I named Oliver Wendell Holmes Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Edward II
was crowned King of England, and the first Hague Conference was held. The nation’s
coal miners went on strike, the first Cadillac automobile was made, along with the first radio telephone.
(4 pts.) While campaigning for the vice presidency, I made a train tour of the nation. During the course of each day of giving speeches at each train stop, I took off a half hour after breakfast to read a “historical work.” After lunch I read an “ornithological work” for another half hour. At two-thirty I settled down with a volume of Sir Water Scott. I still managed to preserve three more reading periods as well – the last a full hour before I went to
bed at midnight.
(2 pts.) When my first wife died giving birth to a daughter, Alice, I left Alice with my sister,
Anna, and fled west. Alice's earliest recollection of me is of me returning from a fox hunt
with a broken arm and cut face after trying to leap a 5-foot stone wall.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
236. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) As a Lieutenant Commander in the Naval Reserve, I joined the active Navy the
day I voted in Congress to declare war on Japan. However, my term of duty did not last
long. In my first victorious campaign for the U.S. Senate, I flew around the state in a helicopter called “The Flying Windmill” – making me probably the first politician to campaign
using a helicopter. I won that election by 87 votes.
(4 pts.) I dismissed Robert McNamara as Secretary of Defense, naming him President of
the World Bank. When the Navy communications ship Liberty was hit by Israeli missiles
during Arab-Israeli war, many questioned whether the hit was accidental. I loved dogs.
One of my dogs was named “Yuki.”
(2 pts.) My two daughters were named so they had the same initials as me. I called my
wife “Bird.”
(Answer: #36 L. Johnson)
237. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) During my presidency, my daughter Tricia married Edward Cox in a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House. Like me, my wife also had an alcohol problem. She
died of lung cancer in 1993 at age 81.
(4 pts.) During one of my campaigns, I accused President Truman of being a Communist. My administration formed a unit called “The Plumbers” to plug leaks to the media.
Two prominent members were Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy. Daniel Ellsberg, a
Pentagon analyst, leaked a copy of the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, which
published the secret documents on the Vietnam War. The Plumbers broke into the office
of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Daniel Fielding, in Los Angeles. This was one of many actions
of members of my administration that got me into deep trouble with Congress and the
public.
(2 pts.) A very formal man, I walked on the beach at San Clemente, California, in my
dress shoes. My administration tried to conceal the $1.4 million in improvements to my
two vacation homes in San Clemente and Key Biscayne, Florida.
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(Answer: #37 Nixon)
169
238. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) A dashing horseman, I was brought up in a strict Methodist home where dancing,
cards, wine, and tobacco were considered the snares of Satan. However, I later developed the politician’s vice – a passion for cigars. On almost all our trips, my wife Ida and I
were accompanied by our private physician, Dr. Rixey.
(4 pts.) I am one of only two presidents who were not elected in a leap year. The stock
market soared after both my election victories. While I was in the White House, the House
of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution to annex the Hawaiian Islands. The
American League of baseball began play.
(2 pts.) I attended the ceremony in which the bodies of crewmen who died in the explosion of the Maine were reburied in Arlington National Cemetery. My administration took a
neutral stance on the Boer War in South Africa.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
239. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) I was a first baseman-outfielder for the Marion Baseball Club. Later I owned the
Marion minor-league team. Whenever the Detroit Tigers played in Washington, Ty Cobb
played poker in the White House with my pals and me.
(4 pts.) When Florence Kling met me, she was a desperate woman with a failed marriage. She was almost 31, and I was 25. My mother told her that if she wanted a happy
marriage, she should keep the icebox full and both eyes on her husband. Despite her
best efforts, I managed to have several affairs.
(2 pts.) I had no interest in art or the theater, except for the Gayety Burlesque, which I
visited regularly to watch the dancers in a special box that concealed me from the public. I
played a lot of golf and had a steady supply of liquor in the White House despite the fact
that Prohibition was in effect.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
240. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) In the last year of my first term, U.S. population stood at 76 million; an influx of
immigrants over next decade totaled well over 8 million, swelling the next census to 92
million, an astonishing increase of 21%. The American League of baseball began play
while I served in the White House. Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a dashing German
cavalry officer, launched what was described as “the most daring and ambitious airship
ever conceived.” It was 416 feet long.
(4 pts.) My wife was the well-educated daughter of a prominent businessman. She briefly
worked in her father’s bank, but her training as a businesswoman ended when she met
me. I was a Civil War veteran just starting out as a lawyer.
(2 pts.) During my first campaign for the presidency, excursion trains made my home in
my native state a tourist stop, and every day but Sunday thousands of admirers and curiosity seekers made their way to the home. One Saturday I made 16 separate speeches to
30,000 people.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
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241. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Government spending soared from $1 billion to $19 billion during a three-year
period of my presidency. The first transcontinental telephone call was placed from the
Oval Office. Cecil B. DeMille produced the first feature film, The Squaw Man. Albert
Schweitzer opened my hospital in Africa.
(4 pts.) The Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, providing for popular election
of senators, went into effect during my presidency. I was of a different political party from
both my predecessor and successor.
(2 pts.) After the Lusitania was sunk off the Irish coast, more than 2000 telegrams demanding war with Germany poured into the White House. My note to Germany was so
strong, Secretary of State Bryan said it would lead straight to war and he refused to sign
it. Instead, he resigned.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
242. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) Just as personable in private as I was in public, I never failed to stick my head in
the cockpit of Air Force One to thank the crew. Four years after I left the White House, antinuclear activist Rick Springer lunged at me as I spoke at a convention in Las Vegas of
the National Association of Broadcasters.
(4 pts.) My First Lady received free dresses from Galanos, Adolfo, Bill Blass, and David
Hayes, among others. When she was criticized, she donated 13 of the dresses to the
Smithsonian and other museums, saying she had been trying to help the American design industry by publicizing its fashions. She embarked on a $1 million White House redecoration financed largely by tax-deductible donations.
(2 pts.) I played Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander in The Winning Team
and Secret Agent J-24 in Code of the Secret Service.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
243. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) Son of a Quaker blacksmith, I grew up in Oregon. In my inauguration speech, I
said, “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in
the history of any land.”
(4 pts.) One week before my 40th birthday, Germany declared war on France. I was in
London at the time and helped get stranded tourists home. My wife Lou and I loaned the
fugitives $1.5 million. All but $300 was repaid.
(2 pts.) A graduate of Stanford University, I wrote many articles and books, one of which
I was working on when I died at 90.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
244. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My aggressive actions greatly increased the power of the presidency. I sent the
naval warship Nashville to prevent Colombia from landing troops in a foreign nation.
