Crossing The Pond Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dario Franchitti

Franchitti was born in Bathgate, Scotland and from his motor racing start in karting, progressed through the various series up to the British Formula Three Championship. Although he finished fourth in this series, he was not retained for the following season, so went to drive in the German Touring Car Championship and later, the International Touring Car Championship. The ITC folded after a single season though, due to lack of revenue and Franchitti moved to USA to compete in CART racing with Hogan Racing, before moving to Team Green in 1998.

In 2003, he moved to Indy with Team Green, now renamed Andretti Green, winning his first IRL IndyCar Series race in 2004 after missing most of the previous season with a back injury. 2007 marked the start of his glory seasons when he won the IndyCar Championship. After a brief flirtation with NASCAR in 2008, he returned to Indy with Chip Ganassi Racing, with whom he won the championship in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Franchitti's career ended in 2013 when, following huge crash at Houston that left him with a spinal fracture, he was warned that to continue racing would risk permanent paralysis.

Other British born sports stars that have excelled in USA include Phil Stockman in Major League Baseball, Steve Smith in the NHL, Admiral Schofield in NBA, Jay Ajayi in NFL and John Jackson in NASCAR.

Answer: Louisa Adams

Not only was Louisa, wife of John Quincy Adams, the first First Lady to be born outside USA, she was the only one until Melania Trump became First Lady 192 years later. She was a very reclusive First Lady who took no great enjoyment in the role, preferring to spend her time reading alone or playing her harp.

She died in 1852, four years after the death of her husband and the occasion of her funeral marked the first time that both houses of the US Congress had adjourned in mourning for a woman.

Answer: Buick

David Dunbar Buick was born in Arbroath, Scotland in 1854 and his family moved to USA when he was two years old. In 1899, he set up the Buick Auto-Vim and Power Company, to make agricultural engines, but Buick was more interested in producing his own car, and at the expense of his new company, he managed this in 1902. With very little capital remaining, he asked a friend for help and in 1903, following a substantial loan from Benjamin Briscoe, he set up the Buick Motor Company. In what became a tragic tale, Buick took a severance package from his company in 1906, most of which he lost in bad investments until he admitted in 1928 that he was to all intents and purposes penniless. He died the following year and Buick remains one of the premium brands within General Motors.

Other American companies founded by British born people include the now defunct Radio Shack which was started by London born brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann and Procter & Gamble, founded by William Procter, born in Herefordshire with James Gamble, born in Enniskillen, Ireland.

Answer: Jerry Springer

Springer was born to Jewish refugees in Highgate underground station, which was being used as a bomb shelter during Nazi air raids. When he was six years old, His parents emigrated to USA, moving to New York. After earning his law degree in 1968, Springer worked for Robert Kennedy as a campaign adviser, moving to a Cincinnati law firm following Kennedy's assassination.

He was elected to the Cincinnati City Council in 1971 but was forced to resign in 1974 after admitting to soliciting a prostitute. His openness and honesty throughout the episode endeared him to voters and he won back his seat by a landslide in 1975, before being chosen as mayor in 1977. "The Jerry Springer" show (1991-2018) began life as a political talk show but after just a few years, it was realised that rating would be higher if the show had a more tabloid feel, and it quickly set (lowered) the standard by which all similar shows are judged.

Answer: Sally Jewell

Jewell became the second woman in the role when she was appointed by President Obama, following in the footsteps of Gale Norton, who was in the role from 2001 to 2006, under President George W. Bush. Jewell's family moved from UK to USA when she was three years old, after her anesthesiologist father began a fellowship at the University of Washington.

One of her big initiatives while Secretary of the Interior was to create a lasting relationship between national parks and children, which she initiated by taking fourth graders hiking in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and giving the family of every fourth grader a years free pass to national parks. Jewell was far from the first British born American to hold a prestigious position as Buckinghamshire born George Sutherland was appointed Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1922 by President Warren G. Harding.

Answer: Caffe Nero

Caffe Nero began in 1997 in South Kensington. London and were quickly successful, allowing them to open approximately 700 stores in UK by 2020 and also expand overseas with branches in Turkey in 2007, Cyprus in 2013 and Oman in 2018. Ford prides himself on each store being "the world's local cafe" and in a 2013 survey by consumer magazine, "Which?", Caffe Nero coffee was judged to be the best on the high street, beating out rivals such as Costa Coffee and Starbucks.

Answer: Boris Johnson

By the time he was five years old, Johnson had lived in New York, Connecticut and Washington DC in USA and London, Oxford and Somerset in UK, due to his parent's busy career schedules. After a spell living in Brussels, they settled in UK and Johnson was educated at Eton College and then worked as a newspaper columnist and editor before entering politics when he was elected MP for Henley in 2001. He became a junior shadow minister within the Conservative party before resigning from the House of Commons when elected Mayor of London in 2008. a position to which he was re-elected in 2012.

In 2015 he returned to the House when he was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and was voted in as Conservative leader and prime minister when Theresa May stepped down in 2019. Johnson was able to become prime minister as there are no laws in UK about people being born abroad leading the country as there are in USA. As he was born in USA, though, he's eligible to run for president once his time as UK PM expires.

Answer: Sam Underhill

Underhill was born in USA as his father was stationed there while with the Royal Air Force (RAF), and his family moved back to UK when he was ten years old, settling in Gloucestershire.
His rugby abilities shone through while he was at school, and he won a call up to play for the England Under 16s team, progressing from there to go on and captain the U18 international squad when they won the FIRA (Fédération Internationale de Rugby Amateur) Cup in 2014.

He made his club debut for Gloucester while still at school and aged just 17 before going on to play for Ospreys in the Pro 14 league while at university at Cardiff. He joined Bath in 2017, with the aim of boosting his international chances and switching to the English Premiership side worked in his favour as he was called up to the England squad for their 2017 tour of Argentina. Since then he has gone from strength to strength, including being a huge part of the 2019 squad that went all the way to World Cup final, where they lost to South Africa.

Answer: T.S. Eliot

Eliot moved to UK in 1914 and after working as a school teacher and a banker, joined publishing house Faber and Gwyer (later Faber and Faber) in 1925, with whom he remained for the rest of his working life. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915) is viewed as a fine example of early modernist poetry with its free verse and irregular rhyming, but was not especially well received at the time, with "The Times Literary Supplement" stating in 1917, that it had no relation to poetry.

Eliot is best remembered for being the author of "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" (1939), which he originally wrote for his godchildren. This collection of poems went on to be the basis for the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Cats" (1981) which held the title of the longest-running Broadway show in history for a time as well as being made into a movie in 2019.

Answer: Nancy Astor

Astor was the second woman to be elected to the House of Commons. The first, Constance Markievicz was in Holloway Prison when elected in 1918, having only escaped a death sentence on the grounds of her sex and also a member of the Sinn Fein party which refused to take their seats. This left the door open for Astor, who took her seat on December 1st 1919 and made her maiden speech in the House on February 24th 1920.

She is well remembered for her feisty exchanges with Winston Churchill, including her remark when Churchill was musing over which disguise to wear to a masked ball of "Why don't you come sober, Prime Minister?" Interestingly, Indiana born Joy Morrissey was elected to UK parliament in the 2019 general election, and gave her maiden speech on February 24th 2020, exactly 100 years after the first female American born British MP.