U.S. Classic Literature
In The Red Badge of Courage, what war does young soldier Henry Fleming fight in?
The American Civil War
In The Three Musketeers, what is the name of the young man who joins the musketeers?
d'Artagnan
What actress played Ilsa Lund in Casablanca?
Ingrid Bergman
Who was the president who oversaw the annexation of Texas and the Mexican-American War?
James K. Polk
What was the name of the system of racial segregation enforced in South Africa from 1948 to 1994?
Apartheid
Who wrote Rip Van Winkle, about a man who falls asleep for twenty years?
Washington Irving
Who wrote Robinson Crusoe, about a man shipwrecked alone on an island?
Daniel Defoe
What 1944 film noir stars Barbara Stanwyck as a femme fatale who convinces an insurance salesman to help murder her husband?
Double Indemnity
Who was the US President during the Great Depression's onset in 1929?
Herbert Hoover
Who was smuggled back into Russia by Germany in a sealed train in 1917 to help incite revolution?
Vladimir Lenin
What is the title of Mark Twain's memoir blending autobiography and travel writing about his years as a riverboat pilot?
Life on the Mississippi
In Les Misérables, what crime did Jean Valjean originally commit that led to his 19-year imprisonment?
He stole a loaf of bread
What 1959 Hitchcock film features Cary Grant being chased by a crop-duster plane?
North by Northwest
Who was the Supreme Court Justice who wrote the majority opinion in Brown v. Board of Education (1954)?
Chief Justice Earl Warren
Who was the first emperor of a unified Japan under the mythological founding narrative, though historically the more relevant figure is the shogun who unified Japan in the early 1600s—what was his name?
Tokugawa Ieyasu
In As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, what is the Bundren family's mission that drives the plot?
To transport their mother Addie's coffin to be buried in Jefferson, Mississippi, per her wishes
What is the name of the reclusive, wealthy woman in Great Expectations who still wears her wedding dress years after being jilted?
Miss Havisham
Who composed the score for Gone with the Wind, one of the most celebrated film scores of the era?
Max Steiner
Who was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)?
Roger B. Taney
What was the name of the ancient Persian empire founded by Cyrus the Great, one of the largest empires of the ancient world?
The Achaemenid Persian Empire
What is the name of the 1929 Faulkner novel that opens with a section narrated by a man with severe cognitive disabilities, Benjy Compson?
The Sound and the Fury
What is the name of the whale-like sea creature—no, instead: In The Secret Garden, what is the name of the sickly boy that Mary Lennox befriends?
Colin Craven
What 1927 film is often cited as the first "talkie," featuring synchronized dialogue and singing? And for 100 bonus points, who is the lead actor? And for another 100 points what was his line that was the first spoken line in any film?
The Jazz Singer
Al Jolson
Wait a minute. You ain't seen nothin' yet
Who was the labor leader and later presidential candidate who led the Pullman Strike in 1894?
Eugene V. Debs
What was the name of the 1904–1905 war between Russia and Japan, notable as one of the first times an Asian power defeated a European one in modern warfare?
The Russo-Japanese War