(4 pts.) One of the worst earthquakes in history struck San Francisco while I was president. My home was called Sagamore Hill.
(2 pts.) While I was president, the White House also served as the home to cats, dogs,
guinea pigs, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, a badger, a kangaroo bat, a black bear, a garter
snake, a parrot, and a calico pony. In fact, it was my fondness for animals that inspired a
famous stuffed animal toy to be named after me.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
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245. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) During my term in the White House, the scientist Klaus Fuchs was convicted of
passing atomic secrets to Russia and sentenced to 14 years in prison; Ethel and Julius
Rosenberg were also arrested for spying. My wife, Elizabeth, when asked whether she
had wanted me to become president, wrote “definitely did not,” underlining the word “definitely.” I was 35 and she was 34 when we got married.
(4 pts.) George Marshall retired as Secretary of State because of poor health. However,
a year later I appointed him Secretary of Defense when the Korean War broke out. After
retiring from this post, Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
(2 pts.) Two days after an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Secretary of War
Henry Stimson had a heart attack and wrote in his diary: “I must resign.”
(Answer: #33 Truman)
246. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I hated the name by which I am most often known to history. No one but a
stranger ever dared to use it to my face. Yet that’s the name that crowds called out on the
campaign trail. During my presidency, the Boer War in South Africa was settled, and
Thomas Edison patented the motion picture camera.
(4 pts.) My oldest daughter, Alice, married Nicholas Longworth, a wealthy Republican
Congressman from Ohio. Alice lived a long life in Washington; she attended the McCarthy
hearings in the 1950s. Alice was my only child by my first wife.
(2 pts.) When first asked, I insisted I was not interested in the vice presidency. I had irritated my fellow Republicans by my actions as governor. For example, I fired the superintendent of insurance because he was too connected to the industry he was supervising.
Between the end of my term as governor and my inauguration as vice president, I went to
the mountains of Colorado to hunt mountain lion and bear.
(Answer: #26 T.Roosevelt)
247. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I commuted Jimmy Hoffa's 13-year prison sentence on condition that Hoffa not
be involved with Union management. I invited returning prisoners of war from Vietnam to
dinner at the White House. An avid sports fan, I was the first president to attend baseball’s All-Star game. It was the first nighttime All-Star game.
(4 pts.) My wife was called “Plastic Pat” and “The Robot.” She taught typing and shorthand at Whittier High School in our native state. When an earthquake ravaged Peru during my first term as president, she flew to Lima with an aid mission that brought tons of
supplies and medical help.
(2 pts.) A contestant on the show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” won a million dollars
by identifying me as the president who once appeared on the television show “Laugh-In.”
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
248. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I was well known for my great speaking abilities. I worked at several jobs that utilized this and other talents. Politics was my second career. I won 489 electoral votes in
my first bid for president against an incumbent president.
(4 pts.) I left office as one of the most popular presidents in our nation’s history. My administration was accused of shipping guns to Iran. My wife was very stylish. She lavishly
decorated and entertained during my two terms in office.
(2 pts.) After retirement, my wife and I returned to our ranch where I suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. My wife Nancy became active in raising funds for research for a cure.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
172
249. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Prior to the presidency, I had been my party’s “Whip” in the Senate. While I was
in the White House, the Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. My favorite
dishes were tapioca and chili. No matter how old you were, I liked to call you “boy” just to
upset you.
(4 pts.) A great mimic, I was especially good at imitating Bobby Kennedy. My daughter
Lynda dated the actor, George Hamilton. I was often naked around the White House,
even in the presence of women. Hubert Humphrey and I celebrated our landslide election
victory at a barbeque at my ranch. I won with 61.1% of the popular vote, the largest in history.
(2 pts.) When I became Senate majority leader, my wife Lady Bird said she “got really
annoyed with myself for being so shy and quiet.” So she took speech lessons. When
asked why I couldn’t pull out of Vietnam, I replied, “I’m not going to be the first American
president to lose a war.”
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
250. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) My presidential policies were said to be hard on the poor. However, I often quietly wrote personal checks to people who had written to me with hard-luck stories. I kept a
sign on my desk in the Oval Office that said, “It can be done.” My wife was the daughter
of an actress.
(4 pts.) For relaxation, I chopped wood or rode horses on my 668-acre Rancho del Cielo
in the mountains above Santa Barbara. In my first try for the Republican presidential nomination, I named Senator Richard Schweiker of Pennsylvania as my prospective running
mate before the primaries ended. However, I lost the nomination to the incumbent president.
(2 pts.) Congress renamed Washington’s National Airport for me in 1998. I made 53
movies but played the bad guy in only one.
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
251. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) I had solar panels installed on the White House roof to save energy by heating
hot water. I also got rid of the Sequoia, the presidential yacht that had been used by presidents since the 1920s. I also took 180 television sets out of the White House. My wife’s
first name was Eleanor, but she preferred her middle name.
(4 pts.) My effort to show I was a man of the people extended to carrying my own luggage when traveling. My daughter Amy was allowed to come to state dinners; however,
she brought a book to read to get through the boring conversation and speeches. My wife
wore the same dress at the presidential inauguration that she wore at my inauguration as
governor.
(2 pts.) For dessert, my wife and I liked peach cobbler, fitting for people from the “Peach
State.” Just before the Gulf War, years after leaving the White House, I wrote letters to
the heads of state of the United Nations Security Council members and to Arab heads of
state pleading with them to abandon Bush’s coalition against Hussein. Later on, I admitted my tactics were “not appropriate.”
(Answer: #39 Carter)
173
252. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I was so sensitive about public reaction to my health that I called my first heart attack “digestive upset.” During my administration, Air Force One got its name as the presidential aircraft. When Russia shot down a U2 spy plane, the secretary of state claimed a
weather-research plane had gone off course.
(4 pts.) In baseball, the Dodgers and Giants moved to the West Coast. Jackie Robinson
was traded by the Dodgers to the hated Giants; he retired rather than play for them. In my
eighth year as president, the Ballistic Missile Early Warning system came on-line to reduce the warning time to 15-30 minutes.
(2 pts.) Before my presidency, my wife Mamie let me spend a year in the Philippines
without her because she did not like hot climates. I loved Coca-Cola. I was once photographed having a Coke after a round of golf.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
253. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) In my first year in the White House, my father suffered a stroke. Thus he was no
longer able to advise me. Although I placed an embargo on goods from Cuba, I made
sure I continued to be supplied with my favorite cigars from Havana.
