They Helped Shape America - 3rd Edition Online Trivia | People

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. This American was a Democrat senator from North Carolina who is best known for being chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices.

Answer: Sam Ervin

That Senate committee was known famously as the "Ervin Committee". The committee investigated the Watergate scandal which resulted in the ending of Nixon's presidency in 1974. Ervin also served on the committee that censured Senator Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s.

2. This Dutch settler sailed to the North American continent, and was appointed Director General of the Dutch West India Company's colony on Manhattan.

Answer: Peter Minuit

Minuit founded the town of New Amsterdam, and made the Dutch claim to the island. In legend, he purchased the island of Manhattan from local Indians in 1626 for guilders 60 (about $24). When the British took the island over in 1664 they renamed the town New York. Minuit also founded the Swedish colony of New Sweden in 1638.

3. This U.S. Native American wrote extensively on cultural, educational, religious, and historical issues relating to Native Americans, and was the Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians.

Answer: Vine Deloria, Jr.

Deloria was born in 1933 in South Dakota, and died in 2005. He was Oglala Sioux. Deloria's first book was entitled "Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto" and was published in 1969. The book criticized Indian stereotypes of the day, and asked white Americans to understand the history of American Indians.

4. This American was sent to the Soviet Union and Britain then President Franklin Roosevelt, to manage U.S. aid efforts during WWII to those allies, and later served as ambassador to both Great Britain and the Soviet Union.

Answer: W. Averell Harriman

Born in 1891, Harriman also served as governor of New York; and during his appointment by President Kennedy as assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, he aided in the negotiations for the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. Averell Harriman died in 1986.

5. This American author was born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931, and made a splash in the literary world with the 1977 publication of "Song of Solomon".

Answer: Toni Morrison

Ms. Morrison was born in Ohio. Her style of fiction is based upon the female, African-American experience, and her books spin intricate, multigenerational stories based anywhere from the time of slavery to the present. "Beloved" won Ms. Morrison the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and in 1993 she garnered the Nobel Prize for Literature.

6. This American served in the military during WWI as a nurse. After the war she was a social worker, who later defied her family by learning to fly.

Answer: Amelia Earhart

In 1928, Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, but it was as a passenger, not as the pilot. She solo-piloted across the Atlantic in 1932, and set a record by doing so. Amelia was likeable, spunky, fearless, and fabulously famous around the globe.

In 1935, she was the first aviator to successfully fly solo from Hawaii to California. Born in 1897, the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart, her navigator, and their Lockheed Electra, have been one of history's most enduring mysteries since they embarked on a 1937 around-the-world flight that disappeared somewhere in the central Pacific Ocean.

7. This American musician, more than any to come before him, was largely responsible for initiating free improvisation into jazz. He was also a composer and bandleader.

Answer: John Coltrane

Coltrane was born in 1926, and died in 1967. His instrument was the sax, and his improvised solos were complex and lengthy. Jazz was never the same after Coltrane hit the scene.

8. This American capitalized on the power of advertising, invested heavily in the Columbia Broadcasting System back when it was an ailing radio network, and later became its president.

Answer: William Paley

Paley was born in 1901, and was V.P. of his family's cigar business. He began advertising their business on radio, and realized the power of this resource. Radio's Columbia Broadcasting System became CBS, and eventually, under Paley's direction, a media superstar. He is considered a founding father of television and radio broadcasting. Paley died in 1990.

9. This American author/poet is known mostly for his work regarding the retelling of an Old English story from the "monster's" point of view.

Answer: John Gardner

That fictional work is entitled, "Grendel", and the Old English work upon which it is based is the epic heroic poem, "Beowulf". Gardner was a writer and scholar, teaching medieval literature and creative writing, most notably at Binghamton (State University of New York). He died in a motorcycle accident in 1982. Some of Gardner's other works include: "Nickel Mountain", "Mikkelson's Ghost", and "Dragon, Dragon and Other Timeless Tales".

10. This American went on to serve as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but started out as the youngest member (27 years old) of the U.S. Constitutional Convention. He was later indicted for high treason - but never prosecuted.

Answer: Jonathan Dayton

Dayton was born in 1760 and died in 1824. He developed large parts of the Ohio territory, and Dayton, Ohio, is named in his honor. Dayton, like Aaron Burr, was implicated in Burr's plan to set up a Western American empire, which recipitated the indictment of both men.

Source: Author blaxlaw

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

They Helped Shape America - 3rd Edition Quiz

This is the third installment. The following Americans contributed to our culture - whether friend or foe, saint or villain, famous or infamous.

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