20 Questions about Recent US Presidents Quiz

Answer: John F. Kennedy

The 1963 movie "PT-109" dramatized the WWII wartime exploits of future US president John F. Kennedy (played by Cliff Robertson). Kennedy captained a Patrol Torpedo boat, a small, fast attack craft used to dart in and torpedo large enemy ships. On 2 August 1943, PT-109 was cut in half near the Solomon Islands by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy organized the survivors (including two who were badly injured), and they made it to a nearby tiny deserted island in Japanese territory (it had just six palm trees). Kennedy then carved a message on a coconut shell asking for help, and a friendly native carried it to a nearby U.S. base. The resulting publicity made JFK a war hero, and helped launch his political career.

Historical note:
The message JFK carved in the coconut was: "NAURO ISL ... COMMANDER ... NATIVE KNOWS POS'IT ... HE CAN PILOT ... 11 ALIVE ... NEED SMALL BOAT ... KENNEDY". It has been preserved and is on display at his presidential library and museum in Boston, Massachusetts.

Answer: Harry S. Truman

Over the years, notches and holes cut into the White House's wooden beams by plumbers, electricians and telephone installers had seriously compromised its safety. The final straw for Truman (33rd US president) was when a leg of his daughter's piano broke through the floor. (One of his bathrooms and bedrooms were already off limits at the time.) A subsequent engineering analysis ordered by Truman showed the building was in danger of collapsing, so he moved over to Blair House while the entire interior was gutted and rebuilt. If you would like to see photographs of this project (including some amazing ones showing the WH interior completely gutted from attic to basement earth while the exterior walls are standing), search for: Truman Reconstruction

Historical note:
Blair House is located across the street from the WH and is normally used as the official guest residence for visiting dignitaries. "The buck stops here," is a sign Harry Truman famously kept on his desk (it meant responsibility for the decisions of his administration ultimately rested with him).

Answer: John F. Kennedy

Kennedy (35th US president) said this in a 26 June 1963 speech in West Berlin, Germany at the height of the Cold War (the Berlin wall had just been built). At the time, West Berlin was surrounded by East Germany, and Kennedy's intent was to indicate to the people of West Berlin (and the world), "We haven't forgotten you."

Historical note:
An untrue urban legend is that a translation of JFK's words are, 'I am a jelly doughnut' (a "Berliner" is a type of jelly doughnut made in Berlin). Some critics maintain he should have said, "Ich bin Berliner" ("I am a citizen of Berlin"). However, with his Boston accent he clearly wasn't from Berlin. Most agree that by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner," he said, "I am one with the people of Berlin," which is what he intended.

Answer: Harry S. Truman

Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of Harry and Bess Truman, had a short career as a concert singer. She sang on a national radio program with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and had a recording contract with RCA Victor Records.

Historical note:
The original of this letter was owned by "Washington Post" Music Critic Paul Hume for many years, but it was eventually sold. Christie's Auction House sold the letter on 27 March 2002 for $193,000 to the Harlan Crow Library, at Highland Park, Texas (a private library with many presidential papers).

Answer: Lyndon Johnson

At the time Johnson (36th US president) was posing his beagle Him to stand on its hind legs for AP press photographers. One of the many resultant angry protest signs read, "Hang LBJ by his ears".

Answer: Dwight D. Eisenhower

This ad was used by Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th US president) in the 1952 US presidential election (the three blanks in the question are all his nickname "Ike"). During World War II, Ike had been the five-star general in overall charge of the D-Day Invasion at Normandy on 6 June 1944, and his subsequent popularity practically assured his election by a landslide. He became the 34th US president.

Answer: All of those listed

Truman survived two assassination attempts. The first was a letter bomb that was intercepted by the White House mail room in summer 1947. The second (in November 1950) involved two armed activists who wanted Puerto Rican independence. A White House Police officer was mortally wounded in a fire fight at Blair House, but before he died he shot and killed one of the activists. Secret Service agents wounded the other. Truman observed part of the fight but was not harmed.

Nixon also survived two assassination attempts. The first was an attempt with a firearm by Arthur Bremer in April 1972, but he was deterred by strong security. A few weeks later, he instead shot and seriously injured Alabama Governor George Wallace while he was campaigning. The second was in February 1974 by Samuel Byck, who planned to crash a hijacked commercial airliner into the White House. After he shot the plane's pilot and copilot, an officer shot Byck through the plane's door window. Byck survived long enough to kill himself.