(4 pts.) The building in Washington named for me was originally called the “National Cultural Center.” Oleg Cassini was my wife’s personal fashion designer. The White House
telephone operators accommodated my daughter Caroline when, at age five, she asked
to speak with Santa Claus. They connected her with a man in the White House Transportation Department, who took her order for a helicopter for her brother.
(2 pts.) I was given the last rites of the Catholic Church when I almost died after back
surgery. I wanted Warren Beatty to play myself in the movie PT-109. Instead, the role
went to Cliff Robertson.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
254. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I broadcast the first presidential radio address in a foreign language in French. I
chose the first woman ever named to a Cabinet post, Frances Perkins, as secretary of labor.
(4 pts.) The Selective Service and Training Act, the first peacetime draft law in U.S. history, was passed by Congress. The Civil Works Administration (CWA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) were all created.
(2 pts.) I promised a “New Deal” to lead the nation out of the Depression.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
255. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Nearly ten years before becoming president, I suffered a heart attack. While
president, I was hospitalized for removal of my gall bladder and for removal of throat
polyps.
(4 pts.) Part of the work I did for another president includes serving as chairman of both
the National Aeronautics and Space Council and the Committee on Equal Employment
Opportunities.
(2 pts.) Civil rights was a major theme of my domestic program. I declared a “War on
Poverty,” and my agenda was called “The Great Society.” The 24th amendment to the
Constitution was ratified, banning poll taxes.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
174
256. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My Treasury Secretary, Andrew Mellon, was one of the richest men in the world.
When I ran for president, the rival Democrats were so deeply divided they took over 100
ballots to name a candidate. During my presidency, the Ku Klux Klan elected mayors in
Portland, Oregon, and Portland, Maine.
(4 pts.) I inherited Harry Daugherty as attorney general from my predecessor. However, I
finally demanded Daugherty’s resignation, and the former attorney general was tried twice
for misconduct in office. The first trial resulted in a hung jury and the second in an acquittal due to insufficient evidence.
(2 pts.) My wife Grace told funny stories about my taciturnity, helping to make me into a
character. One of her stories dealt with two men who were overheard discussing my wife
and me. She had been a teacher in a school for the deaf before her marriage. “She taught
the deaf to speak,” one man said. “Why didn’t she teach [the president]?” the other man
asked.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
257. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) During my presidency, Russian Foreign Minister Molotov spoke against American foreign policy before the United Nations. After leaving office, I made an appearance
on Edward R. Murrow’s “See It Now” television program. This was the first time a former
president had spoken informally and at length before a large audience.
(4 pts.) As an ex-president, I was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities
Committee to testify about the promotion of an alleged Communist in my administration. I
claimed I could not be forced to testify under the doctrine of “Executive Privilege.” Although Constitutional authorities differed, public sympathy for my claim of Republican harassment led the Committee to drop the matter.
(2 pts.) During World War II, I headed the Senate War Investigating Committee checking
into waste and corruption. My efforts saved the government millions of dollars and were a
factor in my nomination as vice president.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
258. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I initiated the military operation known as “Rolling Thunder.” The African-American leader Malcolm X was assassinated in Harlem.
(4 pts.) I was born and attended college in the same state. My successor was from a different political party.
(2 pts.) During my presidency, the Astrodome opened in my home state. Rumors continue to link me to the assassination of my predecessor, which also occurred in my home
state.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
259. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My first vice president had the nickname “Cactus Jack.” Fiorello LaGuardia
served as Mayor of New York City, and the airport named after him was built. I appointed
LaGuardia head of Civil Defense with my wife as co-director.
(4 pts.) Race riots broke out in Beaumont, Mobile, Los Angeles, and Detroit, with 34
deaths in Detroit. I threw a switch in Washington that turned on the lights at Crosley Field
in Cincinnati for the first night baseball game in major league history.
(2 pts.) Eight days after my inauguration, I gave my first radio address, which was primarily intended to restore confidence in the banking system.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
175
260. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) During my presidency, the first Telstar satellite was launched by A.T.&T. As a
Congressman, I had supported policies that benefited my working class district. I criticized
the administration of my own party for what I claimed was a weak stand against the Communist Chinese.
(4 pts.) When elected to the Senate, I was replaced in the House of Representatives by
“Tip” O’Neill, who went on to become Speaker of the House.
(2 pts.) During my term, my wife gave birth to a son, Patrick, whose fight for life the nation watched with bated breath for two days until the boy died. Tragedy has stalked the
male members of our aristocratic family. I was the youngest president to die in office.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
261. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The Lafayette Escadrille flying squadron was formed during my presidency. I was
the first president since Jefferson to address a joint session of Congress. One senator
was upset at “all this cheap and tawdry imitation of English royalty.” My subject was tariff
reform.
(4 pts.) I celebrated the completion of the 60-story Woolworth Building in New York City
– then the largest in the world. I pushed a button that activated more than 90,000 light
bulbs in the skyscraper. During my presidency, Jeanette Rankin of Montana was elected
the first woman in Congress. At that point, she could cast votes in the House but not for
president.
(2 pts.) William Jennings Bryan, my first secretary of state, refused to serve liquor at diplomatic functions. This was referred to as “grape juice diplomacy.” My last name is the
middle name of a later president.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
262. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) My opponents referred to me as “Peck’s Bad Boy,” the name of a cartoon character of the time. This was because of three trips I made to Bermuda to stay at the home
of Mrs. Thomas Peck. There were also letters I wrote to Mrs. Peck, who was divorced.
Both my wife and I swore that Mrs. Peck was only a friend, and the trips to Bermuda were
advised by a doctor.
(4 pts.) During my second term, I had to deal with “unrestricted submarine warfare.”
Some have called my second wife the first woman president.
(2 pts.) I asked Congress to declare war on Germany so the U.S. could help make the
world “safe for democracy.”
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
263. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I was the last man for 60 years to be elected president while serving as a governor. During my presidency, my mentor and predecessor as governor joined the conservative Liberty League in opposition to my policies.
(4 pts.) During my campaign for reelection, a poll of its readers by the Literary Digest
magazine revealed that my opponent, Alfred Landon, would defeat me by a 3:2 margin.
Instead, I was reelected by the largest majority to that point in history.
(2 pts.) While I was in the White House, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the
Railroad Retirement Act, the Bituminous Coal Conservation Act, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
176
264. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I used the Gulf of Tonkin resolution by Congress as an excuse for sending more
U.S. troops to Vietnam.
