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Test your Fourth of July knowledge

Friday, June 28, 2013 - 12:01 am

With July 4 rapidly approaching, it seems only appropriate to turn our thoughts to patriotism and history and the home that we love. So here is a quiz to test your knowledge. Have fun – and give yourself 5 points for each correct answer.

1. What two past presidents of the United States died on the same day, July 4? So that was an easy one. Try this:

2. “But spare your country's flag,” she said. Who is the “she” and who wrote the poem? I have used this in the last three quizzes; you had better not miss it!

3. Francis Bellamy is the author of what that we recite?

4. “O patria mia” is an aria sung by a soprano in what Verdi opera?

5. Who declared in a speech in front of the Berlin wall, “Ich bin ein Berliner!”?

6. Who was Benjamin O. Davis Jr.?

7. Who wrote “The War of the Worlds,” which frightened hundreds of New Jerseyites when it was performed on Orson Welles' radio broadcast?

8. Who wrote “You're a Grand Old Flag”?

9. In what year was “The Star-Spangled Banner” written?

10. One of my favorite poems has the lines “Breathes there a man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!” Who wrote that treasure?

11. What is the full name of Woody Guthrie, who wrote “This Land Is Your Land”? (Think American president.)

12. Name the poet, part of the Harlem Renaissance, who wrote the poem “Let America be America Again.”

13. In the U.S. Marines' song are the words “From the Halls of Montezuma.” Why? What do they celebrate?

14. Jack Ryan is the hero/protagonist, usually played by Harrison Ford, in the “Patriot Games” and other films based on the books by what author?

15. Anatevka was the home of Tevye and his family. In what musical do we visit that place the inhabitants are forced to leave?

16. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” are written about in “The American Crisis.” Who was the author? Perhaps you know “These are the times that try men's souls” better?

17. Who was the hero in the American Revolution who declared, “I have not yet begun to fight”?

18. Who wrote “I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy, a Yankee Doodle, do or die”? (Yes, he's in here twice.)

19. Where do we find the following speech by a woman who apparently had no allegiance to a specific place: “Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge”?

20. “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance by an act of Congress. Within three years, name the year that took place.

Want more? Here's a bonus: Who was James Armistead?

Answers: 1. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams 2. Barbara Frietchie, John Greenleaf Whittier 3. The Pledge of Allegiance 4.“Aida” 5. John F. Kennedy 6. He was the first African-American general in the U.S. Air Force. 7. H.G. Wells 8.George M. Cohan 9. 1814 10. Sir Walter Scott 11. Woodrow Wilson Guthrie 12. Langston Hughes 13. The Marine landing in 1847 in the Mexican War 14. Tom Clancy 15. “Fiddler on the Roof” 16. Thomas Paine 17. John Paul Jones 18. George M. Cohan 19. The Bible, in the Book of Ruth 20. 1954 Bonus: A patriot spy, identified as the most important Revolutionary War spy and put into service by the Marquis de Lafayette.

Betty E. Stein is a retired teacher in Fort Wayne.