Especially for Independence Day, Liane Hansen tests the political trivia knowledge of NPR editors and NPR.org columnists Ron Elving and Ken Rudin. The questions are tough, and you may even learn some American history you didn't know before.
Bonus Trivia Questions:
Congress
1. Thirty members of the current House and Senate have a parent who also served in Congress. Only one belongs to a different party from that parent. Who is it?
2. Which president served in the Senate both before and after his presidency?
3. Where and when did the Congress meet for the first time?
4. Name two prominent Republican senators -- one retired, one still serving -- who both grew up in the same small town.
5. Who was the longest-serving Speaker of the House?
American Presidents and Vice Presidents
6. Name the three presidents who died on Independence Day. Bonus: Which One Died First?
7. Which president was born on Independence Day?
8. Who gave the first presidential news conference filmed for TV and newsreels?
9. Who was the first president to have a telephone on his desk?
10. Hunter S. Thompson wrote a Rolling Stone cover story called "An Endorsement, with Fear and Loathing." Which candidate did he endorse?
Political Scandals
11. In the Iran-Contra affair during the Reagan administration, who said he would be the "fall guy" but never the "patsy"?
12. In 1964, a top adviser to President Lyndon Johnson was arrested for having sex with a man in the local YMCA, just a few blocks from the White House. For a time he was labeled as the "most famous homosexual in the United States." Who was he?
13. In the wake of her involvement with President Clinton, what product did Monica Lewinsky set out to sell as part of a new business?
14. Which Cabinet member took the fall for the Teapot Dome scandal during the Harding administration?
15. War hero Ulysses S. Grant's presidency was seriously undermined by a scandal involving what commodity?
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