(4 pts.) As a young Congressman, I married Claudia Alta Taylor after a six-week courtship.
(2 pts.) My vice president, Hubert Humphrey, lost in his attempt to replace me.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
265. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) My father was the first chairman of the Securities Exchange Commission. My father-in-law was nicknamed “Black Jack.” My wife won horsemanship trophies as a child
and teenager.
(4 pts.) I was from a different political party than my predecessor but the same party as
my successor.
(2 pts.) The singer Frank Sinatra produced my inaugural ball. Actor Peter Lawford was
my brother-in-law. My administration was referred to as “Camelot.”
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
266. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) During my presidency, four different men served as attorney general, including
Richard Kleindienst and William Saxbe. I won election to my first term by defeating the sitting vice president by less than 1% of the total vote.
(4 pts.) While in law school, I sneaked into the dean’s office to find where I stood in my
class – I ranked third. As vice president, I traveled to Moscow and took part in the famous
“Kitchen Debate” with Soviet Premier Kruschev.
(2 pts.) I started a policy of “Vietnamization” to reduce the U.S. role in the Vietnam War.
The Republic of China replaced Nationalist China as a member of the United Nations Security Council.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
267. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) I was the only live president to have my image on a coin. I was president during
most of the decade known as the “Jazz Age.”
(4 pts.) I took my first oath as president on my mother’s Bible.
(2 pts.) Gene Tunney defeated Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight boxing championship. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic.
(Answer: #30 Coolidge)
268. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) One of my vice presidents, John Nance Garner, said, “The vice presidency’s not
worth a bucket of warm spit.” I hired a plane to take me to Chicago for my acceptance
speech after my first nomination.
(4 pts.) During my presidency, Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber,” lost his heavyweight boxing title to the German, Max Schmeling, but then knocked out Schmeling in the first round
to regain it. Another African American, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals at the Olympics in Germany.
(2 pts.) I actually began my radio talks when I was Governor of New York. At the 1984
Democratic Convention, Jesse Jackson said that I “in a wheelchair [was] better than
Ronald Reagan on a horse.”
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
177
269. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) My Alliance for Progress program helped improve U.S. relations with Latin America. In my first try for a national office, I lost my party’s nomination for vice president on
the ticket with Adlai Stevenson.
(4 pts.) I drew a loud cheer from a huge throng in West Berlin when I told them, in German, “I am a Berliner.” I liked to sail and play touch football with my family.
(2 pts.) I was born in the Baked Bean state of Irish parents. I was a millionaire at 21. My
wife was the 1948 Most Beautiful Debutante.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
270. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My Cabinet was named the “Tennis Cabinet.” I coined the phrase “Good to the
Last Drop” which Maxwell House Coffee adopted as their slogan.
(4 pts.) I was on a camping trip in the mountains when I received word that the president
was dying. A prolific writer, many of my books dealt with the American West.
(2 pts.) Although the public looked on me as a “swashbuckling cowboy,” I was in fact a
cultured aristocrat who aided museums and encouraged art. I inspired the name of a toy
animal that is still popular today.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
271. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Four years before I was nominated for the presidency, I gave a speech at the
convention nominating Governor Alfred Smith of New York for that same office. I later defeated Thomas Dewey, another New York governor, for reelection to the presidency.
(4 pts.) Even though I believed in Keynesian economics, or using government spending
to “prime the pump,” I also promised to balance the national budget in my first term. I did
not keep that promise.
(2 pts.) In a speech to Congress, I used the famous line, “a day that will live in infamy.”
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
272. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) In what became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” I fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. Public and congressional outrage forced me to appoint a replacement whom I promised never to fire.
(4 pts.) During my successful campaign for reelection, my Democratic opponent, George
McGovern, replaced his vice presidential candidate, Thomas Eagleton, when it was revealed that Eagleton had been treated for depression.
(2 pts.) I am remembered for a gap in a tape of a White House conversation and some
“plumbers” who broke into an office in a Washington apartment complex.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
273. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I was unconscious three times while president: once following a heart attack,
once after a stroke, and another time after surgery for ileitis. During my first term, the position of National Security Advisor was created to help coordinate foreign policy.
(4 pts.) During my presidency, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other African American
ministers founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Alan Dulles, the brother of the secretary of state, was director of the C.I.A.
(2 pts.) I was of a different party than both my predecessor and successor. I was born
and died in different states.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
178
274. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) I was elected to my first term without a majority of the popular vote because
George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, ran as a third-party candidate. During the
campaign for my second term, Wallace, who ran again, was shot by Arthur Bremer and
spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
(4 pts.) I am the only president born in my home state, although another president was
governor of that state and still another went to college in the state.
(2 pts.) I was the first person since 1828 to win the presidency for a first term after a previous defeat for that office. My staff said I had so little mechanical ability that I probably
didn’t even know how to operate a tape recorder.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
275. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) At age 27, I was appointed my state’s director of the National Youth Organization. That post allowed me to use the powers of government to find educational and job
opportunities for young people. Later, as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I helped establish the Preparedness Investigating Committee when the Korean
War broke out.
(4 pts.) A Constitutional amendment banning poll taxes was passed while I was president. I enjoyed the soft drink Fresca so much that I had special taps installed in the White
House. My wife started the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign.
(2 pts.) During my stay in the White House, the Beatles made their first U.S. tour and
miniskirts were the latest fashion. My wife and I, as well as our two children, all had the
same initials.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
276. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) While a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I recommended
that the U.S. support Algerian nationals fighting to obtain independence from France. I
was the only Democratic senator who did not vote to censure Republican Senator Joseph
McCarthy for his wrongful accusations of Communists in the government.
(4 pts.) While campaigning for president, I spoke of a “missile gap” that I claimed had
developed between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. My successor in the White House said
this of me: “He never said a word of importance in the Senate and he never did a thing.
But somehow ... he managed to create the image of himself as a shining intellectual, a
youthful leader who would change the face of the country.”
(2 pts.) My future wife met me when she interviewed me when I was a young senator.
The fact that I had Addison’s disease was a closely guarded secret. I once told an acquaintance that I did not expect to live past my forties.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
277. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) I was the first president to address a convention of the N.A.A.C.P. I accepted
Henry Wallace’s resignation as secretary of commerce after Wallace argued against continued U.S. arms buildup. Wallace had been vice president under the previous president.
(4 pts.) During my administration, the Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 16 years. However, that majority lasted only two years until my election led my party back to power in Congress.
