164 Fun Facts About Government

Splitting government into three branches is called what?

Separation of powers: Montesquieu argued in 1748 that liberty is lost when one body both makes and enforces the laws, and Federalist 47 calls him 'the oracle who is always consulted' on the subject.

How many senators does each US state send to Washington?

Two per state was the Great Compromise of 1787: small states got an equal voice in the Senate, while large states got seats in the other chamber in proportion to their population.

How many justices sit on the US Supreme Court?

Nine is set by law, not by the Constitution: Congress began with six justices in 1789 and changed the number six times before settling on nine in 1869.

How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win the US presidency?

270 is a bare majority of the 538 electors; if nobody reaches it, the House of Representatives picks the president with one vote per state delegation, as it last did in 1825.

The first ten amendments to the US Constitution are known collectively as what?

The Bill of Rights: James Madison drafted them, Congress sent twelve articles to the states in 1789, and ten were ratified in 1791.

Which US official chairs the Senate and may vote only to break a tie?

The vice president got the chair, Hamilton argued in Federalist 68, so that no state would lose a voting senator to it, and votes only on ties so that the chamber can always reach a decision.

Which amendment limits a US president to being elected twice?

The 22nd Amendment answered the only four-term presidency: Congress proposed it in 1947, two years after that presidency ended, turning George Washington's two-term custom into law.

Two-thirds of both houses of Congress can overturn which act of a US president?

A veto can be overridden by two-thirds of each chamber, but it rarely is: of roughly 2,600 vetoes since 1789, Congress has overturned fewer than one in twenty.

Who is second in the presidential line of succession?

The Speaker of the House has ranked second since the Presidential Succession Act of 1947; Harry Truman pushed the change, arguing that an elected official should come before appointed Cabinet members.

Which 1803 Supreme Court case established the power of judicial review?

Marbury v. Madison: William Marbury sued for his undelivered commission as a justice of the peace and went without it, because John Marshall ruled that the law letting him sue in the Supreme Court was itself unconstitutional.

Which measures does the Constitution require to start in the House rather than the Senate?

Tax bills must begin in the House, a rule borrowed from Britain's House of Commons: the framers wanted the purse strings held by the chamber closest to the voters.

Which US Cabinet department, created in July 1789, is the oldest?

State came first: Congress created it in July 1789 as the Department of Foreign Affairs, weeks ahead of War and the Treasury, which is why its secretary leads the Cabinet in the line of succession.

British troops set fire to the US Capitol, where Congress meets, during which war?

The War of 1812: British troops set the Capitol alight on August 24, 1814, and only a sudden rainstorm kept the unfinished building from being destroyed completely.

US checks and balances are meant to keep which three institutions in line?

The executive, legislature and judiciary each get tools to resist the other two, the design Federalist 51 sums up in one line: 'Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.'

Which amendment fell three states short of ratification in 1982?

The Equal Rights Amendment had 35 of the 38 states it needed when time ran out; three more states ratified between 2017 and 2020, decades after the deadline, leaving its status disputed.

A constitutional amendment proposed by Congress normally needs approval from three-fourths of which bodies?

State legislatures do the ratifying, and the president has no part in it: an amendment never goes to the White House for signature, and 38 of the 50 states must agree.

Which New England state became the ninth to ratify the Constitution in 1788, putting it into effect?

New Hampshire's vote on June 21, 1788 supplied the ninth ratification the Constitution needed; Congress then set the first federal elections for that winter and the new government began in 1789.

Which state refused to send delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention?

Rhode Island boycotted the Philadelphia convention and then held out longest of all, becoming the last of the thirteen states to ratify on May 29, 1790, more than a year after the new government began.

The US House, long capped at 435 seats, briefly grew to 437 when which two states joined?

Alaska and Hawaii each got one temporary seat on joining in 1959, lifting the House to 437 until the seats were reshuffled after the next census and the total fell back to 435.

Which future president was elected to the Senate at 29?

Joe Biden won Delaware's seat in 1972 and turned 30, the Constitution's minimum, thirteen days after the election; the early Senate was laxer, seating John Eaton at 28 in 1818, apparently without asking his age.

Which Senate procedure, normally needing 60 votes, is the way to cut off a filibuster?

Cloture did not exist until 1917: before then senators could talk for as long as they liked, and even the new rule needed a two-thirds vote until the bar dropped to 60 votes in 1975.

Which senator filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes?

Strom Thurmond of South Carolina spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes in August 1957, and the bill passed anyway; his mark for the longest Senate speech stood until Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours in 2025.

