Space Race & Industry

40 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.In which year was the first transcontinental railroad completed?
- A. 1872
- B. 1865
- C. 1869
- D. 1881
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1869
Did you know? The final spike was driven on May 10, 1869.
2.Which group of seven test pilots was named for NASA's first crewed program, in April 1959?
- A. the Right Stuff pilots
- B. the Original 13
- C. the Gemini Twins
- D. the Mercury Seven
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the Mercury Seven
Did you know? Life magazine bought the Mercury Seven's stories for $500,000.
3.What did prospectors who reached California in 1849 call themselves?
- A. the forty-niners
- B. the forty-eleveners
- C. the golden eagles
- D. the sourdoughs
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the forty-niners
Did you know? About 300,000 people joined the Gold Rush within a few years.
4.Which NASA program, named for the messenger of the gods, put the first Americans in space?
- A. Project Skylab
- B. Project Mercury
- C. Project Gemini
- D. Project Apollo
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Project Mercury
Did you know? Mercury flew from 1958 to 1963 with six crewed flights.
5.Which suspension bridge, opened in 1937, spans the strait at San Francisco's mouth?
- A. the Brooklyn Bridge
- B. the Bay Bridge
- C. the Tacoma Narrows Bridge
- D. the Golden Gate Bridge
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the Golden Gate Bridge
Did you know? The Golden Gate's main span stretches 4,200 feet.
6.Which orbiter flew the first Space Shuttle mission, in April 1981?
- A. Atlantis
- B. Challenger
- C. Columbia
- D. Endeavour
Show answer
Columbia
Did you know? John Young and Robert Crippen flew STS-1 from Pad 39A.
7.Which Colorado River dam, dedicated in 1935, was then the world's tallest?
- A. the Hoover Dam
- B. the Grand Coulee Dam
- C. the Shasta Dam
- D. the Glen Canyon Dam
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the Hoover Dam
Did you know? Hoover Dam's concrete towers 726 feet above the river.
8.What did astronauts call the Apollo 11 lunar module that carried two men to the surface?
- A. Columbia
- B. Challenger
- C. Antares
- D. Eagle
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Eagle
Did you know? "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
9.Which Scottish-born industrialist sold his steel company in 1901 for 480 million dollars?
- A. John D. Rockefeller
- B. Andrew Carnegie
- C. Henry Clay Frick
- D. Elbert Gary
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Andrew Carnegie
Did you know? Carnegie gave away about 350 million dollars, mostly to libraries.
10.Which January 1967 launch-pad fire killed three Apollo astronauts?
- A. the Challenger explosion
- B. the Apollo 13 accident
- C. the Apollo 1 fire
- D. the Soyuz 1 crash
Show answer
the Apollo 1 fire
Did you know? Grissom, White and Chaffee died in the Apollo 1 command module.
11.Which 1913 innovation cut Model T assembly time from 12 hours to about 90 minutes?
- A. the interchangeable part
- B. the pneumatic tire
- C. the moving assembly line
- D. the V8 engine
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the moving assembly line
Did you know? Ford's Highland Park plant pioneered the moving assembly line.
12.At which lunar site did Apollo 11's lander touch down, in July 1969?
- A. the Fra Mauro highlands
- B. the Hadley-Apennine valley
- C. the Sea of Tranquility
- D. the Ocean of Storms
Show answer
the Sea of Tranquility
Did you know? The landing site was formally named Tranquility Base.
13.Which 1908 car, priced from 825 dollars, put motoring within reach of ordinary Americans?
- A. the Model A
- B. the Ford GT
- C. the Curved Dash Oldsmobile
- D. the Model T
Show answer
the Model T
Did you know? Over fifteen million Model Ts were built by 1927.
14.Which astronaut stepped out of Gemini 4 for America's first spacewalk, in June 1965?
- A. Gus Grissom
- B. Jim McDivitt
- C. Buzz Aldrin
- D. Ed White
Show answer
Ed White
Did you know? White's 20-minute EVA used a hand-held oxygen jet gun.
15.Which process, patented in 1856, made cheap mass steel possible?
- A. the open-hearth process
- B. the rolling mill process
- C. the crucible method
- D. the Bessemer process
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the Bessemer process
Did you know? Bessemer steel cost a fraction of wrought iron prices.
16.Which capsule carried John Glenn around Earth three times, in February 1962?
- A. Friendship 7
- B. Aurora 7
- C. Sigma 7
- D. Freedom 7
Show answer
Friendship 7
Did you know? Glenn's Friendship 7 made the first American orbital flight.
17.Which city boomed from about 800 to 25,000 residents in the Gold Rush's first two years?
- A. Stockton
- B. Sacramento
- C. San Francisco
- D. Los Angeles
Show answer
San Francisco
Did you know? San Francisco became the West's banking and shipping hub.
18.Which 1957 Soviet launch spurred the United States to create NASA?
- A. Sputnik 1
- B. Vostok 1
- C. Luna 2
- D. Explorer 1
Show answer
Sputnik 1
Did you know? NASA opened for business on October 1, 1958.
19.Which 1871 fire destroyed about three square miles of a Midwestern city?
- A. the Peshtigo fire
- B. the Great Chicago Fire
- C. the Boston fire of 1872
- D. the Seattle fire of 1889
Show answer
the Great Chicago Fire
Did you know? The same night's Peshtigo fire, in Wisconsin, killed far more people.
20.Which refiner, starting in Cleveland in 1863, controlled about 90 percent of American oil by 1880?
- A. John D. Rockefeller
- B. Samuel Kier
- C. Andrew Carnegie
- D. Henry Flagler
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John D. Rockefeller
Did you know? Rockefeller's Standard Oil became the model of the trust.