(2 pts.) General MacArthur tried to convince me to use the atomic bomb against China to
stop their forces in North Korea.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
179
278. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) For the first three months of my life, I was known only as “the baby” because my
parents could not agree on a name. Finally I was named after a lawyer friend of my father. Two “Mr. Sam’s” played an important role in my life: my father, who served in the
state legislature, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
(4 pts.) In later life, I bragged that I took 40 college courses and made 35 A’s. In fact, I
took 56 courses and made 8 A’s. The term “credibility gap” was invented during my presidency. I was of the same political party as my predecessor but not my successor.
(2 pts.) My home state was an independent republic from 1836 to 1845. My wife was
given her nickname at age two by a Negro nurse. The Reverend Billy Graham presided at
my burial.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
279. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) Shortly after I became president, Life magazine estimated my family’s fortune at
$14 million. Some historians say this estimate was too low. While a Congressional assistant, I attended Georgetown University Law School for several months but dropped out
when I got married.
(4 pts.) In college, I bragged that my hometown was named for my grandfather, but this
was not true. After graduating from college, I coached a high school debate team to its
first city championship ever and a second place finish in state competition.
(2 pts.) I received many favors from another president who was known by his three initials. One of my Congressional aides was John Connally, who later became governor of
my home state and was wounded when President Kennedy was assassinated.
(Answer: #36 Johnson)
280. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) I started the “Atoms for Peace” program and treaty talks and prisoner exchanges
took place at Panmunjon. The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was formed.
(4 pts.) I welcomed Soviet Premier Kruschev on the first visit to this country by a Soviet
leader. Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe. Nine months later, they separated. The
Cleveland Indians won their last American League pennant for 41 years.
(2 pts.) I was the first presidential candidate to use television advertising. I was also the
first G.O.P. candidate to win the electoral votes of Louisiana.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
281. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) In my first year in the White House, spending on the Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile program was $3 million; within four years the figure had risen $1.3 billion. The Distant Early Warning (DEW Line) system was completed to offer a two- or three-hour warning of a Soviet bomber attack.
(4 pts.) During my first term, Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest athletes of the century, died
in Lomita, CA. I had played football against Jim forty years before. During my second
term, remains of servicemen from both World War II and the Korean War were interred in
the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.
(2 pts.) I was criticized for staying in Augusta GA to play golf and not throwing out the
first ball of the baseball season in Washington; I never missed another opener as president. For over 50 years now, women have worn a waist-length, belted jacket based on
one I wore in the army.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
180
282. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My administration tried to improve U.S. relations with Latin America. The Platt
Amendment, which had given the U.S. the right to intervene in the affairs of Cuba, was
repealed. American occupation forces were withdrawn from some Caribbean republics,
and a long-standing dispute with Mexico was settled. I became the first president to visit
South America when I took a trip to Cartagena, Colombia.
(4 pts.) My wife was active in Red Cross work during World War I. At one point in our
lives, she turned our cottage at Hyde Park into a furniture factory staffed by unemployed
workers.
(2 pts.) I served 4,422 days as president, a record that presumably will never be broken
as a result of the 22nd Amendment.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
283. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) I played wide receiver for Harvard’s junior varsity team. I popularized touch football games on the White House lawn. Because of serious back problems, I should not
have been playing. When I had joined the Senate, I was on crutches from a back operation.
(4 pts.) 59 years after it was pierced by a Japanese destroyer and sunk while under my
command, patrol boat PT 109 was found in 2002 by a National Geographic expedition led
by Robert Ballard.
(2 pts.) In the summer of 2001, an exhibition of clothes, video clips, magazine articles,
and other items of my wife Jacqueline was opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York. Also released was an anthology of her best-loved poems edited by our daughter Caroline.
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
284. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) The Communist leader, Mao Tse Tung, proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. Two days later I announced, “We have evidence an atomic explosion occurred in the
U.S.S.R.”
(4 pts.) As a boy, I wore thick eyeglasses, which restricted my participation in sports. As
a consequence, I learned to play the piano and became an avid reader.
(2 pts.) Like two of my predecessors, both of whom had the same last name, I offered
the American people a “deal.” My proposals included a Fair Employment Practices Commission and Federal funds for education and national health insurance.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
285. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) During my first year as president, NBC and CBS raced film across the ocean
from England to see which network would be the first to televise footage of Queen Elizabeth II’s inauguration. I proposed the “Atoms for Peace” program to the United Nations.
This plan called for the peaceful use of atomic energy in developing countries. Eventually
the International Atomic Energy Agency was created.
(4 pts.) Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union, died during my first year in office. The
new Russian leaders agreed to a treaty creating an independent Austria. However, the
so-called “Cold War” continued. My secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, created this
term.
(2 pts.) I was born, went to college, and died in different states. I was from a different political party than both my predecessor and successor.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
181
286. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My wife translated a 16th-century Latin book on metallurgy. Our marriage produced two sons. One of the adventures we shared was participation in the Boxer Rebellion in China.
(4 pts.) While attending a brand new college, I was manager of the school’s football and
baseball teams and held various part-time jobs, including two summers of work for the
U.S. Geological Survey.
(2 pts.) I was extremely successful in business but very unlucky as president. During my
long retirement after the presidency, I wrote on history and politics, including my own
memoirs. I chaired a Federal study commission to improve the efficiency of the executive
branch of the government.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
287. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) I said: “I honestly feel it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.
There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder
than ever before.” The first minimum wage law passed, and Neville Chamberlain became
prime minister of Great Britain during my presidency, which lasted more than one term.
(4 pts.) One of my secretaries of war was Henry Stimson, a Republican who had been
secretary of war under Taft and secretary of state under Hoover. I also appointed another
Republican, Frank Knox, as secretary of the navy.
(2 pts.) A recent book, Closet Companion, tells of my long friendship with Margaret Suckley, a distant cousin, who gave me my dog Fala and was in the room when I died.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
288. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) My secretary of state Alexander Haig shuttled between Britain and Argentina trying to settle the Falklands Islands War. Within the first year of my presidency, Prince
Charles of England married Lady Diana Spencer.
(4 pts.) I was governor of a state that was not my native state. I held no other political office prior to the presidency.
(2 pts.) Within minutes after I took the oath as president, militants in Iran released 52
American hostages they had held for 14 months at the American embassy. During my
second term as president, revelation of secret negotiations by members of my administration caused a scandal called “Irangate.”
(Answer: #40 Reagan)
289. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) I chaired a commission that studied ways of reorganizing the executive branch of
the Federal government. For three straight years as president, I traveled to Philadelphia
to watch the Athletics in the World Series – once against the Cubs and twice against the
Cardinals. During the last series, I was booed, and the crowd chanted, “We want beer!”
