Ten Interesting Things about Vermont Quiz

Answer: Connecticut River

With a length of 407 miles, the Connecticut is the longest river in New England. It empties into the Long Island Sound.

Answer: Otter Creek

An oddity, a river called a creek. The Otter empties into Lake Champlain at the town of Ferrisburg, and is about 90 miles in length.

Answer: two thirds

Vermont has the highest proportion of its residents living in rural areas of all the fifty states.

Answer: To defend the claims of New Hampshire land grantees against New York grantees.

At the time settlement of Vermont began around 1750, the governors of both New Hampshire and New York began making grants of land in what is now Vermont, often involving the same land. Ethan Allen organized his Green Mountain Boys to defend the claims of New Hampshire grantees against those of New York grantees, organizing his group in a meeting at the Catamount Tavern in Bennington in 1770.

The controversy was finally resolved in 1790 when Vermont paid New York $30,000 for the disputed land, clearing the way for Vermont's admission into the union as the fourteenth state the following year.

Answer: ban slavery

Other jurisdictions gradually came on board, starting with the Northwest Territory in 1787.

Answer: William Wirt of the Anti-Masonic Party

The Anti-Masonic Party was formed in New York in 1828. It was the first party to have a nominating convention and the first to adopt a national platform. It elected governors in Vermont and Pennsylvania during the 1830's, but after that it died out and was absorbed into the other existing parties.

Answer: Socialist

Sanders had been a member of the Liberty Union party until he resigned in 1979 and started gravitating toward the Socialist party. Upon his election to the House in 1990, Sanders became the first Socialist member of the House in sixty years.

Vermont had been solidly Republican in its politics until 1958, when a Democrat finally won statewide office, and Democrats have been competitive ever since.

Answer: air conditioning in cars that use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

Vermont became the first state to ban air conditioners using CFC's. Testimony had established that car air conditioners are the largest source of the U.S. contribution to ozone depletion.

Answer: maple syrup

Vermont is by far the biggest U.S. producer of maple syrup, with Maine a distant second. Freezing nights and warm days are needed to induce the flow of the sap, so the usual time period for maple syrup production is when winter is changing into spring.

Answer: The Second Republic

This name refers to the fact that Vermont was a republic originally from 1775 to 1791 when it joined the U.S. The secessionist movement seeks to return it to republic status.

The Conch Republic is an independence movement in Key West, and the other two wrong answers refer to independence movements in the in the Pacific Northwest.