Who was the first US president to be impeached?

Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 chiefly for sacking War Secretary Edwin Stanton in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act; he survived his trial by a single vote.

Which charge was the single article in Donald Trump's second impeachment, in January 2021?

Incitement of insurrection was the lone article, adopted a week after the Capitol was stormed; the vote at his trial, 57 to 43 for conviction, fell ten short of the two-thirds required.

Who presides when a sitting US president is tried on impeachment charges?

The chief justice takes the chair only when a president is on trial; when judges or other officials are impeached, the chamber's usual presiding officer stays put.

Which president revived the practice of delivering the State of the Union in person, in 1913?

Woodrow Wilson went to Congress in person in 1913, reviving a habit that had lapsed for more than a century, and turned a written report into a platform for rallying support for his agenda.

What name is given to the Cabinet member who sits out the State of the Union address?

Designated survivor: one Cabinet member stays away at a secure location so the line of succession outlasts a catastrophe, a Cold War habit whose choices were seldom made public before the 1980s.

As of the 2024 election, which two states could split their electoral votes rather than award them winner-take-all?

Maine and Nebraska give two electors to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district; Nebraska first split in 2008, when Omaha's district went to Barack Obama.

Which amendment barred denying Americans the vote on account of sex?

The 19th Amendment was clinched in Tennessee when 24-year-old Harry Burn cast the deciding yes with a letter in his pocket from his mother urging him to vote for suffrage.

What was the first constitution of the United States, in force from 1781?

The Articles of Confederation, ratified on March 1, 1781, gave Congress no power to tax; their weakness prompted the 1787 convention that replaced them.

Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote the 85 Federalist essays under which shared pen name?

Publius was the single name signed to every essay; they ran in New York newspapers from the autumn of 1787 and were written to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the proposed Constitution.

Which amendment reserves undelegated powers to the states or the people?

The Tenth Amendment adds less than it seems: the Supreme Court called it 'but a truism' in 1941, a reminder that the federal government holds only the powers the Constitution gives it.

Which US president issued the most executive orders, more than 3,700 in all?

Franklin D. Roosevelt issued them at a rate of about 300 a year through the Depression and the Second World War; no other president has reached even 2,000.

The Antideficiency Act, which bars agencies from spending money without Congress's approval, is the legal basis for what?

Government shutdowns are newer than the law behind them: until 1980 agencies kept working through funding gaps, and only then did a Justice Department opinion read the act as ordering them to stop.

Who in 2007 became the first woman to hold the House's top post, the speakership?

Nancy Pelosi held the gavel from 2007 to 2011, lost it when Republicans won the House, and took it back in 2019, the first former Speaker to return to the chair since Sam Rayburn in 1955.

Who was the first woman appointed to the US Supreme Court, in 1981?

Sandra Day O'Connor left Stanford Law in 1952 to find that firms would offer a woman only secretarial work, so she began as an unpaid deputy county attorney; in 1981 the Senate confirmed her 99–0.

Which sports facility sits on the Supreme Court Building's top floor?

A basketball court tops the building, nicknamed 'the highest court in the land'; the Court got a home of its own only in 1935, the 146th year of its existence.

Which country's parliament, the Althing, was founded around 930 and is often called the world's oldest?

Iceland's Althing began around 930 as an open-air assembly at Thingvellir, where chieftains gathered each year to settle disputes and pass laws; today it sits in Reykjavik.

In Westminster-style parliaments, what is the opposition's team of spokespeople who mirror government ministers called?

The shadow cabinet is an alternative government in outline: each member tracks one minister's brief, so the opposition can pick policies apart in detail and present its own.

Besides the Commons and the Lords, what is the third part of the UK Parliament?

The sovereign: Parliament is formally the Crown, Lords and Commons together, and no bill becomes law until it receives royal assent, last refused in 1708.

Which Whig politician, in office from 1721, is regarded as Britain's first prime minister?

Robert Walpole ran the government from 1721 to 1742; 'prime minister' began as a term of abuse, and when George II offered him 10 Downing Street he accepted it only for the office, not himself.

Which country's parliament, with 120 seats, is called the Knesset?

Israel's Knesset takes both its name and its 120 seats from the Great Assembly, a council of scribes, sages and prophets that Jewish tradition places in the early Second Temple period.

Germany's Bundestag has met since 1999 in which historic building?

The Reichstag, built 1884–94 for the imperial parliament, gutted by fire in 1933 and reopened with Norman Foster's glass dome on April 19, 1999.

What is the name of Japan's legislature?