(4 pts.) During my presidency, national hero Charles Lindbergh married Anne Morrow.
Their baby boy was kidnapped a few weeks before I finished my term. Also the gangster
Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion, and the cyclotron was invented.
(2 pts.) The radio played the hit song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” In Washington,
the ragtag “Bonus Expeditionary Force” camped out until troops scattered them. The last
two letters of my last name are the same as the last two letters of the names of three other presidents.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
182
290. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The middle name of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major
league baseball, was the same as my last name. This was fitting since I was known as a
sportsman. In fact, I lost sight in one eye because of a boxing accident.
(4 pts.) I am a character in the best-selling novel The Alienist, which deals with the time I
was the commissioner of police in a large city.
(2 pts.) I was elected president once, defeating the Democratic candidate Alton Parker. I
also lost a campaign for president.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
291. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) My accomplishments while in office included revenue sharing, new anti crime
laws, and a broad environmental program. As I had promised, I appointed justices of conservative philosophy to the Supreme Court. One of the most dramatic events of my first
term occurred when American astronauts made the first moon landing.
(4 pts.) Some of my most acclaimed achievements came in my quest for world stability.
During visits to Beijing and Moscow, I reduced tensions with China and the U.S.S.R. My
summit meetings with Russian leader Leonid I. Brezhnev produced a treaty to limit strategic nuclear weapons. I announced an accord with North Vietnam to end American involvement in Indochina. And my secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, negotiated disengagement agreements between Israel and its opponents, Egypt and Syria.
(2 pts.) My First Lady met the troubled days of Watergate with dignity. “I love my husband,” she said, “I believe in him, and I am proud of his accomplishments.” She died at
home in Park Ridge, New Jersey, on June 22, 1993.
(Answer: #37 Nixon)
292. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) At 34, I won a seat in Congress. My attractive personality, exemplary character,
and quick intelligence enabled me to rise rapidly. I was appointed to the powerful Ways
and Means Committee. Robert M. LaFollette, Sr., who served with me, recalled that I
generally “represented the newer view,” and “on the great new questions … was generally on the side of the public and against private interests.”
(4 pts.) In view of the long agitation over the currency question that had come to a climax
during my first campaign for president, it was ironic that foreign policy dominated my administration. Reporting the stalemate between Spanish forces and revolutionaries in Cuba, newspapers screamed that a quarter of the population was dead and the rest suffering acutely. Public indignation brought pressure upon me for war. Unable to restrain Congress or the American people, I delivered my message of neutral intervention. Congress
thereupon voted three resolutions tantamount to a declaration of war for the liberation and
independence of Cuba. In the 100-day war, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet
outside Santiago harbor in Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto
Rico.
(2 pts.) After being inaugurated a second time, I looked forward to a new term focused
on domestic rather than foreign policies. Early in September of the first year of my second
term, I appeared at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo to make an important speech
on America’s world role. An anarchist named Leon Czolgosz shot me during a public reception in the Temple of Music. Despite early hopes for my recovery, I died on September
14 in Buffalo.
(Answer: #25 McKinley)
183
293. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I concentrated on maintaining world peace. Before I left office, I urged the necessity of maintaining an adequate military strength but cautioned that vast military expenditures could breed potential dangers to our way of life. I concluded with a prayer for peace
“in the goodness of time.”
(4 pts.) My years in office saw a rise in the importance of the civil rights movement. Rosa
Parks, secretary of the Montgomery, Ala., chapter of the NAACP, refused to surrender
her seat when ordered by a local bus driver, leading to the Montgomery bus boycott. The
Southern Christian Leadership Conference was established by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and others to coordinate and assist local organizations working for the full
equality of African-Americans.
(2 pts.) During World War II, while promotion and fame came to me, my wife lived in
Washington. After I became president of Columbia University, we purchased a farm at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was the first home we had ever owned. My duties as commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces – and hers as my hostess at a chateau near Paris – delayed work on our dream home, finally completed while I was president. We celebrated with a housewarming picnic for the staff from our last temporary
quarters: the White House.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
293. Range: #33-43
(6 pts.) In the same year I was elected President, Carol Moseley-Braun became the first
African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, representing the state of Illinois.
Shortly after becoming senator, Moseley-Braun won clashes with Southern senators over
a patent for a Confederate insignia.
(4 pts.) During my administration, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being
than at any time in its history. I could point to the lowest unemployment rate in modern
times, the lowest inflation in 30 years, the highest home ownership in the country’s history, dropping crime rates in many places, and reduced welfare roles. I proposed the first
balanced budget in decades and achieved a budget surplus.
(2 pts.) As a result of issues surrounding personal indiscretions with a young female
White House intern, I was the second U.S. president to be impeached by the House of
Representatives. I was tried in the Senate and found not guilty of the charges brought
against me. I apologized to the nation for my actions and continued to have unprecedented popular approval ratings for my job as president.
(Answer: #42 Clinton)
294. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) My technique, I said, was “persistent experimentation ... Take a method and try
it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.” During my second term, John Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath, and
the German airship Hindenberg burst into flames over Lakehurst Naval Base in New Jersey.
(4 pts.) I tried in vain to persuade the British to give India its independence and to stop
the French from repossessing Indochina. Ralph Bellamy later played me in the Broadway
play and then the movie “Sunrise at Campobello.”
(2 pts.) At my wedding, the dominant figure was the bride’s uncle. While I was in the
White House, the Olympics scheduled for Tokyo were rescheduled for Helsinki. However,
they were not held there either. Four years later, the Olympics were canceled again.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
184
295. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) I demonstrated independence and innovation while in office. Less than a month
after being sworn in, I delivered my State of the Union address to Congress in person –
which no president had done since John Adams.
(4 pts.) Like Lincoln during the Civil War, I wielded powers that far exceeded those of
peacetime presidents. Lawmakers gave me total control of the military, discretion to fight
subversion and espionage, and unprecedented authority over industry. For example, the
Lever Food and Fuel Act gave me “full authority to undertake any steps necessary” for the
conservation of food resources. In addition, the Overman Act gave me power to reorganize the Executive Branch.
(2 pts.) My wife, Edith, was descended from the Native American Princess, Pocahantas.
She wrote in her Memoirs that “the only decision that was mine was what was important
and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present matters to my husband,” which places her in the position of a modern White House Chief of Staff.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
296. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) Despite an uneven education, my impressive math skills earned me a place at
Stanford University where I worked my way through college. During the twenty years that
followed college, I managed mines in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia, and the U.S. Before
I reached the age of 40, I was a millionaire.
