Do you know Abe? Celebrate Lincoln’s birthday with some trivia. Abraham Lincoln was born 200 years ago Thursday. But you probably already knew that.
Can you answer these 10 questions about our 16th president and his family?
1. During Abraham Lincoln’s two terms in the White House, how was the Lincoln bedroom used?
A. As Lincoln’s bedroom
B. As the children’s bedroom
C. As an office
D. It hadn’t been built yet.
2. Which of the Lincoln children died in the White House?
B. William (Willie)
3. How many siblings did Abraham Lincoln have?
4. How many U.S. presidents besides Lincoln have received U.S. patents?
5. Where did Abraham Lincoln like to keep many of his papers and documents?
A. His boot
B. His coat pocket
C. His hat
D. His carpetbag
6. Who is said to have inspired Lincoln to grow a beard?
A. His son, Tad
B. A New York schoolgirl
C. His wife
D. An Illinois minister
7. Which national holiday was officially established by Lincoln in 1863?
B. Labor Day
C. Independence Day
D. Memorial Day
8. The Gettysburg Address was written on the back of an envelope during Lincoln’s train ride from Washington to Gettysburg, Pa., on the day of the speech.
9. Lincoln was an abolitionist in the years preceding his presidency.
10. How many direct descendants of Abraham Lincoln are living?
1. C. When Lincoln resided in the White House, he used the room now known as the Lincoln bedroom as his office. What is now the Oval Office was used as his personal library and study.
2. B. Willie died in February 1862 of bilious fever, probably caused by contamination of the White House drinking water.
3. D. Lincoln had an older sister named Sarah, who died in childbirth about 1831, and a younger brother named Thomas, who died in infancy.
4. D. Lincoln is the only one. His patent, No. 6469, for “a device for buoying vessels over shoals” was issued May 22, 1849.
5. C. According to Ward Hill Lamon (Lincoln’s friend, fellow circuit lawyer and self-appointed bodyguard), Lincoln’s hat was the “usual receptacle of his private notes and memoranda.”
6. B. Grace Bedell, an 11-year-old from Westfield, N.Y., wrote to Lincoln in October 1860 and suggested, “Ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you.” Lincoln replied that he had never worn whiskers and to grow them would seem “a piece of silly affection.” Still, a month later, Lincoln’s famous beard appeared.
7. A. Thanksgiving already had been celebrated in America for many years by the time Lincoln was in office, but not on consistent dates or in consistent ways throughout the country. It wasn’t until 1863 that Thanksgiving became a fixed national holiday, when Lincoln issued a proclamation inspired by letters from writer Sarah Josepha Hale.
8. B, false. Lincoln spent many weeks drafting the speech he gave at Gettysburg on Nov. 19, 1863. There are five original copies of the speech in existence.
9. B, false. Lincoln was raised to hold anti-slavery views and was against the expansion of slavery, but didn’t think the Constitution gave the federal government the right to interfere with slavery in the states. In the mid-19th century it would have been an unwise political strategy to hold strong abolitionist views; if he had, Lincoln may never have been elected president.
10. A. The last living descendant, Lincoln’s great-grandson Robert Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985.
SOURCES: pbs.org; funtrivia.com