Trivia: Which president beat up his would-be assassin?

Question 1

Which U.S. President signed the treaty to purchase Alaska from Russia?

Question 2

Which President later served in the government of the Confederate States of America?

Question 3

Who was the only President to have served in combat during the Great War, also known as World War 1?

Question 4

John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama were the second and third sitting U.S. senators in history to become president. Who was the first?

Question 5

Iowa’s only president, Herbert Hoover, was nominated after his party’s popular incumbent refused to run for another term. Who was that president, whom Hoover ended up succeeding?

Question 6

Which president, distraught over losing his son in a gruesome train derailment, affirmed his oath on a law book instead of a Bible?

Question 7

Which president was elected with almost 60% of the electoral vote, despite not appearing on a ticket in 10 states?

Question 8

Who was the youngest person to ever assume the Presidency?

Question 9

Who was the President of the United States when Iowa joined the union?

Question 10

Washington, D.C. is one of two national capitals to be named after a U.S. President. Which is the other?

Question 11

Who is the only President to have earned his Masters in Business Administration, or MBA?

Question 12

Which President won the highest percentage of the popular vote in American history?

Question 13

Which president was the target of the first known attempt at the assassination of a sitting president?

Question 14

Who was the first President to appear on television?

Question 15

Who was the first American President with an official party affiliation, and what was the party?

Question 16

Who were the only two presidents related as grandfather and grandson?

Question 17

Which president’s body was exhumed in 1991 to address rumors about the cause of his death?

Answer 1

The Alaska Purchase was signed on March 30, 1867 by President Andrew Johnson. The formal transfer of the land took place on Oct. 19 of that same year. In 1959, Alaska was admitted to the union as the 49th state.

Answer 2

John Tyler served as the 10th president from 1841-1845. He first presided over a peace conference in an effort to prevent the Civil War, which failed. Tyler then voted in favor at the convention to approve Virginia’s secession from the Union and served in the Confederacy’s provisional Congress. He was later elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died before the first session started.

Answer 3

Harry S. Truman served in combat in France. (Dwight Eisenhower served during the Great War, but was stationed stateside training tank crews and did not see combat.)

Answer 4

The first sitting senator to become president was Warren G. Harding in 1921.

Answer 5

Herbert Hoover was elected in 1928 after Calvin Coolidge declined to run for a second full term. Coolidge had ascended to the presidency in 1923 following President Harding’s death and was elected to his only full term in 1924.

“I do not choose to run for president in nineteen twenty eight.” — President Calvin Coolidge, in a statement written by hand on scraps of paper given to reporters in South Dakota on Aug. 2, 1927.

Answer 6

Franklin Pierce’s son, Benny, was crushed to death in a train derailment weeks before his inauguration. Pierce’s wife did not attend and would not appear in public as the first lady for almost two years. Both President and Mrs. Pierce believed their son’s death was divine judgment for his decision to seek and win the presidency.

Answer 7

As the Republican Party had virtually no presence in slaveholding southern states during the 1860 election, there was no Republican ticket bearing Abraham Lincoln’s name in 10 of 33 states.

Answer 8

Although John F. Kennedy was the youngest man to be elected President in 1960 at the age of 43, Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest person to assume the Presidency, when at the age of 42 he succeeded the assassinated William McKinley in 1901.

Answer 9

President James K. Polk signed the declaration admitting the state of Iowa to the Union on Dec. 28, 1846.

Answer 10

Monrovia, Liberia is named after President James Monroe. The 5th president was a member of the American Colonization Society, which supported establishing colonies outside the U.S. for free blacks and used federal grant money to buy land in Western Africa.

Answer 11

President George W. Bush received his MBA from Harvard in 1975.

Answer 12

Lyndon B Johnson won the 1964 election with 61.05% of the popular vote.

Answer 13

After both of the pistols used by Richard Lawrence misfired as he attempted to kill President Andrew Jackson, the 7th president used his cane to severely beat his would-be assassin.

Answer 14

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appeared on TV to open the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City.

Answer 15

John Adams was a member of the Federalist Party.

Answer 16

William Henry Harrison was the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison. The elder was the shortest-serving president in history, having died of pneumonia in 1841, 30 days after giving the longest-ever inauguration speech while standing in the rain. The younger served one term, bookended by Grover Cleveland’s non-consecutive terms.

Answer 17

Contrary to rumors that he had been poisoned by political enemies, tests performed on the body of President Zachary Taylor in 1991 attributed his sudden death in 1850 to a naturally-occurring disease.