(4 pts.) I appointed Judge John J. Parker of North Carolina, a known racist, to the United
States Supreme Court. However, the NAACP, which was in its early years of influence,
launched a successful campaign against Parker’s confirmation.
(2 pts.) My preoccupation with balancing the budget and my belief that federal relief violated the American principle of self-reliance prevented me from taking the necessary actions to ease the country’s economic problems during my administration. I opposed federal benefit programs to help the poor and unemployed, and I opposed deficit spending
that would have created more jobs.
(Answer: #31 Hoover)
297. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) A foreign army, led by Pancho Villa, invaded the United States for the first time
since the War of 1812. I mobilized more than 5,000 National Guardsmen from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico to protect the border between Brownsville TX and San Diego CA.
The American Legion was formed while I was in office.
(4 pts.) Severe headaches and a nervous stomach had always plagued me, and during
my years at Princeton University I had three periods of serious illness. When I entered the
White House, one physician predicted that I would not live out one term in office. However, I completed two full terms.
(2 pts.) My second marriage was delayed because one of my old loves, Mary Hulbert
Peck, demanded a loan of $7500 to bail her son out of bankruptcy. She had letters from
me that would have ruined me politically if she showed them to a newspaper. I gave her
the money. I married Edith Gault at her home in Washington. We took a train to Hot
Springs VA for our honeymoon.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
185
298. Range: #26-36
(6 pts.) Giussepe Zangara attempted to assassinate me in Miami before I was sworn into
office. Mayor Cermark of Chicago, who was with me, was wounded and died several
weeks later. Zangara was executed a little over a month after the crime.
(4 pts.) Campaigning for reelection against Wendell Willkie, I said misleadingly that I
would not send American boys to fight in foreign wars. Although my margin of victory fell
sharply from the previous election, I still defeated Willkie handily by margins of
27,243,466 to 22,334,413 in the popular vote and 449 to 82 in the electoral vote.
(2 pts.) My tireless promoter and adviser, Louis Howe, helped get my First Lady involved
with the Women’s Division of the Democratic Committee of New York State so as to boost
my appeal among female voters. It has been said that she was chiefly responsible for
persuading me to appoint as Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins – the first woman to
serve on the Cabinet.
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
299. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) I did not seek out grand resorts for recreation. I often went back to my home in
Independence, gabbed with old friends, and read history and biography. In Washington, I
liked to cruise the Potomac River on the Williamsburg, the presidential yacht, play a little
poker and sip some bourbon with water. About as extravagant as I ever got on vacation
was during my trips to the naval base at Key West, Florida, where I wore loud sports
shirts and did a dog paddle in the ocean.
(4 pts.) My daughter Margaret wrote murder mysteries. She also wrote a book about the
First Ladies. Before becoming an author, she wanted to be a pianist. I didn’t like it when
critics panned her performances, and I sometimes wrote nasty letters to them.
(2 pts.) I fired General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War. One historian has
written: “Seldom has a more unpopular man fired a more popular one.” Senator Joseph
McCarthy called for my impeachment.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
300. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The current Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, has a bronze plaque on his
desk in the Pentagon that contains a quotation from me: “Aggressive fighting for the right
is the noblest sport the world affords.” I endured much tragedy in my life. My father died at
age 46 from cancer. My mother died from typhoid fever at 48.
(4 pts.) Attorney General Philander Knox announced that the government was initiating a
suit to break up the Northern Securities Company, which comprised the leading railroads
of the northwestern quarter of the country. J.P. Morgan called on me at the White House.
J.P. didn’t complain so much about my judgment that the railroad holding company violated antitrust laws but did object to the ungentlemanly public manner in which I had gone
about delivering my judgment.
(2 pts.) One of the cabinet members I inherited from my predecessor was John Hay, who
had been friends with my father during the Civil War. I was pleased when my son tried out
for the football team at Groton School but pained when he broke his collarbone. My
daughter was called “Princess Alice” by the press. When a friend asked why I didn’t look
more closely after my daughter, I replied, “I can be president of the United States, or I can
attend to Alice. I can’t do both.”
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
186
301. Range: #31-41
(6 pts.) During my first term, George Marshall won the Nobel Peace Prize on the same
day that Winston Churchill won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I threw out the first ball of
the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
(4 pts.) My son John wrote Yanks: The Epic Story of the American Army in World War I,
which was published in 2001. John followed in my footsteps as an author. Also his interest in World War I came naturally since I fought in that conflict.
(2 pts.) In 1915, I met Mamie Doud, from a well-off Denver family. Our first son “Icky”
died at age three. I once wrote Mamie from Europe: “God, I hate the Germans!”
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
302. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) My infamous “White House walks” usually ended with a nude swim across the
Potomac. In 2001, the aircraft carrier named after me was sent to the Persian Gulf after
terrorist attacks.
(4 pts.) During my presidency, riots broke out in Petrograd, Russia; the diode radio tube
was invented; and Oklahoma became a state. The Executive Office Wing, now called the
West Wing, was added to White House.
(1 point) At age six, I saw Lincoln’s funeral procession from a second floor window of my
family’s house on Broadway. When I visited Rome after my presidency, Pope Pius X refused to meet me because I was scheduled to speak at a Methodist church in Rome.
(Answer: #26 T. Roosevelt)
303. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) More than ten years before I became president, my wife discovered love letters
revealing that I was involved with Lucy Mercer. I promised my wife I would never see Lucy again. However, I did not keep that promise. Before becoming First Lady, she worked
for the abolition of child labor, the establishment of a minimum wage and the passage of
legislation to protect workers.
(4 pts.) I was the first president to visit Africa while in office. I turned 61 as I flew back
over the Atlantic.
(2 pts.) The first atomic bomb was originally called “Thin Man” in my honor; the other
bomb was “Fat Man” after my good friend Winston Churchill.
(Answer: #32 F. Roosevelt)
304. Range: #25-35
(6 pts.) The French Prime Minister said that talking to me was like talking to Jesus Christ.
Europeans found me ignorant; I was criticized for being “ill-informed” and “slow and unadaptable.” One commentator said that my “thought and my temperament were essentially
theological not intellectual.” This may have been the result of my being the son of a Presbyterian minister.
(4 pts.) My second inaugural parade was the first to feature women. Colonel Edward M.
House was called my “silent partner.” My administration officially recognized Pancho Villa’s archrival, Venustiano Carranza, as Mexico’s legitimate ruler.