The Diet opened in 1890 under an emperor who held supreme power; the postwar constitution reversed the roles, making the Diet 'the highest organ of state power' and the emperor a symbol of the state.

How many permanent, veto-wielding members sit on the UN Security Council?

Five: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France, the leading Allied powers of 1945; the council's other seats are filled by election for fixed terms.

Which 1215 royal charter, sealed at Runnymede, is cited as a founding document of limited government?

Magna Carta was forced on King John by rebel barons in June 1215 and annulled by the pope within three months; its promise of lawful judgment by one's peers outlived them all.

Which country has the longest written national constitution in the world?

India's constitution, in force from Republic Day, 1950, runs to roughly 145,000 words in its English text, many times the length of the American one.

Which of these countries is generally classed as an absolute monarchy?

Saudi Arabia has no constitution in the usual sense: its 1992 Basic Law declares the Quran and the Prophet's Sunna to be the constitution, and the king can dissolve and re-form the consultative council at will.

France, Portugal and Ukraine share which system, with both an elected president and a prime minister?

Semi-presidential systems can leave the two leaders at odds: France calls it cohabitation, and the Socialist François Mitterrand spent 1986 to 1988 sharing power with a prime minister from the right.

Which US amendment, proposed in 1789, was finally ratified in 1992 after 202 years?

The 27th, on congressional pay, was revived by Gregory Watson, a university student who got a C for a 1982 paper arguing it could still be ratified and then spent a decade campaigning to prove his point.

Canada's 105 senators get their seats by which method?

By appointment: the governor general names senators on the prime minister's advice, and each must own $4,000 of property, a requirement unchanged since 1867.

Australia's Senate gives every state 12 seats, so which state's voters carry the most weight?

Tasmania has only a small fraction of New South Wales's population yet an equal say in the Senate, the protection the smaller colonies wanted when they agreed to federate.

China's NPC, its supreme organ of state power, holds its annual session in which Beijing venue?

The Great Hall of the People, completed in 1959 on the west side of Tiananmen Square; the NPC's roughly 3,000 delegates gather there each March.

Germany's Bundesrat speaks for the 16 federal states, known in German by which name?

Länder is the word, and their governments, not voters, fill the Bundesrat: each state sends its own ministers and must cast all its votes as a single block.

India's upper house of parliament, the Rajya Sabha, translates as what?

Council of States: most of its members are chosen by the state assemblies rather than by voters, and unlike the lower house it is never dissolved, a third of the seats falling vacant every second year.

Britain's 26 Lords Spiritual are bishops of which church?

The Church of England alone has reserved seats, and since a 2015 Act its women bishops have gone to the front of the queue when a seat filled by seniority falls vacant.

Which Massachusetts governor's 1812 district map gave its name to a word for partisan redistricting?

Elbridge Gerry signed an 1812 state senate map whose Essex County district looked so like a salamander that the Boston Gazette labelled it the 'Gerry-mander'.

Who was the first vice president appointed under the 25th Amendment, in 1973?

Gerald Ford was confirmed on December 6, 1973 after Spiro Agnew resigned over a tax-evasion charge; eight months later Richard Nixon resigned too, and Ford became president.

What nickname do Americans give an official serving out a term after a successor has been elected?

A lame duck was first a stock-market term: in the 1700s it meant a broker who could not pay his debts, and Americans applied it to outgoing politicians from the 1860s.

Which 1913 amendment let voters, rather than state lawmakers, elect US senators?

The 17th Amendment ended decades of deadlocked statehouse votes that left Senate seats empty; a 1906 magazine series, 'The Treason of the Senate', had stoked the demand for change.

A 1933 amendment moved presidential inaugurations from March 4 to which date?

January 20 replaced March 4 to shorten a four-month wait that had left the winners of 1860 and 1932 sidelined while crises deepened; the new date was first used in 1937.

In which New York City building did the first US Congress meet in 1789?

Federal Hall on Wall Street, the city's remodelled old City Hall, where the First Congress convened on March 4, 1789 and Washington took the presidential oath on its balcony eight weeks later.

Which 1790 law, part of a deal over state war debts, fixed the permanent site of the US capital?

The Residence Act of July 1790 was one half of a bargain: Madison would stop blocking Hamilton's plan to assume state war debts, and the South would get the capital, after ten years in Philadelphia.

Which state took back the land it had given to the District of Columbia, in 1846?

Virginia: Congress handed back Alexandria and its county in 1846, leaving the District entirely on land ceded by Maryland.

Four Supreme Court justices are enough to do what?

