Hailing the Chief in the Twentieth Century Quiz

Answer: Progressive

Running for a second term in the 1912 election, Republican William H. Taft was opposed by Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson. However, former President Theodore Roosevelt ran for a non-consecutive term as a third party candidate for the Progressive Party in the election.

The Progressive Party's electoral platform included issues such as the legalisation of income tax, women's suffrage, and social insurance. Acquiring four hundred and thirty-five electoral votes to Roosevelt's eighty-eight and Taft's eight, Wilson defeated both Roosevelt and Taft in the election.

The Democratic-Republican and Federalist parties were America's first two political parties formed in the early 1790s shortly following the formation of the new national government in March 1789. The Whig Party preceded the Republican Party as the major party opposite the Democrats during the second party system.

Answer: Woodrow Wilson

Section I of the Eighteenth Amendment provides that: "After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited."

Proposed in December 1917 in response to pressures from the temperance movement, the Eighteen Amendment established Prohibition in the United States. Ratified in January 1919, the provisions of the amendment became effective in January 1920 in pursuance to Section I of the amendment.

Elected to a second term in November 1916 against Republican candidate Charles Evans Hughes, President Woodrow Wilson oversaw the enactment of Prohibition in January 1920. However, once in force, Prohibition proved to be extremely disastrous due to the lack of adequate enforcement and the rise of organized crime. In February 1933, less than a decade and a half following its enactment in January 1920, repeal of Prohibition was proposed by the Twenty-First Amendment. Repeal was achieved in December 1933 with the ratification of the amendment.

Republicans Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge were both elected president and vice president in November 1920, respectively. Following the former's death in August 1923, Coolidge succeeds Harding as president. Elected to a full term in November 1924, Coolidge famously proclaimed in August 1927 that "I do not choose to run for President in 1928." Republican candidate Herbert Hoover was elected to succeed Coolidge in November 1928.

Answer: False

The Treaty of Versailles was the name of the peace treaty that ended the First World War. Exercising the treaty-making powers of the Presidency, President Woodrow Wilson was one of the chief negotiators of the treaty, along with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau.

Convening in January 1919, Woodrow Wilson forwarded his fourteen points at the Paris Peace Conference for consideration. However, the fourteen points were largely disregarded in favour of the interests of the other negotiators, particularly Clemenceau. The points that did make it into the treaty, however, were points seven, eight, thirteen and fourteen. Each respective point called for the restoration of Belgian sovereignty following Germany's occupation of Belgium during the war, the ceding of Alsace and Lorraine to France, the establishment of an independent Poland and the League of Nations, respectively.

Presenting the treaty to the United States Senate for ratification following its signing in June 1919, the Senate refused to approve the treaty, due to a strong desire to maintain the policy of isolationism (treaties required a two-thirds majority for ratification).

Answer: James M. Cox

The 1920 election saw the candidacy of Republican Warren G. Harding and Democrat James M. Cox for president, with Calvin Coolidge and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the running mates of each respective candidate. The chief issue surrounding the election was the newly-formed League of Nations during the aftermath of World War I. Campaigning with the slogan "A Return to Normalcy", Harding rejected the league in favour of pre-WWI isolationism. Acquiring one hundred and twenty-seven electoral votes compared to Harding's four hundred and four electoral votes, Cox was defeated by Harding in the election.

Alton B. Parker, John W. Davis and Al Smith were the Democratic candidates in the 1904, 1924 and 1928 elections, respectively.

Answer: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Retiring from the office in March 1797, outgoing President George Washington established a precedent of serving two presidential terms following his declination of a third term in the 1796 election. Dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in April 1945 following the election of his fourth term in November 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman.

Elected to a full term in November 1948, Truman oversaw the proposal and ratification of the Twenty-Second Amendment in March 1947 and February 1951, respectively. However, in pursuance to Section I of the amendment, the provisions of the amendment did not apply to Truman due to his incumbency at the time of the amendment's proposal in March 1947.

Deciding to not run again in 1952, World War II General Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected against Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson and therefore was the first president to be subject to the provisions of the amendment when inaugurated in January 1953. Eisenhower was subsequently elected to a second term in November 1956.

John F. Kennedy was elected president in November 1960 and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson succeeds Kennedy upon his assassination in November 1963.

Answer: Chicago Tribune

Running for a full term in the 1948 election following his ascension to the Presidency in April 1945, Harry S. Truman ran against Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey and third party candidate Strom Thurmond in the election. Predicting that Truman would be defeated by Dewey, the Chicago Tribune published the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" the day following the election in November 1948. Receiving forty-five percent of the popular vote against Truman's forty-nine percent, the election became famous for the erroneous headline.

Notable events during Truman's second term included the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in June 1949 and the People's Republic of China in October 1949, the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 and the death of the United Kingdom's King George VI in February 1952.

Answer: Al Smith

In the 1928 election, Republican candidate Herbert Hoover defeated Democratic candidate Al Smith with four hundred and forty-four electoral votes to Smith's eighty-seven electoral votes. However, Smith's candidacy in the election was notable for being the first presidential candidate whose religious affiliation was that of Roman Catholicism, which presented a problem to Smith due to anti-catholic prejudice.

Receiving the Democratic presidential nomination in July 1960, John F. Kennedy faced a similar problem of anti-catholic prejudice in the 1960 election. In September 1960, Kennedy addressed the issue of his Catholicism by stating that: "I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party candidate for President who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters - and the Church does not speak for me."

Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie and Thomas E. Dewey were the defeated candidates against Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936, 1940 and 1944 elections, respectively.

Answer: Richard M. Nixon

Article I, Section II of the United States Constitution provides that: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature".

In other words, the right to vote in congressional elections varied from state to state, as per the qualifications established by that state (note: senators were elected by the state legislatures prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in April 1913).

Proposed in March 1971 to overturn the 1970 Supreme Court decision Oregon v. Mitchell, which held that a voting age established by Congress extended solely to federal elections, President Richard M. Nixon oversaw the extension of the vote to eighteen year olds with the ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in July 1971 (John N. Mitchell was Nixon's Attorney General at the time of the decision in December 1970).

Resigning the office in August 1974 due to the Watergate scandal, Vice President Gerald R. Ford succeeds Nixon as president. Running in the 1976 election for a full term of office, Ford is defeated by James E. Carter in the election. Ronald Reagan was elected to two terms as president in the 1980 and 1984 elections.

Answer: 69

Elected in November 1980 against incumbent President James E. "Jimmy" Carter, Reagan became the oldest person ever elected, or have succeeded, to the Presidency prior to the 2000 election. Born in February 1911, Reagan was one month shy of seventy when inaugurated in January 1981.

Other presidents to assume the office in their sixties include Harry S. Truman at sixty; John Adams, Andrew Jackson and Gerald R. Ford at sixty-one; Dwight D. Eisenhower at sixty-two; Zachary Taylor and George H. W. Bush at sixty-four; James Buchanan at sixty-five and William Henry Harrison at sixty-eight.

Answer: Vice President

Elected as Ronald Reagan's running mate in the 1980 and 1984 elections, Vice President George H. W. Bush receives the Republican presidential nomination in August 1988. Bush becomes the third incumbent vice president to run for the Presidency following the ratification of the Twenty-Second Amendment in February 1951 (following Richard M. Nixon in 1960 and Hubert Humphrey in 1968).

Elected against Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis with four hundred and twenty-six electoral votes to Dukakis' one hundred and eleven votes, Bush becomes the fourth incumbent vice president to be elected president after John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Martin Van Buren in the 1796, 1800 and 1836 elections, respectively.