Monday, January 26, 2009

Prez Quiz ANSWERS and...

The ANSWERS to my Presidential Quiz are linked to here

First I'll answer the questions raised in the comments of the presidential quiz post.
  1. Who served the most time as President and VP combined?

    Richard Nixon was VP for 8 years (Jan 1953-Jan 1961) and Prez for 5.5 years (Jan 1969-Aug 1974) for a total of 13.5 years. In second place is FDR who was Prez for 12 years 1.5 month (Mar 4, 1933-Apr 12, 1945) In third place is a tie between John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Bush Sr. who all served for 12 years. (Adams and Bush did 8 years VP, 4 years Pres, while Jefferson did 4 years VP, 8 years Pres.)
  2. Who was the last person before Bush Sr. who was elected President while holding the office of VP?

    Martin van Buren was sitting VP in 1836 and got elected. (He was Andrew Jackson's VP.)


There was one question (actually more) that were on the Prez Quiz originally but I removed. The reasons why they were removed point to some issues.

QUESTION: Who was the first female to run for president of the United States?
ANSWER: Historians say it was Victoria Chaflin Woodhull, Equal rights party, ran in 1872 and 1892. She did go around the country campaigning. This was before women could vote. Fredrick Douglas was her vice President. While historians acknowledge that she was the first female to run for president, under some stricter criteria her 1872 run does not count. Her name was not allowed to appear on any ballots and she got no votes. She died in 1927 and hence lived to see women get the vote and use it to elect Warren G. Harding. Oh well.

Under a stricter criteria the answer would be Belva Ann Lockwood who ran in 1884 and 1888. She was on some ballots and got 4100 votes. She died in 1917 and hence did not live to see women get the vote.

I removed the question because its ambigous. What does run mean? You can read a list of various people who may qualify at this website which has women who ran for president in any country.

History is full of ambigous questions. Discussing them is of interest. Seeing what prior generations thought of history may tell us about that generation. However, I prefer fields with definite answers.

10 comments:

  1. I believe our current president's name is "Barack", not "Barak" as you write every time.

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  2. (Same as #1.) Thank you, by the way, for putting this together. I greatly enjoyed the quiz.

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  3. Actually, George Bush Sr. served ever so slightly more time as President and VP than did Adams or Jefferson. (Why?)

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  4. According to US laws a president should be born in the US. Can you name one US president who was not burried in the US?

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  5. There are several presidents not
    buried in the US:
    Jimmy Carter, George Bush Sr,
    Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and
    Barack Obama.

    I presume that when they die they
    will be.

    I googled
    Presidential burial sites
    and the first hit has a list
    of burial sites- none were outside
    of the US. Is it incorrect?
    (I am not asking this rhetorically.)

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  6. If he had asked which dead President was not buried in one of the STATES of the US, then I think I'd know the answer (Wilson).

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  7. That would be John Tyler, buried in Virginia in 1862, which at the time had seceded from the Union.

    A.

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  8. harrison: Leap years, perhaps?

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  9. Anon 1: I am spelling it
    Barak because I am following his
    plan to get the economy moving,
    which is to have us all use
    one less letter in our
    first name, thus saving
    time, money and ink or bits.

    Harrison: Inaug day is NOW
    in Jan, it used to be in March.
    Is that why George Bush Sr gets
    slightly more days. Off hand it
    would NOT seem like this is the
    answer since the days were consistent
    for both (they made the change
    during FDR administration)




    bil gasarch

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  10. anon: Yep; 1800, when Adams was President and Jefferson VP, was NOT a leap year, so they served one less day total than did Bush Sr.

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