Hear a case: under the 'rule of four', four votes put an appeal on the docket, yet it takes five to grant a stay or to win, so a minority can force a hearing it may then lose.

A Supreme Court term traditionally begins on the first Monday of which month?

October: by law each term opens on the first Monday, when the Marshal's cry of 'Oyez!' announces the justices, and it runs until the last opinions of late June or early July.

Which justice sat on the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1975, more than 36 years?

William O. Douglas, appointed in April 1939 at the age of 40, retired in November 1975, some months after a debilitating stroke.

Who is the only person to have served as both US president and chief justice?

William Howard Taft, president from 1909 to 1913 and chief justice from 1921 to 1930; he dedicated the Lincoln Memorial in May 1922.

Who holds the record for the longest service in the US Senate, at over 51 years?

Robert Byrd sat in the Senate from January 1959 until his death in June 2010, more than 51 years; a onetime Ku Klux Klan member, he spent his later career disowning that past.

Which Cabinet department opened in 2003 by merging 22 agencies, the Coast Guard among them?

Homeland Security was created in answer to the September 11 attacks; the Coast Guard, one of the 22 agencies it absorbed, came over from the Department of Transportation.

In 1974 the Supreme Court made Nixon hand over the Watergate tapes, rejecting his claim of what?

Executive privilege exists, the justices ruled unanimously, but it cannot shield evidence from a criminal trial; Nixon handed over the tapes and resigned sixteen days later.

Who was the first US president paid $400,000 a year?

George W. Bush: Congress doubled the pay in 1999, but the Constitution bars raising or cutting a president's salary during his term, so the increase began with the 2001 inauguration.

Camp David is named after a grandson of which president?

Dwight Eisenhower renamed the Maryland retreat in 1953 for his grandson David; it had been called Shangri-La, and Winston Churchill visited in May 1943.

What does the House Sergeant at Arms lift and present to bring an unruly member to order?

The mace is 13 ebony rods bound in silver and topped by an eagle; the first was destroyed when the British burned Washington, and a wooden stand-in served until the current one arrived in 1841.

The word 'veto' is Latin for what?

'I forbid': veto is the first-person form of Latin vetare, to forbid; Rome's tribunes of the plebs used the power to block magistrates' acts and Senate measures, shielding commoners from abuses.

Which word comes from the pottery shards on which Athenians voted to exile a citizen for a decade?

Ostracism comes from ostrakon, a potsherd: Athenians scratched a name on one to vote a citizen out, though the exile kept his property and could come home after his time away without stigma.

Which pair of officials led the Roman Republic, elected together for a single year?

The consuls shared the powers once held by Rome's kings, and each could veto the other, so neither could rule alone; Romans even named the year after the pair in office.

Which European microstate swaps its two heads of state, the Captains Regent, every six months?

San Marino's Grand and General Council picks a new pair twice a year, and a regent who steps down must wait three years before serving again, so no one can settle into the top office.

Alongside the president of France, who is co-prince of Andorra?

The bishop of Urgell, in Catalonia; the 1278 Paréage shared Andorra between the bishop and the count of Foix, whose rights passed via Navarre to the French crown and then its presidents.

Which country was the first to let all women vote in national elections, in 1893?

New Zealand: the Electoral Act signed on September 19, 1893 followed years of mass petitions in a campaign led by Kate Sheppard, and women first went to the polls two months later.

Which city is South Africa's judicial capital?

Bloemfontein, seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal; the 1910 Union compromise gave Pretoria the executive and Cape Town the parliament, though the Constitutional Court sits in Johannesburg.

Which city is Bolivia's constitutional capital, even though the government sits in La Paz?

Sucre, named for independence hero Antonio José de Sucre, kept the title and the top court, but the seat of government left for La Paz at the end of the 1890s as Bolivia's silver boom faded.

Who in 1980 became the world's first democratically elected female head of state?

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, a theatre director and single mother, won her country's presidency five years after 90 per cent of its women went on strike for a day, and she held the office for 16 years.

Which country elected the world's first female prime minister, in 1960?

Sri Lanka, then Ceylon: Sirimavo Bandaranaike was sworn in on July 21, 1960, ten months after her husband Solomon, the prime minister, was shot dead; she later served twice more.

Who has the Commons door slammed in their face at the State Opening of Parliament?

Black Rod is sent from the Lords to summon MPs to hear the speech; after the slam, the rod is banged three times on the door, and MPs then saunter to the Lords, talking loudly as they go.

British MPs apply for the Chiltern Hundreds because the rules give them no right to do what?

