US Landmarks Trivia
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This US landmarks trivia quiz has 99 free questions with answers and tours the whole country: the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge and Times Square, the White House, Capitol, Washington Monument and the memorials of the National Mall, Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, the Alamo, Graceland and Route 66, the Gateway Arch, Willis Tower and Cloud Gate, Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, the Golden Gate, Alcatraz and the Hollywood Sign, and natural icons from the Grand Canyon and Old Faithful to Half Dome, Delicate Arch, Devils Tower and Niagara Falls. Easy questions ask who gave America the Statue of Liberty and which river carved the Grand Canyon. Harder ones want the sculptor of the Lincoln statue, the architect of the White House, the year Alcatraz closed and the group that first called it the Liberty Bell. The expert tier covers the Las Vegas sign's designer, Faneuil Hall's weathervane, Fallingwater's stream and the man who first pointed at Plymouth Rock. Good for road-trip planning, classrooms and Fourth of July quiz nights. Every answer has been checked against the encyclopaedia entry for each landmark, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
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Q 01The Statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from the people of which country?
France
France gave the statue, but the pedestal was America's to build: when the money ran out, Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper appeal raised over $100,000 to finish it.
Q 02Which four presidents are carved into Mount Rushmore?
Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln
Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln were chosen to stand, in that order, for the nation's birth, growth, development and preservation.
Q 03The Golden Gate Bridge is painted in which officially named colour?
International Orange
International Orange was consulting architect Irving Morrow's personal choice, winning out over the Navy's suggestion of black and yellow stripes to make the bridge visible to ships.
Q 04Which waterway carved the Grand Canyon?
The Colorado
The Colorado River is thought to have begun cutting the Grand Canyon about five to six million years ago, after the whole region had been lifted into a high plateau; the gorge is now over a mile deep.
Q 05Which skyscraper did the Empire State Building overtake as the world's tallest?
Chrysler
The Chrysler Building held the title only briefly: on May 1, 1931 President Hoover pressed a button in Washington to switch on the lights of the 102-story Empire State Building.
Q 06Hoover Dam sits on the border between which two states?
Nevada and Arizona
Hoover Dam straddles the Nevada and Arizona line in Black Canyon; Interior Secretary Harold Ickes had it called Boulder Dam from 1933 until Congress restored the Hoover name in 1947.
Q 07In which city does the Gateway Arch stand?
St. Louis
The Gateway Arch rises 630 feet beside the Mississippi River in St. Louis, completed in 1965 as a monument to westward expansion.
Q 08What did the Hollywood Sign originally spell out when it was put up in 1923?
Hollywoodland
Hollywoodland advertised a hillside real-estate development; the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce restored the sign in 1949 and dropped the final four letters.
Q 09What is the street address of the US president's official residence?
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
The president's house is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW; every president since John Adams in 1800 has lived there, and British troops burned it in August 1814.
Q 10The Liberty Bell hangs in which city?
Philadelphia
The Liberty Bell hangs in Philadelphia, across from Independence Hall; cast in London in 1752, it cracked at its first test ringing and was twice recast by local founders John Pass and John Stow.
Q 11Which gangster arrived at Alcatraz in August 1934, soon after it opened?
Al Capone
Al Capone was sent there after officials suspected he was winning special treatment inside Atlanta's federal prison; Alcatraz was designed to cut inmates off from outside influence.
Q 12Seattle's Space Needle was built for which event?
The 1962 World's Fair
The 1962 World's Fair was barely a year away when private investors bought the site for $75,000; the Space Needle then went up in less than a year, ready just as the fair opened.
Q 13Which of the three waterfalls that make up Niagara Falls is by far the largest?
Horseshoe Falls
Q 21Which president dedicated Hoover Dam on September 30, 1935?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt called it Boulder Dam throughout his speech and never mentioned Hoover: his Interior Secretary had dropped the name in 1933, and Congress restored it only in 1947.
Q 22Which architect designed the Gateway Arch, winning a competition launched in 1947?