Ford also survived two assassination attempts. The first was when Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, aimed a pistol at Ford in September 1975 (there were four cartridges in the pistol's magazine but none in the firing chamber). She was restrained by a Secret Service agent. The second was when Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet away in September 1975. A bystander grabbed Moore's arm and the shot missed Ford (a bystander was hit, but survived).

Answer: Dwight D. Eisenhower

An early influence on Ike happened in 1919 when he was a young soldier. He participated in a coast-to-coast army move and encountered some very difficult roads. Later, during World War II, he was greatly influenced by the Autobahn highway system in Germany.

Historical note:
Although the main use of the Interstate Highway System now is by vacationers and interstate commercial trucking, the intended use in the beginning was to allow the rapid evacuation of cities in the event of nuclear war (this was during the Cold War period).

Answer: Jimmy Carter

Colorful, good-ol'-boy Billy Carter was the brother of Jimmy Carter (39th US president). Billy sold the use of his name for a brand of beer that was produced for a few years in the late 1970s. "Billy Beer" cans are still occasionally found at garage sales and flea markets, but since they had been produced in the millions (two billion, by one estimate), the value of a can is quite minimal. On a recent episode of the American TV reality series "Auction Kings," an unopened case of Billy Beer was sold for $100 (proving that the urban legend that they have some worth apparently still lives!).

Answer: Gerald Ford

After the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy, the enormous number of conspiracy theories and amount of misinformation advanced prompted new US president Lyndon Johnson to authorize the US Commission to Report on the Assassination of JFK (popularly known as the Warren Commission report).

The commission took its unofficial name from its chairman, US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren. At the time, Gerald Ford was the Republican Minority Leader in the US House of Representatives. After an exhaustive study, including the testimony or depositions of 552 witnesses, the commission issued an 888-page report with more than 3,100 exhibits, concluding the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

However, this report set off even more objections, with arguably the most famous being the 1966 book "Rush to Judgment" by Mark Lane.

Answer: Harry S. Truman

Truman's approval rating (for his first years as a US president) had sunk to 36% in the year leading up to the 1948 US presidential election, and early returns in the election showed Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey winning by a landslide. The "Chicago Tribune" newspaper had to guess on the final outcome of the election because of a change in their printing process that required the paper to go to press several hours earlier than usual. They guessed wrong, and a beaming Truman was photographed on 3 November 1948 (the day after Election Day) holding up the issue that was published. The error was corrected in later editions, but by then about 150,000 copies had already been published!

Historical note:
Harry Truman has no middle name (his parents couldn't decide), but he does have a middle initial ("S"). Some writers started writing the middle initial with no period, but his personal stationery and presidential library do use a period. Both ways are correct.

Answer: Jimmy Carter

Carter saw this in Leary, Georgia in 1969 while he was governor of Georgia (this was before he ran for US president). He described it as a luminous object that changed colors, and that it moved towards him and then stopped, before appearing to recede into the distance. After the experience he said, "One thing's for sure, I'll never make fun of people who say they've seen unidentified objects in the sky. If I become President, I'll make every piece of information this country has about UFO sightings available to the public and the scientists".

Answer: Gerald Ford

Betty Bloomer studied dance under Martha Graham and then joined the Martha Graham Auxiliary Dance Company, performing mostly in NYC. She married Gerald Ford in 1948, just before he was elected to his first of twelve terms (or thirteen, if you count the one he resigned from part way through) as a member of the US House of Representatives.

After Richard Nixon resigned the US presidency because of Watergate, Ford became the 38th US president. As a US First Lady between 1974 and 1977, Betty Ford was noted for her candid and outspoken positions on hot-button social issues like breast cancer awareness, feminism, the ERA, sex, drugs, abortion, and gun control.