Resign their seats: an MP can leave mid-term only by being disqualified, so quitters apply for a once-paid, now purely formal office such as Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds.

Which Australian prime minister was dismissed by the governor-general in 1975?

Gough Whitlam, sacked by Sir John Kerr on November 11, 1975 after the Senate blocked supply; on the steps of Parliament House he declared, 'Well may we say God Save the Queen, because nothing will save the Governor-General.'

Who is Canada's longest-serving prime minister, with over 21 years in office?

William Lyon Mackenzie King, Liberal prime minister in several stretches between 1921 and 1948, over 21 years in all; he led Canada through the Second World War and privately consulted mediums.

Which country's president serves one six-year term, the sexenio, with no re-election ever?

Mexico: the ban is a legacy of the revolution of 1910 against Porfirio Díaz, who had kept power for some three decades by repeated re-election; the term itself was set at six years in 1928.

Which city is the official seat of the European Parliament?

Strasbourg: EU treaty rules require twelve plenary sessions a year there, yet committees and most day-to-day work are in Brussels, and the secretariat sits in Luxembourg.

The office of parliamentary ombudsman was created in 1809 in which country?

Sweden: the 1809 Instrument of Government created the Justitieombudsman to watch over officials on parliament's behalf; Charles XII had set up a royal forerunner in 1713 while absent in the Ottoman Empire.

Which country's 1998 constitution named a leader who had died in 1994 its 'eternal president'?

North Korea: four years after Kim Il Sung's death, the 1998 preamble named him 'eternal president'; revisions since 2016 instead call him and his son Kim Jong Il the country's 'eternal leaders'.

Which was the last country in Europe to give women the vote, in 1984?

Liechtenstein: a referendum among its male voters narrowly approved the change in 1984 after earlier votes had failed; neighbouring Switzerland had acted federally in 1971.

The world's heaviest building houses the parliament of which country?

Romania: Bucharest's Palace of the Parliament, ordered by Nicolae Ceaușescu and begun in 1984, holds some 700,000 tonnes of steel and bronze; he was overthrown and shot in 1989, years before it was finished.

Who chose Ottawa as Canada's capital in 1857?

Queen Victoria, on December 31, 1857, acting on Governor General Edmund Head's advice; the small lumber town beat Montreal, Toronto, Quebec and Kingston, and the legislature first sat there in 1866.

Which president's killing by a disappointed office-seeker pushed Congress to fill federal jobs by exam?

James Garfield was shot in 1881 by Charles Guiteau, who felt owed a consulship; the Pendleton Act of 1883 was then signed by his successor Chester Arthur, himself a product of New York's patronage machine.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 declared enslaved people free only where?

The states in rebellion were the only ones covered, so slavery stayed legal in Kentucky and Delaware until the 13th Amendment took effect in December 1865.

Since an 1845 law, US presidential elections fall on the Tuesday after the first Monday of which month?

November was picked because the harvest was in but heavy winter weather had not yet arrived, and Tuesday let rural voters travel on Monday after Sunday church.

Which text, written by minister Francis Bellamy for an 1892 magazine promotion, gained the words 'under God' in 1954?

The Pledge of Allegiance gained 'under God' on Flag Day 1954, at the height of the Cold War, to set America apart from atheist communism; schoolchildren had first recited it 62 years earlier.

Which federal holiday, created in 2021, marks the day in 1865 when Union troops announced emancipation at Galveston?

Juneteenth, a blend of June and nineteenth, recalls the day General Gordon Granger's order reached Texas, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after Lee's surrender.

Which president signed the 1931 law that made 'The Star-Spangled Banner' the official US national anthem?

Herbert Hoover signed it in March 1931, 116 years after Francis Scott Key wrote the words watching Fort McHenry bombarded; they were sung to the tune of a London gentlemen's club song.

Which suffragist was arrested in Rochester, New York, for voting in the 1872 presidential election and fined $100?

Susan B. Anthony told the judge she would never pay a dollar of the fine, and she never did; her face went on the dollar coin in 1979.

Which federal holiday specifically honors US military personnel who died while serving?

Memorial Day, the last Monday of May, began as Decoration Day in 1868, when Civil War graves were decked with flowers; Veterans Day instead honors everyone who has served.

On the US citizenship test, which power belongs to the federal government rather than the states?

Only Washington can print money, because the Constitution forbids any state to coin money or issue paper bills of credit.

Which territory did the United States buy from Napoleon in 1803 for about $15 million, nearly doubling its size?

