United States History - February Events Quiz

Answer: Massachusetts issues first paper money in America

The first paper money in the USA was issued February 3, 1690, printed to finance England's war against France (in Quebec). However, the currency was not backed by reserves of gold and silver, or by land. Coins made from precious metals was the order of the day until then, and the fiat notes eventually caused economic chaos.

The first magazine published in North America, 'The American,' appeared on February 13, 1741. Congress established the US Weather Bureau on February 9, 1871. The first film production studio in the US was opened by Thomas Edison in New Jersey, February 1, 1893.

The picture is of piles of paper...that'd make a stack of money!

Answer: Grand Central Terminal

Built by New York Central Railroad, the Grand Central Terminal opened February 2, 1913. Its 44 platforms, 67 tracks, library, shops and clock-crowned information booth cover 19 hectares (44 acres) of New York real estate, located on East 42nd Street in Manhattan. Its distinctive Beaux-Arts style provides the station with several iconic features that have earned it a National Historic Landmark designation.

'The Stars and Stripes' began publication on February 8, 1918.

The picture is of a railway train, hinting at the Grand Central Terminal response.

Answer: George Washington University is established

George Washington University was established on February 6, 1821. Washington left shares in the Potomac Company to endow a university, for which he had advocated since his accession to office in 1790. The university was established by an Act of Congress, initially as Columbian College, then later as Columbian University. In 1904 it was renamed The George Washington University. It contains the oldest law school in the District of Columbia.

Lincoln's statue was sculpted by Daniel Chester French in 1920, while female attorneys won the right to argue cases before the Supreme Court in 1879. The National Congress of Mothers was established in 1897.

The money in the picture is all George Washington one dollar bills!

Answer: Supreme court declared sit-down strikes illegal.

Sit-down strikes were declared illegal on Feb. 27, 1939 - all the other events listed occurred earlier. Sit-down strikes, in which workers sat down right where they would normally be engaged in their work, were used by disgruntled employees to suggest to their employers that they pay their staff more. Sitting down 'on the job' meant that strike-breakers could not be brought in to complete the work. The Supreme Court declared this action illegal and any worker who undertook a sit-down strike could be fired for breaking the law.

'New Yorker Magazine' began publication Feb. 21, 1925. First successful Los Angeles chinchilla farm: Feb. 22, 1923. The Washington Monument was dedicated Feb. 21, 1885.

The picture shows chairs...sit down - get it?

Answer: True

This 'day' was first declared in 2016. It's said that the dessert was renamed by Delmonico's of New York to capitalise on the news sensation around the purchase of Alaska from Russia after previously being known as Baked Florida. However, a Creole restaurant in New Orleans called Antoine's also claims the honour of creating the dish in honour of the Alaska purchase. An earlier version was served by Thomas Jefferson to guests at a State banquet.

The dish consists of ice cream nestled on a sponge, surrounded by meringue and browned in the oven. In other parts of the world, the dish is doused with warmed rum or brandy and set alight as it is served, and called Bombe Alaska.

The globe pictured shows the State of Alaska.

Answer: Columbia

Launched from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on January 16, 2003, STS-107 was the 28th flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. During the mission, the seven-member crew conducted around 80 experiments before setting off to return to earth. During take-off, a large piece of foam dropped from the shuttle's external tank and penetrated the shuttle's left wing, which damaged the thermal protection system, causing the disaster as the shuttle made its re-entry. Debris was spread over 5,180 sq kilometres (2,000 sq miles) in east Texas and Louisiana.

Columbia, pictured, is the female national personification of the United States, counterpart of Uncle Sam.

Answer: Julius Robert Oppenheimer

Born of German immigrant parents in New York in 1904, Oppenheimer entered Harvard in 1922 and studied physics. He traveled to the UK to work at Cambridge University then went to University of Göttingen, achieving his PhD at the age of 22. He is credited with being a founder of American theoretical physics and was the first identify what we now call black holes in the 1930s.

Prior to the start of World War 2, efforts to create an atomic bomb were already underway at Berkeley, and in 1942 Oppenheimer was appointed scientific director of the Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, the first atomic bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert. A few short weeks later, Japan surrendered after two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities.

He later opposed further development of yet more powerful bombs, and was accused of having communist sympathies. He held the post of director of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton and died in 1967 of throat cancer.

William David Coolidge died in 1975; Alexander Dallas Bache was the great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin and died in 1967. Robert Williams Wood died in 1955.

The picture of the barrel of hazardous waste points to the developer of atomic weapons.

Answer: Babe Ruth

George Herman Ruth, Jr. was called 'the Bambino' and 'the Sultan of Swat' and most famously 'Babe' Ruth. Of his seven siblings only one survived to adulthood. He escaped the misery of his childhood when he was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, and the poverty of it when his prowess in playing baseball was spotted by talent-scout Jack Dunn in 1914. Dunn later sold Ruth to American League's Boston Red Sox where his fame and legend increased. He died aged 53 in 1948.

Joe DiMaggio was born in 1914, Cy Young was born in 1867 and Tom Seaver in 1944.

Anyone hungry? Have a Baby Ruth bar, pictured.

Answer: Nylon

Either man-made or naturally occurring, a polymer is a chemical compound of molecules united in long, repeating chains. Because of this arrangement, polymers can be modified for different uses. The Du Pont company experimented with cellulose-based fibres, and under the supervision of Wallace Carothers developed rayon, a precursor to nylon, which was the first commercially successful polymer. It was used in toothbrushes and the nylon stockings that became famous through their introduction at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Such was their success that 64 million pairs were sold in their first year of production.

Hope the Christmas stockings, pictured, helped a little in choosing the right answer.

Answer: George Peabody

George Peabody was born in Massachusetts in 1795 and was an astute businessman and merchant banker. He founded George Peabody & Company, and later mentored Junius Spencer Morgan, taking him on as a partner, establishing Peabody, Morgan & Co., the firm that would become the financial services multinational J.P. Morgan & Co. Though he moved to London in 1837, he was conscious of his blessings and was responsible for many acts of philanthropy, providing housing for the poor in the UK and educational institutions in the USA.

The Peabody Education Fund was terminated in 1898 having disbursed some $2.5m - the equivalent $90m in 2023 terms. Even after the Fund was wound up, the Trustees continued to provide from the Peabody coffers for the education of the poor, including the creation of the John F. Slater Fund, the Negro Rural School Fund, and the Virginia Randolph Fund. This style of philanthropy provided a template for the likes of Johns Hopkins, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller.

Peas in shell...Peabody...yeah, Mendel was a red herring.