American Idolatry
Salt Lake City was founded by the leader of this religious group, Brigham Young.
Who are the Mormons?
John Jacob Astor IV, great-grandson of the U.S.'s first multimillionaire, died when this ship struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
What is the RMS Titanic?
Secretary of State William Seward's decision to buy this future U.S. state from Russia for $7 million was initially derided as his "folly."
What is Alaska?
Imagine Howard Carter's surprise when he found that this boy pharaoh's tomb had NOT been ransacked by grave robbers.
Who is King Tut?
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" is part of the poem "New Colossus" inscribed on this giant statue in New York City.
What is the Statue of Liberty?
The QAnon Shaman, aka Jacob Chansley, was present on this day in which some of President Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building.
What is January 6, 2021?
Many of Hernan Cortes' Spanish soldiers were massacred by these subjects of Montezuma on La Noche Triste as they tried to escape Tenochtitlan.
Who are the Aztecs?
The extremely corrupt Benedict IX committed simony when he sold this religious position to his godfather Gregory VI.
What is the papacy?
Senator S.I. Hayakawa sarcastically remarked "we stole it fair and square" of this waterway in Central America that was returned by the Torrijos-Carter Treaties.
What is the Panama Canal?
Shakespeare's play Henry V is set around this 1415 battle where the French knights got wrecked after they got stuck in mud.
What is the Battle of Agincourt?
The slave Tituba, a known practitioner of voodoo, was amazingly not hung by the authorities as part of these 1692-1693 proceedings.
What are the Salem Witch Trials?
This king nearly escaped to Varennes from the Tuileries Palace where he was held by the National Assembly, but his picture on a coin was recognized and he was recaptured.
Who is Louis XVI?
This institution that sets the government's monetary policy was created in 1913 as part of Woodrow Wilson's progressive reforms.
What is the Federal Reserve?
Kidnapped Africans were brought to the Americas on slave ships through this part of the Triangular Trade.
What is the Middle Passage?
Theodore Roosevelt drew from this allegory of the Christian walk by John Bunyan when he coined the term "muckrakers" to refer to journalists who overly focused on society's ills.
What is Pilgrim's Progress?
Mary Baker Eddy founded this group when she slipped on some ice, and was allegedly miraculously healed after reading about one of Jesus' miracles.
Who are the Christian Scientists?
This Roman emperor forced his tutor, Seneca the Younger, to commit suicide in 65 AD after suspecting him of complicity in the Pisonian Conspiracy.
Who is Nero?
Following this war, the successors to the Arrow Cross government in Hungary caused so much inflation that a sextillion penga note was printed. Don't worry, the Soviets came in and "fixed" things a few years later.
What is World War 2?
The line that "property is theft" came from the first self-proclaimed follower of this philosophy that opposes all government.
What is anarchism?
This moderate suffragette led the 1907 Mud March while her more radical counterpart, Emmeline Pankhurst tried bombing and arson.
Who is Millicent Fawcett?
The Church of the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism, is a parody of the religion that believes that this dead Ethiopian emperor was Christ returned.
Who is Haile Selassie?
Theodore Gericault made this painting of an 1816 shipwreck off the coast of Mauritania whose survivors resorted to cannibalism when supplies ran low.
What is The Raft of the Medusa?
This oil baron, who created a fund for a namesake art museum in Los Angeles, haggled for his grandson's ransom after he was kidnapped by a Mafia gang.
Who is J. Paul Getty?
The 1856 Republic Party platform denounced this plan by Franklin Pierce to annex Cuba as the "highwayman's plea that might makes right."
What is the Ostend Manifesto?
Muckraker Jacob Riis created this work of photojournalism to expose the squalid living conditions in New York City in the 1880s.
What is How the Other Half Lives?