Louisiana was offered whole to envoys sent to buy the port of New Orleans; Napoleon sold because his army was being destroyed in Saint-Domingue and war with Britain was looming.

Which 1898 war, sparked by the sinking of the USS Maine, left the US holding Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines?

The Spanish–American War ended with Spain losing Cuba too, as a US protectorate, and ambassador John Hay boasting it had been 'a splendid little war'.

Which doctrine did the Supreme Court reject for public schools in its 1954 Brown ruling?

'Separate but equal' had been law since Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896; a unanimous Court under Earl Warren held that segregated schools are inherently unequal.

Congress voted in 1790 to build the new national capital on the banks of which river?

The Potomac was the South's side of a bargain over Hamilton's plan to take on state war debts; the government then spent ten years in Philadelphia while the new city was built.

On the US citizenship test, which duty is reserved for citizens alone, along with voting in federal elections?

Serve on a jury is reserved for citizens, as are voting in federal elections and running for federal office; taxes, the draft and obeying the law bind everyone living in the US.

How often does the Constitution require a national census, used to divide House seats among the states?

Every ten years since 1790 the census has reshuffled House seats, except after 1920, when a battle between rural and urban lawmakers stopped any change for the only time.

Which document must an immigrant normally hold for five years before applying for US citizenship?

A green card: a 1798 law stretched the citizenship wait from five years to 14, but Congress soon repealed it; spouses of citizens can apply after three.

Which Latin motto, suggested in 1776, is clenched in the eagle's beak on the Great Seal?

E pluribus unum, 'out of many, one', served as the de facto national motto until Congress adopted 'In God We Trust' in 1956, and by law it still appears on US coins.

The Dáil is the lower house of which country's parliament?

Ireland: the first Dáil met in Dublin in January 1919, set up by Sinn Féin candidates who had just won most Irish seats in a UK election but refused to go to London.

Which tribe's reservation, spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, is the largest in the United States?

The Navajo Nation covers over 27,000 square miles, more than ten US states; its tribal government was set up in 1923 so that oil companies had someone to sign leases with.

Which 1966 Supreme Court ruling requires police to tell suspects of their right to remain silent?

Miranda v. Arizona threw out Ernesto Miranda's confession, made after two hours of questioning with no warning; Arizona retried him without it and convicted him again.

Which Cabinet member is the only department head not titled 'Secretary'?

The Attorney General's office dates to the Judiciary Act of 1789, eight decades before the department it now heads was created in 1870 to support it.

Which city is home to the United Nations' International Court of Justice?

The Hague: the court sits in the Peace Palace, built with a gift from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and is the only one of the UN's six principal organs not based in New York.

Which state, after a 1934 vote pushed by Senator George Norris, runs the only one-chamber state legislature?

Nebraska's voters approved the single chamber after Norris campaigned against the two-house system, whose conference committees worked out of public view; its lawmakers also run without party labels.

Which part of Article VI binds the judges in every state to federal law?

The Supremacy Clause let the Supreme Court stop Maryland taxing the national bank in 1819, with John Marshall warning that the power to tax involves the power to destroy.

Which legal writ, suspended by Lincoln in 1861, requires that a detained person be brought before a court?

Habeas corpus may be suspended only in rebellion or invasion; Roger Taney ruled in 1861 that only Congress could do it, the army did not comply, and Congress approved Lincoln's step in March 1863.

Which of these countries makes voting in national elections compulsory by law?

Australia made federal voting compulsory in 1924 after turnout fell below 60 per cent; at the next election it jumped above 90 per cent.

Which is the only permanently inhabited US territory where people born there are nationals but not citizens?

American Samoa became US soil when its chiefs ceded the islands from 1900; it still controls its own immigration and borders, and its people cannot vote for president.

Which president is said to have turned a donkey taunt into the Democratic emblem?

Andrew Jackson's rivals called him a jackass in 1828, the story goes, and he took the animal as his own; decades later Thomas Nast's cartoons made it stand for the whole party.

On which date have federal income tax returns normally been due since a 1955 change of the filing deadline?

April 15 replaced March 15 in 1955; the deadline still slips when it meets a weekend or Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C. that moves the date for the whole country.

Which animal has symbolized Republicans since an 1874 Thomas Nast cartoon in Harper's Weekly?

The elephant shares the job in places: in states such as Indiana, New York and Ohio, the party's alternate symbol is the bald eagle. Nast's cartoon of November 7, 1874 was the first important use.

What do the letters GOP, a nickname Republicans have carried since the 1870s, stand for?