Eero Saarinen
Eero Saarinen made the final round, but the telegram went to his father Eliel, a rival entrant; the family toasted the wrong Saarinen with champagne before an official rang to correct it.
Q 23Which metal, as costly as silver in 1884, tips the Washington Monument?
Aluminium
Horseshoe Falls takes most of the Niagara River's flow, but less at night: under a 1950 treaty, extra water is diverted to power stations after tourist hours, so the falls run fullest by day.
Q 14Which US national park was the world's first, created in 1872?
Yellowstone
Yellowstone became the world's first national park when President Grant signed the act on March 1, 1872; the Washburn expedition had named Old Faithful two years earlier.
Q 15The Alamo, site of the famous 1836 siege, is in which Texas city?
San Antonio
The Alamo stands in downtown San Antonio; Davy Crockett and James Bowie both died there when Santa Anna's army stormed the mission on March 6, 1836.
Q 16What is Chicago's Cloud Gate, nicknamed 'The Bean'?
A mirrored steel artwork by Anish Kapoor
A mirrored steel artwork by Anish Kapoor, Cloud Gate is 168 steel plates welded into one seamless skin; Chicagoans nicknamed it from early drawings, before the artist had even given it a title.
Q 17On what date was the Statue of Liberty dedicated?
October 28, 1886
October 28, 1886 was the dedication day; President Grover Cleveland presided over the ceremony on Bedloe's Island, and the tablet in her left hand reads JULY IV MDCCLXXVI.
Q 18Who sculpted Mount Rushmore, working from 1927 until his death in 1941?
Gutzon Borglum
Gutzon Borglum died in March 1941 with the work unfinished; his son Lincoln, who had started on the mountain as an unpaid pointer, took over as sculptor and closed the project that October.
Q 19Which New York crossing took the Golden Gate's title of world's longest suspension span in 1964?
The Verrazzano-Narrows
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge beat the Golden Gate's span by 60 feet; its towers stand so far apart that engineers had to allow for the curve of the Earth, leaving the tops slightly wider apart than the bases.
Q 20What crashed into the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945?
A B-25 bomber
A B-25 bomber, lost in fog over Manhattan, struck the 79th floor; elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver then survived a plunge to the basement in a car the crash had cut loose.
Aluminium was then so hard to refine that the 100-ounce cap counted as precious metal; within two years a cheap new smelting process sent its price tumbling.
Q 24Why is the Washington Monument's exterior faced with three slightly different kinds of white marble?
Construction was interrupted repeatedly
Construction was interrupted repeatedly: work stopped in 1854 when funds ran out and did not resume until 1879, so the later courses came from different quarries and never quite matched.
Q 25Who sculpted the seated Abraham Lincoln statue inside the Lincoln Memorial?
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French designed the 19-foot seated Lincoln, which the Piccirilli brothers carved from 28 blocks of Georgia white marble; the memorial was dedicated in 1922.
Q 26Which Irish-born architect designed the president's residence in Washington?
James Hoban
James Hoban won the 1792 design competition; George Washington chose the site but never lived in the finished house.
Q 27Which group first popularised the name 'Liberty Bell'?
Abolitionists
Abolitionists gave the bell its name in the 1830s, adopting its inscription, 'Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land', as an anti-slavery symbol in their newspapers and pamphlets.
Q 28Which two documents were adopted in Independence Hall?
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were both adopted in its Assembly Room; as the last delegates signed in 1787, Franklin said the sun on Washington's chair was rising, not setting.
Q 29What was the first US national monument, proclaimed by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906?
Devils Tower
Devils Tower, an igneous rock tower in Wyoming, made headlines in 1941 when a stunt parachutist landed on its summit and was stranded for six days until climbers brought him down.
Q 30Which New York skyscraper rises a symbolic 1,776 feet?
One World Trade Center
One World Trade Center was designed to reach 1,776 feet as a nod to the year of American independence; its spire, completed in May 2013, made it the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.