21.Which 1947 Bell Labs invention launched the electronics revolution?
- A. the transistor
- B. the integrated circuit
- C. the vacuum tube
- D. the LED
Show answer
the transistor
Did you know? Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize for the transistor.
22.Which 363-mile canal connected the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, in 1825?
- A. the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
- B. the Suez Canal
- C. the Erie Canal
- D. the Panama Canal
Show answer
the Erie Canal
Did you know? Tolls repaid the Erie Canal's construction cost within about nine years.
23.Which April 1906 earthquake and fire devastated a California metropolis?
- A. the Loma Prieta earthquake
- B. the Los Angeles fire
- C. the San Francisco earthquake of 1906
- D. the Long Beach earthquake
Show answer
the San Francisco earthquake of 1906
Did you know? The 1906 quake's fires burned for four days.
24.At which Utah site did the transcontinental railroad's two lines meet?
- A. Provo
- B. Promontory Summit
- C. Salt Lake City
- D. Ogden
Show answer
Promontory Summit
Did you know? Two locomotives touched cowcatchers at Promontory Summit for the ceremony.
25.Which 50-mile canal, opened to traffic in 1914, linked two oceans?
- A. the Panama Canal
- B. the Suez Canal
- C. the Kiel Canal
- D. the Erie Canal
Show answer
the Panama Canal
Did you know? The canal's locks lift ships 85 feet above sea level.
26.Which suspension bridge, opened in 1883, was then the world's longest at 1,595 feet?
- A. the Golden Gate Bridge
- B. the Brooklyn Bridge
- C. the Williamsburg Bridge
- D. the George Washington Bridge
Show answer
the Brooklyn Bridge
Did you know? Emily Roebling supervised the Brooklyn Bridge's completion.
27.Which 1931 skyscraper held the "world's tallest" title for about forty years?
- A. the Woolworth Building
- B. the Chrysler Building
- C. the Empire State Building
- D. the Flatiron Building
Show answer
the Empire State Building
Did you know? Built in about 410 days, it rose 102 floors above Manhattan.
28.Which mail service, running from April 1860 to October 1861, crossed the plains in ten days?
- A. the Butterfield Route
- B. the Overland Stage
- C. the Pony Express
- D. the Wells Fargo Express
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the Pony Express
Did you know? The Pony Express folded days after the transcontinental telegraph arrived.
29.Which astronaut hit two golf balls on the Moon in February 1971?
- A. Dave Scott
- B. Gene Cernan
- C. Alan Shepard
- D. John Young
Show answer
Alan Shepard
Did you know? Shepard's six-iron shot became Apollo 14's signature moment.
30.Whose AC system won the 1890s "War of the Currents" over direct current?
- A. Lord Kelvin
- B. Thomas Edison
- C. George Westinghouse
- D. Elihu Thomson
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George Westinghouse
Did you know? Westinghouse lit the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with alternating current.
31.Which October 1968 mission returned Apollo crews to flight after the fire?
- A. Apollo 6
- B. Apollo 9
- C. Apollo 7
- D. Apollo 8
Show answer
Apollo 7
Did you know? Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham flew eleven days in Earth orbit.
32.Which 1955 vaccine announcement marked the start of mass polio immunization?
- A. Albert Sabin's oral vaccine
- B. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine
- C. the measles vaccine
- D. the smallpox vaccine
Show answer
Jonas Salk's polio vaccine
Did you know? Salk's vaccine was declared "safe, effective and potent" in April 1955.
33.Which mission first carried a two-person lunar roving vehicle, in 1971?
- A. Apollo 14
- B. Apollo 17
- C. Apollo 15
- D. Apollo 16
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Apollo 15
Did you know? Scott and Irwin drove the rover over the Hadley-Apennine terrain.
34.Which mail-order firm, founded in Chicago in 1893, reached farm families by catalog?
- A. Montgomery Ward
- B. Sears, Roebuck and Company
- C. J.C. Penney
- D. Wanamaker's
Show answer
Sears, Roebuck and Company
Did you know? Sears' "wish book" shipped even kit houses by rail.
35.On Christmas Eve 1968, which mission's crew read from the Book of Genesis from lunar orbit?
- A. Apollo 10
- B. Apollo 8
- C. Apollo 7
- D. Apollo 9
Show answer
Apollo 8
Did you know? Borman, Lovell and Anders read Genesis while circling the Moon.
36.Which 1945 machine, weighing 27 tons, was America's first general-purpose electronic computer?
- A. UNIVAC
- B. ENIAC
- C. MARK I
- D. Colossus
Show answer
ENIAC
Did you know? ENIAC filled a room at the University of Pennsylvania.
37.About how many kilograms of lunar samples did the six Apollo landings return?
- A. about 382 kilograms
- B. about 3,800 kilograms
- C. about 38 kilograms
- D. about 82 kilograms
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about 382 kilograms
Did you know? The 2,200 specimens went to laboratories in many countries.
38.Who discovered gold at Sutter's Mill, California, in January 1848?
- A. Sam Brannan
- B. John Sutter
- C. James W. Marshall
- D. Henry Bigler
Show answer
James W. Marshall
Did you know? Marshall's find triggered the California Gold Rush.
39.Which chimpanzee flew a Mercury suborbital mission in January 1961?
- A. Ham
- B. Baker
- C. Albert II
- D. Enos
Show answer
Ham
Did you know? Ham's successful flight cleared the way for Shepard's launch.
40.Which English-born textile worker memorized British machine designs and rebuilt them in Rhode Island, in 1789?
- A. Richard Arkwright
- B. Eli Whitney
- C. Francis Lowell
- D. Samuel Slater
Show answer
Samuel Slater
Did you know? Slater is remembered as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution".

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