Grand Old Party grew out of 'this gallant old party', a phrase from the Congressional Record of 1875 praising the defenders of the Union. A Cincinnati newspaper made it 'grand' a year later.

In which city was the US Constitution drafted in 1787, behind windows kept shut for secrecy?

Philadelphia hosted the convention in the Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall. The delegates met from May 25 to September 17 and pledged to keep their debates secret.

Who became the first president to live in the White House, moving in on November 1, 1800?

John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail the next day: 'May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.' The blessing is now carved into the State Dining Room mantel.

Which lawyer won Brown v. Board of Education before becoming the first Black Supreme Court justice?

Thurgood Marshall won 29 of the 32 civil rights cases he argued before the Supreme Court. He sat on the Court itself from 1967 until 1991.

Which federal agency and its forerunner did J. Edgar Hoover run for 48 years under eight presidents?

FBI directors have been limited to one ten-year term since 1976, a rule Congress wrote in response to Hoover's long tenure. He had led the bureau from 1924 until his death in 1972.

Which agency did Congress create in 1958, months after the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite?

NASA replaced the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, founded in 1915, to give the space program a distinct civilian orientation. The law creating it was signed on July 29, 1958.

Which freedom does the First Amendment protect alongside speech, the press, assembly and petition?

Religion comes first in the amendment's text, which bars Congress from establishing a faith or prohibiting its free exercise. Thomas Jefferson called this 'a wall of separation between church and State'.

Which phrase, stamped on US coins since 1864, did Congress make the official national motto in 1956?

In God We Trust first appeared on the two-cent piece in 1864, during the Civil War. It is also the official motto of Florida, and its Spanish form appears on most of Nicaragua's coins.

Which institution restocked after an 1814 fire by buying Thomas Jefferson's 6,487 books?

Library of Congress shelves hold more than 170 million items, making it one of the largest libraries in the world. A second fire, in 1851, destroyed most of the books Jefferson had sold it.

Which amendment, ratified in December 1865, outlawed US slavery except as punishment for a crime?

The 13th Amendment was not ratified by Mississippi until 1995, and that vote was only certified in 2013. It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments adopted after the Civil War.

Which amendment overruled an 1895 Supreme Court decision so Congress could levy a federal income tax?

The 16th Amendment lets Congress tax incomes without apportioning the tax among the states by population. Ratified in 1913, it answered the Pollock ruling, which had struck down an 1894 income tax.

Which French thinker set out the theory of separation of powers in his 1748 work The Spirit of Law?

Montesquieu published the book anonymously, and it influenced the Founding Fathers as they drafted the US Constitution. He also popularized the word 'despotism' in political writing.

Which Cabinet post, first held by Thomas Jefferson, is the most senior of the department heads?

Secretary of State ranks fourth in the presidential line of succession, ahead of every other Cabinet secretary. The job's remaining domestic duties include keeping and using the Great Seal.

Which Washington, D.C. place name became shorthand for the lobbying firms once clustered along it?

K Street has lost most of its namesake tenants: by 2012 only one of the 20 largest lobbying firms still had an address there. The label stuck anyway, much as Wall Street stands for finance.

Which businessman won 18.9 percent of the 1992 presidential vote without carrying a single state?

Ross Perot drew over 19.7 million votes, and his supporters went on to form the Reform Party, which nominated him in 1996. That second run won 8.4 percent.

Which agreement, signed aboard ship off Cape Cod in 1620, first governed Plymouth Colony?

The Mayflower Compact was signed by 41 male passengers. They wrote it after some argued that, landing outside their agreed territory, 'none had power to command them'.

Which 1787 deal, built on Roger Sherman's plan, gave every state equal representation in one chamber?

The Great Compromise passed on July 16, 1787 by a 5–4 vote of the states, after six weeks of turmoil. It is also known as the Connecticut Compromise or the Sherman Compromise.

Which Article I clause, known as the Elastic Clause, was used to justify a national bank in 1819?

Necessary and Proper are the words that let Congress pass laws for carrying its listed powers into execution. In McCulloch v. Maryland, the Court sided with the Second Bank of the United States.

Which European microstate is an absolute monarchy whose ruler is elected, not born to the throne?

Vatican City is ruled by the pope, the only absolute monarch in Europe, and its highest officials are all Catholic clergy. At about 44 hectares it is also the smallest country in the world.

Which form of government, rule in the name of a deity, is post-1979 Iran often described as?

Theocracy was coined by Flavius Josephus in the first century AD for the government of the Jews, in which a god was sovereign. Iran has been described as a 'theocratic republic'.