Answer: Bill Clinton

British businessman Cecil Rhodes established a scholarship program in 1902 that allows outstanding students from around the world to study at the University of Oxford in England, generally for two years. Students are selected on the basis of intellectual distinction and the promise of future leadership and service to the world. Notable Rhodes Scholars have included Bill Clinton (42nd US president), astronomer Edwin Hubble, former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk, former politician James William Fulbright (who established Fulbright grants), musician and actor Kris Kristofferson, former professional basketball player and US presidential candidate Bill Bradley, and American TV talk show personality George Stephanopoulos. Clinton was the first (and only as of 2013) US president to be chosen a Rhodes Scholar.

Although Clinton was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he did not finish his studies there (he attended only one term).

Answer: Dwight Eisenhower

Although Nixon later became a US president himself, the "Checkers speech" was given by him early in his political career. He was in danger of being replaced as Eisenhower's VP running mate (for Eisenhower's first term), and Nixon was attempting to garner public support for staying on the ticket (he had been accused of accepting improper gifts, suggesting an unseen influence for large contributors).

In the speech (given on national TV), Nixon denied accepting any improper gifts but said he did plan to keep the gift to his children of the dog Checkers.

The plan worked, as calls and telegrams of support flooded in to the Republican National Committee, convincing Eisenhower to keep Nixon as his VP running mate. The term "Checkers speech" has come to mean any emotional speech by a politician.

Answer: Bill Clinton

Harry Truman (33rd US president) was an artillery officer in WWI. Dwight Eisenhower (34th US president) rose to the rank of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in WWII. George H.W. Bush (41st US president) flew a Grumman TBF Avenger off the aircraft carrier USS San Jacinto during WWII and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross. Bill Clinton (42nd US president) was never in the wartime military, but was Commander-in-Chief of the Arkansas National Guard while he was governor of Arkansas and was Commander-in-Chief of the US military as US president.

Historical note:
The US-Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Clinton was governor of Arkansas between 9 January 1979 to 19 January 1981 and 11 January 1983 to 12 December 1992.

Answer: Jimmy Carter

The moral of the story "The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer" is don't be so quick to be afraid of others who are different. It tells the story of a young boy named Jeremy who is abandoned at the seashore when others flee a terrifying sea monster. Jeremy then finds a kindred spirit in the little baby Snoogle-Fleejer, which turns out to be not so horrible, just different. The illustrations for this book were drawn by Carter's daughter Amy. He has written more than 25 other books (but this was his first children's book).

Answer: Richard Nixon

Nixon's older daughter, Tricia, married Edward Cox in a ceremony held in the White House Rose Garden on 12 June 1971. Lyndon Johnson's older daughter, Lynda Bird, also had a marriage ceremony in the White House, but that was held in the East Room. She married US Marine Corps Captain Charles S. Robb on 9 December 1967. LBJ's younger daughter, Luci Baines, also got married while her father was a US president (and had a reception in the East Room of the White House), but her wedding ceremony was held at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception church in Washington, D. C. (on 6 August 1966).

Historical note:
The "NY Times" newspaper began publishing excerpts of the "Pentagon Papers" (an expose of how the US got involved in the US-Vietnam War and how the public had been misled) on 13 June 1971. Nixon (37th US president) was particularly incensed at the timing of this, since it greatly diminished press attention to his daughter's wedding (the marriage was the day before).

Answer: Gerald Ford

Ford attended the University of Michigan, where he played on the University's national championship football team (he played center and linebacker). He helped the Wolverines to undefeated seasons and national titles in 1932 and 1933. Upon graduation, he received offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers (both are professional NFL teams), but turned them both down. He chose instead to take coaching positions at Yale University, hoping to attend law school there.

Answer: Bill Clinton

During the 1992 US presidential election campaign season, candidate Bill Clinton was a guest on The Arsenio Hall Show late-night national TV show on 3 June 1992. He donned sunglasses and played a pretty-good version of "Heartbreak Hotel" on the saxophone with the show's band. Clinton went on to beat Republican President George H. W. Bush and win the election. President Barack Obama (44th US president) did an amazingly-good impression of Al Green singing "Let's Stay Together" during a fund raiser at the Apollo Theater on 19 Jan 2012. If you would like to hear these, search for Clinton sax Arsenio and Obama Green Apollo and choose YouTube in the results.

Historical note:
In the televised presidential debates in 1992, Independent Texas businessman H. Ross Perot (who later formed the Reform Party) was included. Perot won 19 percent of the popular vote in the election, but no electoral votes.