U.S. History Trivia Night Recap
Thank you to everyone who joined LearningPlunge and me for February Virtual U.S. History Trivia Night! Follow LearningPlunge on Instagram for regular trivia and sign up for their next trivia night on March 14. For more of my doodles, subscribe to my free email newsletter.
If you attended trivia, here’s some bonus content — extra facts and more doodles. If you didn’t attend, keep scrolling anyhow for seemingly unrelated assortment of facts.
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Harding was the first president to visit Alaska
Before it was even a state!
It was part of his “Voyage of Understanding.”
Doctors feared for the first lady’s health during the trip. They secretly brought a coffin for her aboard the presidential train. Harding didn’t even know about it. In an unexpected twist, Harding ended up in the coffin.
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Benjamin Banneker was a math whiz
Helped survey the original DC borders
While working in Alexandria, The Georgetown Weekly Ledger reported that his “abilities, as a surveyor and astronomer, clearly prove that Mr. Jefferson’s concluding that race of men were void of mental endowments was without foundation.”
His father was a member of the West African Dogon tribe, “a people thought to have advance knowledge of grand cosmic events”
Published a series of almanacs with his astronomical knowledge and more
Inspired by The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth, by Jermaine Fowler. Zip through the rest of the doodles here. Or read the book, because it’s important and eye-opening.
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Mary McLeod Bethune was good friends with Eleanor Roosevelt
Member of FDR’s unofficial “Black Cabinet”
I just love this photo of her in her office at Bethune-Cookman College (it’s hanging in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Library and Museum in Hyde Park)
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Hiram Revels
U.S. Army chaplain during the Civil War
Served as Mississippi’s interim secretary of state
First Black senator
Josiah Walls is right below Revels in my sketchbook. Walls was the first Black congressman from Florida. And, get this, the only one until 19-freaking-92.
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Shirley Chisolm was unbought and unbossed
First Black congresswoman
Second woman to run for a presidential nomination for a major party
Recipient for all sorts of hate, including death threats
Said more of the hate was for her gender
Nixon’s goons sent horrible letters about her to Ebony, Jet, and A.P. … “signed” by his opponent Hubert Humphrey
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In the 20th century, FDR and Richard Nixon were the only presidents to have more than one vice president
Nixon’s first VP was Spiro Agnew
Before Nixon could be ousted from office, his super-corrupt VP had to go
Nixon was, well, Nixon (see how Nixon-y he was here), but Agnew makes my skin crawl
Attorney General Elliot Richardson, who eventually convinced Agnew to take a plea deal and resign, said he had “turned over a log and exposed to the light a scurrying colony of unpleasant creatures whose only reaction was one of annoyance that I had been so crass as to disturb their settled way of life.”
I pulled this quote out of my sketchbook and added some motion to it. In my head it was gonna look So Unbelievably Cool. But it took forever and finally I called it. It’s too fast and not great, but it’s time to move on. You should see how it looks in my head though. It’s freaking amazing.
Eh, it looked better without the motion. You win some, you lose some. This doodle was inspired by Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House by Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarviz. Highly recommend. It’s both page-turning and horrifying. Like a Stephen King novel.
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Robert Livingston swore in George Washington
Founding Father Robert Livingston swore George Washington into office, possibly wearing these gorgeous purple glass buttons with stars on them
Part of the Committee of Five who drafted the Declaration of Independence
Loved breeding merino sheep
(PS: if you’re into sheep and want to know more about them at Robert Livingston’s house no less — the Chancellor’s Sheep & Wool Showcase is coming up in April. Plus you could see his fancy purple star buttons while you’re there!)
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John Marshall scared Thomas Jefferson
John Marshall swore in more presidents than anyone else
Our longest-serving Chief Justice
Jefferson was afraid of his power and the power of the Supreme Court in general