Which form of government, rule by a small group, did the Thirty impose on defeated Athens in 404 BC?

Oligarchy under the Thirty lasted only eight months, yet they executed some 1,500 Athenians without trial and confiscated citizens' property. Later writers called them the Thirty Tyrants.

Which word did Pierre-Joseph Proudhon recast in 1840 to mean a free society without government?

Anarchy, he wrote, is where society seeks order, 'as man seeks justice in equality'. Proudhon was the first person known to call himself an anarchist, partly to provoke those who took the word to mean disorder.

Which term for rule by a committee of officers was popularized by Spain's 1808 resistance to Napoleon?

Junta means 'meeting' or 'committee' in Spanish, the name the resistance gave its national and local councils. Such a regime usually comes to power through a coup d'état.

Which term, first used of 1920s Italy, describes a state that controls both public and private life?

Totalitarianism was Mussolini's own boast: 'Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.' He led Fascist Italy from 1922 to 1943.

Which term for rulers who steal national resources for personal gain was first recorded in 1819?

Kleptocracy joins the Greek klepto-, 'theft', to the suffix -cracy. The Oxford English Dictionary, citing an essay by Leigh Hunt, defines it as 'a ruling body or order of thieves'.

Which form of government is named after a Roman crisis office that Julius Caesar held in perpetuity?

Dictatorship in republican Rome was an extraordinary post, granted to resolve one specific problem and then laid down at once. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC the office was abolished and never revived.

Which tool of direct democracy, a vote by the whole electorate on one issue, settled Brexit in 2016?

Referendum comes from the Latin verb referre, 'to carry back', as in a proposal carried back to the people. In 2016, 51.9 percent of UK voters chose to leave the European Union.

Which parliamentary device first forced out an entire British government in 1782, under Lord North?

A no-confidence motion followed news of the British defeat at Yorktown: Parliament voted that it could 'no longer repose confidence in the present ministers'. North then asked George III to accept his resignation.

Which lawgiver's reforms of 508 BC earned him the title 'father of Athenian democracy'?

Cleisthenes broke the hold of the old clans by replacing the four family-based tribes with new ones drawn up by area of residence. His reforms brought equal rights for all citizens.

Which Asian country, run by a single communist party since 1975, borders both China and Vietnam?

Laos became the Lao People's Democratic Republic in 1975, after a civil war that had begun in 1959. Its constitution names the Lao People's Revolutionary Party the 'leading nucleus' of the political system.

Which absolute monarch of France, on the throne for 72 years, supposedly said 'I am the state'?

Louis XIV probably never said it: the line is absent from the Parlement of Paris registers and is traced to an 1818 essay. On his deathbed he said, 'I die, but the state will always remain.'

Which southern African kingdom, renamed by its king in 2018, is Africa's last absolute monarchy?

Eswatini was the Kingdom of Swaziland until April 2018, when the king switched to the name commonly used in the Swazi language. That king, Mswati III, took the throne in 1986.

Which Asian country's king is elected by its hereditary state rulers from among their own number?

Malaysia calls its king the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, and in practice the office rotates among the rulers of the Malay states. That makes the country one of the world's few elective monarchies.

Which Gulf federation of hereditary monarchies has its rulers appoint one of themselves as president?

The UAE vests its highest authority in the Federal Supreme Council, made up of the ruling emirs. Abu Dhabi's Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the first president, serving from 1971 to 2004.

Which ancient Greek city-state was ruled by a pair of hereditary kings who were equal in authority?

Sparta drew its kings from the Agiad and Eurypontid families, both supposedly descended from Heracles. Neither could act against the power and enactments of his colleague.

Which landlocked European country is the world's only remaining sovereign grand duchy?

Luxembourg was raised from a duchy to a grand duchy at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and handed to the Dutch king in personal union. It is now a democracy headed by a constitutional monarch.

Which Greek philosopher gathered 158 city-state constitutions to compare their strengths and flaws?

Aristotle went on, in his Politics, to sort constitutions into good forms, where rulers serve the common good, and bad ones, where they serve themselves.

Which overthrow of England's James II in 1688 advanced the cause of constitutional monarchy?

The Glorious Revolution replaced James with his daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband William III, who ruled as joint monarchs. Some historians call William's landing the last successful invasion of England.

Which volunteer agency did John F. Kennedy launch by executive order in March 1961?

Peace Corps leadership went to Kennedy's brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, as its first director. It was Shriver, not Kennedy, who energetically lobbied Congress to approve the program.