(2 pts.) When I sailed for Europe, I said to my chief domestic adviser: “...this trip will either be the greatest success or the supremest tragedy in all history...” While in Europe, I
came down with “Spanish influenza,” which was affecting millions around the globe.
(Answer: #28 Wilson)
187
305. Range: #28-38
(6 pts.) I saw many movies in the White House; my favorite movie star was Myrna Loy.
The Japanese made the most destructive air raid in history to that point upon the Chinese
city of Chungking. During my second term, The Golden Gate International Exposition was
held in San Francisco at the same time as the New York World's Fair.
(4 pts.) My wife was the first First Lady to testify before a Congressional Committee. The
topic was conditions in homes for the aged. A Civilian Conservation Corps Camp in Maryland was converted for a presidential retreat. I called it “Shangri-La.” It would later be renamed “Camp David.”
(2 pts.) A Democrat, I was the first president to leave the country by airplane. Historian
Michael Beschloss says, “He had a lot of people who worked for him, but, humanly, he
was rather an isolated person. Friendship was not a great quality in him.” Beschloss obtained access to declassified government documents that helped clear up my role in refusing to bomb the Auschwitz concentration camp. I saw the proposal and turned it down,
stating that it “wouldn’t have done any good” and “we would have been accused of destroying Auschwitz [by] bombing these innocent people.”
(Answer: #32 F.D. Roosevelt)
306. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I was the third of six sons of a working class family. I was closest to my youngest
brother, Milton, who was the only other brother to complete high school, much less college. My mother Ida was universally regarded as a saint. Neither parent smoked, drank,
swore, or raised their voices – although all their boys did. My brother Arthur dropped out
of high school to find work in a bank in Kansas City, where he lived in a boardinghouse
with Harry Truman.
(4 pts.) I was haunted throughout my presidency by fear of a Soviet surprise attack. The
U.S. developed the U2 spy plane. Secretary of State Dulles didn’t like the U2 spy program
and I had to order him to take it on. During the first International Geophysical Year, Sputnik II carried the dog Laika into orbit.
(2 pts.) My presidential library in Abilene, Kansas, also houses a small chapel that is the
final resting place of my wife Mamie and me.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
307. Range: #30-40
(6 pts.) I was the starting halfback on my college football team before a knee injury ended my career. I married a millionaire’s daughter but was almost too broke to buy her a
wedding ring. My brother Milton also went to college and became a journalist. Milton
eventually became the number two official in the U.S. Agriculture Department.
(4 pts.) I promoted “freedom of space” to parallel freedom of the seas. The National Defense Education Act spent $1 billion over four years to improve education. When I won
reelection, an Alabama elector who was supposed to vote for my Democratic opponent
voted for a circuit judge instead.
(2 pts.) In his biography of me, called A Soldier’s Life, Carlo D’Este wrote that had I “followed the destiny predicted for him when he graduated from high school ... [he] would
have taught history instead of making it.” I was the son of pacifists. When I decided to go
to West Point, my mother thought it “rather wicked.” On the day I left to become a soldier,
Milton told me later, he heard our mother cry for the first time.
(Answer: #34 Eisenhower)
188
308. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) Some of the events of my administration were: the acquisition of the first television set for the White House; Margaret Chase Smith became the first woman elected to
the U.S. Senate; an executive order ended segregation in the armed forces. In South Africa, the Afrikaner National Party began enforcing apartheid. The independent republic of
Burma was created, and Korea was divided into North and South.
(4 pts.) I was present when Winston Churchill said in a speech in Missouri: “From Stettin
on the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent
[of Europe].” Speaking before a joint session of Congress, I warned about the dangers to
Greece and Turkey from totalitarian forces. I declared: “I believe that it must be the policy
of the U.S. to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Thus was born the doctrine named after me and, with it,
$400 million in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey.
(2 pts.) On the first anniversary of my entering the White House, Time magazine wrote
that I “was a sincere, hard-working man who had unfortunately had to step into a job that
was too big for him. A great many Americans felt sorry for him.” A poll of the people revealed their feeling that I was “a mediocre man doing the best he can.” I changed enough
opinions to win the next presidential election in an upset over my Republican opponent
Thomas Dewey.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
309. Range: #29-39
(6 pts.) I learned of my predecessor’s taping system shortly after I became president and
was not impressed. I authorized a test of the system when I had a press conference recorded. After listening to the tape, I decided not to make further recordings. I did make an
effort to record my thoughts and actions for posterity in a diary and through letters to my
wife. I was not a compelling speaker when reading from a prepared text. My off-the-cuff
remarks could be more persuasive and engaging.
(4 pts.) I was outraged when African Americans, some of them veterans, were beaten
and killed in the South, and I named a blue-ribbon Committee on Civil Rights to study the
issue. I also issued two executive orders to establish equal opportunity in federal employment and the armed forces. I also was the first president to authorize the Justice Department to issue friend of the court briefs in civil rights cases, the first to address the
NAACP (at the Lincoln Memorial), and the first to campaign in Harlem. All this cost me
support in the region of the country known as the “Solid South” because of its consistent
support of the Democratic Party.
(2 pts.) I served as vice-president just 83 days. I was the first president to receive daily
summaries from the Central Intelligence Agency. My successor in the White House was
from a different political party.
(Answer: #33 Truman)
310. Range: #32-42
(6 pts.) I was an ardent sailor from my early years. I put those skills to work in the Navy
during World War II. The first live television picture was transmitted to Europe while I was
president.
(4 pts.) I played touch football vigorously with my family rather than give any hint that I
suffered from Addison’s Disease. My wife made the pill box hat, invented in the 1930s,
popular again.
(2 pts.) In 2002, my daughter Caroline edited Profiles in Courage for Our Times. And
American Son, a book about my son John, was published.
189
(Answer: #35 Kennedy)
311. Range: #27-37
(6 pts.) For Secretary of Interior, I chose New Mexico Senator Albert B. Fall, a financially
troubled rancher well known for his anti-conservative views. But my most controversial
appointment was Harry Daugherty as attorney general. A year into my term, Congressman Oscar Keller of Minnesota filed a motion calling for the attorney general’s impeachment.
(4 pts.) My wife Florence was the first woman to help vote her husband into the presidency. She was also the first to fly in an airplane as a president-elect’s wife and the first to
appear in her own newsreels.
(2 pts.) To a reporter I said, “My God, this is a hell of a job! I have no trouble with my enemies. But my friends, they’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!” My health
started declining about a year after I entered the White House when I began to tire easily
and complained of chest pains.
(Answer: #29 Harding)
190